I have been using Outlook 2007 since beta 2. Feature wise it’s richest than its predecessors, and offers some new functionality such as the To-Do Bar, Instant Search, enhanced junk filtering and attachment previewing.

That said, Outlook 2007 can be sometimes annoyingly sluggish, specially when starting up. Today, I would like to provide you with a few easy-to-use tips that will allow you to easily speed up Outlook 2007.

Install Microsoft Update for Outlook 2007

Before you start optimizing Outlook for speed, go ahead and install update number 933493. All details are provided by Microsoft in this article.

Split Outlook Personal Offline Folder files (.pst)

Personal Offline Folder files (.pst) are used by Outlook in order to store your Mail, Calendar, Contacts and Tasks on your PC. Over time, .pst files size tend to grow, making it more difficult for Outlook to load them on startup and thus slowing down its startup performance. The solution is to split your .pst files to smaller files. Thorough instructions for accomplishing this are provided in section 3 of this Microsoft Support article.

Remove RSS feeds from the default send/receive configuration

If you use Outlook to read your RSS feeds, you should be aware of the implications that his poses on Outlook’s performance. If you are a heavy RSS feeds reader, i recommend that you read your feeds with a 3rd party tool (such as Google Reader). In any case, It is recommended that your remove RSS feeds from your default Outlook send/receive configuration. Here’s how to do it:

• In Outlook 2007, click Tools then Options and navigate to the Mail setuptab.
• Hit Send/Receive.
• Highlight All Accounts and click Edit.
• Check the Include the selected Account in this group.
• Uncheck RSS Feeds. Note that you can also exclude individual RSS feeds from being synchronized. You can achieve this by expanding the RSS Feeds menu and selecting the required feeds.
• Click OK. Then Close and OK.

Inactivate Outlook Addins

On Startup, Outlook loads a few addins that are used mainly in order to integrate Outlook with other applications. The big majority of the users don’t use those addins. You can disable those quite easily and speed up Outlook. In order to execute this step, you’ll need to login as an administrator on your PC. Here’s how to do it:

• In Outlook 2007, clikc Tools and then Trust Center.
• In the left side pane, select Addins.
• Click Com Addins and click Go.
• Uncheck all Addins except Windows Search Email Indexer.
• Click OK.

Use Outlook 2007 in Online Mode instead of in Cache mode

If you don’t use Outlook with Exchange, you can skip this tip. I don’t want to get too technical on this, but in essence, when using Outlook in Offline Mode, you minimize the size of the Outlook Offline Folder files (known as .ost). This will speed up your Outlook 2007 startup.

These tips should definitely help you to speed up Outlook 2007. Any comments or additional tips are welcome.

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