Outlook Secure Temp Folder keeps filling up

Question

Recently I've had many users report to me with errors when opening attachments in Outlook 2010. The issue is because the temp folder assigned for Outlook attachments is getting too full and won't allow anymore to be saved to the temp folder. The easy solution is to open up the folder and delete everything inside of it, but I am finding that I have to do this constantly for people who receive up to 50 attachments per day.

So my question is:
Does anyone know of a way to automatically clear this out or to increase the allowable size?

Registry key for Outlook storage folder:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\14.0\Outlook\Security

I have tried pointing it to a different location, such as C:\temp0\ and changing the registry key to reflect that, but it still has a limit on it. I have looked through Outlook 2010 settings and have not found anything. When I google or search on this forum I can only find band-aid fixes, which I'm trying to avoid.

I have the ability to write a quick script to clear these folders out every so often, but I would like to avoid that if possible.

Solution 1

Looks like I should have done a little more research. This is a known issue with Outlook and was resolved in Microsoft Office Service Pack 1. This explains why this was happening to a few users and not all of our users. Once I updated said client's PC with Windows Updates, the process tested fine.

Knowledgebase article: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/817878/en-us

Solution 2

If the user opens an email with an attachment named "Test.txt", then opens Test.txt, the "Test.txt" file will be created in that folder (OST). If they then close Test.txt, and then the email it was attached to, the file is removed from the OST.

If they open the email, then open the attachment, then close the email before closing the opened attachment, the file will be left behind in the OST ("orphaned").

If they then open the same, or another, email with an attachment with the same name then when it creates the file in the OST it will be named like Test_(1).txt. Again, if they close the email before the attachment this file will get left behind.

This is fine... until you get to the 100th file. So there will already be a file orphaned in the OST folder name Test_(99).txt, and when it attempts to create the Test_(100).txt it fails and gives you that error message.

to avoid scripts/utilities, get the users to either Save the attachment someplace permanent before opening it, or ensure they leave the email body open until after they have closed the attachment.

• More info.
• A utility to clean it out for you: OutlookTempCleaner

Comments

[Ƭᴇcʜιᴇ007]

Which "Band-aid fixes" did you find exactly? Outlook doesn't impose any limit on that (AFAIK), are you sure they're not just running out of disk space on C:?

[Callen L]

I have manually deleted the files inside the folder, and I have tried switching the temp folder to another location with full permissions. All users with this issue have plenty of space on the hard drive.

[Callen L]

Thank you, this gives me a much better idea of what exactly was happening and why.