Solution for Outlook Calendar invites not allowing you to open them

Outlook Logo
Outlook Logo
Outlook logo

I had a friend who said that she was having problems with her Outlook. Specifically among others, she couldn’t open her calendar invites and she was getting lots of error messages to invites she was sending.

Of course she was using a Windows computer and when I connected to her screen I noticed that at the top right it said “Switch to the New Outlook”. Well this was the first thing to try. Microsoft seems to cause problems when people stay on older versions of Outlook, and I had no doubt that things would work differently if she switched.

So she wrote down the email message that she was working on, even though I told her that if she saved it as a draft she would be fine. A draft syncs to the server and that will survive an Outlook upgrade. Outlook closed itself and then started up like she was a new user. It presented a list of email addresses that it recognized on her computer and she choose the work one. Then it went through the process of syncing her folders and rebuilding her indexes. Why did I tell you it rebuilt her index? Because one of the things that happens when people first upgrade their Outlook email database is that Outlook needs to rebuild its indexes to be fast. This slows things down but after a few hours, for most people it goes back to regular speed. If you have too much email, it may take more than a few hours.

Outlook is also very needy of ram. I worked in one company where a VIP had a ridiculous amount of emails and would not limit them. She was slow with a 32 gb machine, but when she got a 64 gb one she said it was fast. Of course because she was trying to work with too many emails at a time. I have only used a 32 gb ram machine with email and I know the limits. Microsoft has clearly said that you shouldn’t have more than 1,000 emails per folder, and to limit the folder and emails to ones that are only needed and archive the rest. People mistakenly believe that their computer can handle an unlimited number of emails. That is not true.

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One way that I have bypassed the need to have a large amount of ram for emails are two easy things. First I don’t keep lots of email. Second I no longer use the regular Outlook program. I just use Outlook online. By doing this email is always responsive and I don’t have to worry about updating the app or all of the other overhead that comes with it.

It took 5 minutes to solve her email issue and it works because it was a new account and didn’t have years of transactions on it. I know she will love the performance and functionality, even if the newer Outlook has issues.