Deleting Attachments

This week we had two questions asking about removing attachments.

The first user said he likes to delete attachments from messages to reduce the size of his mailbox. He wanted to know how to delete attachments from incoming mail in Outlook 2007.

It works the same way in Outlook 2007 as it does in Outlook 2003: open the message, right click on the attachment and choose Remove then Save and close the message. When the message is RTF format, you first need to go into Edit mode before you can select the attachment and delete it. To do this in Outlook 2007, click Other Actions, Edit message; in Outlook 2003, use the Edit menu, Edit message command.

Should you change your mind and want to keep the attachment, you need to cancel the save. Once the message is saved the attachment is gone.

That leads to the question from an administrator: is it possible to recover the removed attachment once the message is saved and closed? No, once the message is saved the attachment is gone. You need to recover it from your backup. However, if the attachment was opened, there is a slim chance you can recover it from the SecureTemp folder. If the attachment is not in SecureTemp and you don't have a backup, you'll need to ask the sender to resend.

To find the location of the SecureTemp folder, see Outlook SecureTemp Files Folder
http://www.slipstick.com/outlook/securetemp.htm 

If you'd like to automate the removal of attachments, try Attachment Save from Sperry Software
http://www.sperrysoftware.com/Outlook/Attachment-Save.asp 

Additional attachment removal tools can be found at
Housekeeping and Message Management - Outlook
http://www.slipstick.com/addins/housekeeping.asp 

Deprecation of Exchange Client Extensions

Microsoft announced that Exchange Client Extensions (ECEs) are being depreciated in Outlook 2010. Developers who used Exchange Client Extension interfaces to build custom solutions in Outlook will need to redesign their applications to work in Outlook 2010. ECEs will continue to work in Outlook 2007 and previous versions but will not load in Outlook 2010. Microsoft ECEs will be converted to native Outlook code in Outlook 2010. Developers will need to rewrite their ECEs as a COM Add-in using native or managed code or as a Windows service application using native code and MAPI.

Most Exchange users are familiar with ECEs as they provide Delegate Access, Deleted Items Recovery, Exchange Extensions commands, and Exchange Extensions property pages that ship with Outlook. When Outlook replaced the old Exchange client, ECEs were used to extend Outlook 97/98 before being replaced by COM Add-ins in Outlook 2000 as the primary extensibility technology.

For more information and to leave feedback, see
Announcing the deprecation of Exchange Client Extensions
http://blogs.msdn.com/outlook/archive/2009/05/04/announcing-the-deprecation-of-exchange-client-extensions.aspx 

Working with Long Hyperlinks

When using Outlook's Insert Hyperlink command you are limited to inserting a URL of no more than 256 characters. This is the result of a 256 character limitation on the text box. Fortunately, you can insert hyperlinks directly into the message, bypassing the Insert Hyperlink dialog by pasting the URL into the message body then editing the display text.

Begin by pasting the URL into the message body and pressing the space bar to create the hyperlink. Next, place the cursor in front of the last character in the URL and press Shift+Home to select the URL then press Backspace to remove. Type the desired display text then use Ctrl+ right arrow to select the last character and delete it.

Many web sites, including search engines and SharePoint sites, pad URLs with information you don't need to include in the hyperlink. You should trim the excess from the URL before inserting these URLs into a message, especially when using plain text message format as Outlook may break the URLs.

Outlook and the Live Maps Add-in

Last fall Microsoft removed the Live Search Maps Add-in from availability due to a number of issues with it. A few weeks ago, the add-in stopped mapping addresses. Unless you are using the add-in to create travel time appointments, you should uninstall it.

How to remove the Live Search Maps Add-in for Outlook
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/961081