Quota limits are imposed on all network storage: U drives, network share drives, and employee email. These limits have been applied to track usage progression for planning purposes and ensure everyone has equal access to network storage resources. As all VIU users (faculty, staff and students) share these network resources, it is important that everyone makes efficient use of the available space.
Default Quota Limits
- Exchange Online: Active Employee, Retirees and Affiliate Email accounts: 100GB
- Exchange Online: Generic Accounts, Shared Email and Resource Mailbox accounts: 50GB
- Network Shares: 10GB (per user)
- Student U Drive and OneDrive: 10GB
- Employee OneDrive: 5TB
- Employee U Drive: 10GB
Email (Mailbox)
How do I check my mailbox usage?
Outlook
- Click on the "File" menu
- Mailbox usage information will be listed under "Mailbox Cleanup"
Webmail
- Click on the "Gear" icon on the upper-right, then "Options"
- Choose General > My account
- Mailbox usage information will be listed under "Mailbox usage"
How do email quotas work?
There are three stages (or levels) to the quota settings for EXO accounts, depending on the type of account:
- Stage 1: You will receive email warnings that you are over your quota (these email warnings will include your quota limit and your usage)
- Stage 2: You can no longer send email, but will continue to receive it.
- Stage 3: You can no longer send or receive email. Email sent to you will be bounced back to the sender.
For : Active Employees Retirees and Affiliates: these stages will occur at 98GB, 99GB, and 100GB respectively.
For Generic Accounts, Shared Mailboxes and Resource Mailboxes: these stages will occur at 49Gb, 49.5GB and 50Gb respectively.
What is the attachment size limit?
Maximum file attachment size for Exchange Online accounts is: 35MB
How many emails can I send?
Maximum number of sent emails per 24 hours: 10,000
Can send to a maximum of 1000 recipients in the To:, Cc:, and Bcc: fields for a single email message.
- For distribution groups stored in an organization's address book, the group is counted as one recipient.
- For distribution groups stored in the Contacts folder of a mailbox, the members of the group are counted individually.
How do I manage my mailbox quota?
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Determine your current mailbox size
In the top of the left hand pane of Outlook, you will see 'Mailbox - Your Name' or just 'Your Name'. Right-click on this item and go to Data File Properties. In the bottom left hand corner click on the button labeled Folder Size. Look for Total size (including sub-folders) - it is at the top.
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Find out where your space is being used
The above method will show you all of your folders and the size for each. This is a good way to see which folders you may want to look at to free up space.
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Empty your "Deleted Items" folder
Items in this folder are still calculated as part of your quota. To empty the folder right-click on the Deleted Items folder and choose Empty Folder.
- Take a look at your largest emails
At the bottom of your Mail or Folder list in the left pane is a heading called Search Folders. Open this heading (click on the + sign) and select Large Mail. This will bring up all mail larger than 100KB no matter where they are stored in your Mailbox. Email can be deleted from here, but sometimes you may just want to remove or delete the attachment (which is usually the largest percentage of the Email's size).
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Send a link instead of an attachment
When sending an email to people with whom you share a network drive, just include the link in the email instead of the document. In addition to saving quota space (for both you and them), you can ensure everyone is working from the same file, and preventing various versions from being stored in different locations. Contact the Helpdesk to find out how.
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Remove or delete attachments
Attachments that you have received can be saved elsewhere then removed from the email, leaving the email itself. Attachments in your Sent box that you have attached to emails, can usually be deleted as you already have a copy of the attachment elsewhere. In Office 2007 Rich Text emails need to be converted to HTML before the attachment can be removed.
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Add a size column to your inbox
This will only work if you have your Reading Pane on the bottom and not on the Right. Open your Inbox and go to View -> Arrange By -> Custom... Click on Fields... Select Size from the left pane and click Add. Click Ok and OK. This can be done for any folder in your mailbox.
- Use text only for email signatures
You should consider creating your Outlook Email signature without using graphic files for the following reasons.
- Do not clog your mailbox with a multitude of tiny graphics files. For example if you have 6000 messages, and each contains an 8 KB graphics file, that’s 8 X 6000 = 48000 KB’s or 48 MB’s, this is a significant portion of your default email quota!
- In addition to clogging other users’ mailboxes, the size of your sent items folder also increases
- On email systems where your message is presented in plain text, your signature actually looks better when converted.
- We now have recipients who receive their email on mobile devices like Blackberry and Tablets. Opening attachments on these devices is not only slow but frustrating when the attachment turns out to be a graphic.
- Try using plain text for some of your emails instead of rich text or HTML
The formatting and graphics used in Rich Text and HTML emails will add size to each email you send.
How do I request a mailbox quota increase?
Before requesting a quota increase, please follow the steps under the header "How do I manage my mailbox quota?" If you still need an increase, please email
ithelp@viu.ca.
Share Drives
How do shares quotas work?
Your shares quota is for the total amount of data that you have contributed to all shares you have access to. By default, this is limited to 10GB.
How do I check my shares quota usage?
Once you have mapped to the share (your U: drive is automatically mapped for you on login), click once on the Computer Icon in the quick launch tray, and click once on Computer. In the left hand pane you will see your personal usage for that share (Total and Free space).
Shared Drive Note:
For shared drives this will only display 'your' allotted space on the shared drive, NOT the amount of space being used by other members of your group, or the total size of the share.
How do I request a shares quota increase?