Speeding up Outlook 2007

I’ve been using Outlook 2007 for a while now, and it has been running extremely slow on start up, and running slow in general.

Well, having 400+ RSS feeds isn’t helping, but why?

In my current configuration, I am connecting to exchange, and performing a send/receive all on the default configuration (which also includes the RSS feeds – ut oh). This operation also includes all client and server side rules for when mail arrives, etc.

So the first performance tip to speed things up, is to remove the RSS feeds from the default send/receive configuration. To do this, within outlook click Tools -> Options -> Mail Setup -> Send Receive.

What you will see here is a list of send/receive groups. There will be (by default) one group named All Accounts. Unfortunately for us, this also contains the RSS feeds. Select the All Accounts group, and click the Edit button. All of your email accounts will be listed down the left hand side, allowing you to configure each of them individually.

Click on the RSS account and you will be shown a check box at the top of the tab page allowing you to include or exclude this account as part of this send/receive group. You now have 2 options. You can either exclude every feed by unchecking the Include RSS Feeds in this Send/Receive group. What this will do though, is never sync up your RSS feeds until you manually tell outlook to do so. Your other option is to deselect all bar a few core feeds (say, maybe 5-10). This way all your core feeds will be received during startup/default sync but you won’t get bogged down by trying to receive 400 of them.

If you choose the latter preferred option, select the feeds you want to keep by default, then click OK. What you will want to do now is create a new group, which contains all of the excluded feeds, so that you can sync them up as nessecary. You might also want to categorize at this level. For instance, you may want to create a group for ‘My Work Mate’s Blogs’, and ‘SharePoint Community Blogs’.

To do this, click the New button, enter a name – “SharePoint Community Blogs” for instance, click OK. Select the RSS feed account again, then deselect all bar your SharePoint Community blogs (or whatever is relevant to that group). Click OK, then deselect the ‘include this group in send/receive (F9)’ so that you can keep it as a manual syncing group.

Click Close, then OK.

Click your Send/Receive button now and notice how lightning quick it is. It’s now excluding all of your RSS feeds (except the important ones you kept).

Now, when you are ready to read some blogs, click the send/receive drop down and choose the appropriate group you want to read, ie, your sharepoint blogs. This will now be synced up, and away you go!

Stay tuned for another handy tip for speeding up outlook 2007