NewsGator Inbox – Cleanup Wizard

So as I reported yesterday, I have noticed some inconsistencies with what was showing in the folder tree in my NewsGator Inbox on the Dell vs. NewsGator Online vs. NewsGator Inbox on the Gateway. Today I noticed that two feeds that I had deleted from the Gateway NewsGator Inbox still existed on the Dell NewsGator Inbox. This was perplexing so I went into the Manage My Subscriptions function on the Dell version and I found that the two feeds in question (National Geographic and Scientific American) are not listed in the Manage My Subscriptions tool. So I closed the tool and right clicked on the feeds themselves bringing up a menu list and selected delete. This removed the two feeds from my folder tree. I then ran the Synchronization tool to see if they would come back and they did not. Lastly I closed Outlook and then re-launched it. After a little frustration it appears this process did the trick and the feeds are now deleted.

Today I took a look at the Cleanup Wizard. As you will see your NewsGator Inbox will hold all of the posts you receive from your feeds, unless you delete them, much like your email folders. This tool gives you the ability to clean up all of these posts by either removing them or archiving them.

The Cleanup Wizard can be found in the NewsGator Inbox drop down list (usually in the top right corner of Outlook). Once selected, the Cleanup Wizard launches a new window which provides you with a couple options. The first is that it will remind you to run the tool. Your can select the checkbox next to “Remind me to run this wizard” and the tool will ask you periodically if you want to run it. To my knowledge this is not something that you can schedule and I was unable to determine what triggers the reminder. Besides setting up the reminder, this window gives you the option of cleaning up the News posts and clipped posts, the News posts only or the Clipped posts only. I usually just run the News posts only cleanup because if I clip a post I usually want to keep it.

No matter which option you choose, once you click next the Cleanup Wizard takes you to the Options screen. Here you can set the number of days old for the posts that you want cleaned up. You can also tell the tool how many posts to maintain in each folder. So if you tell the tool to cleanup all the posts older then 90 days, you many still have several hundred in each folder. This selection allows you to reduce the number of posts in each folder by the number you select. The tool also allows you to select whether or not to include unread and flagged posts as well. Lastly it will let you determine if all of the posts that are cleaned up will be deleted or if they will be archived to your hard drive. If you archive them you will be able to select the location that they go to by selecting the browse button. The default location will be a special .pst file (this is the type of file that Outlook utilizes, also known as a outlook data file) called NewsGatorInboxArchive.pst.

After you select “Next” the Cleanup Wizard will tell you that it needs to gather some info and it will lock up Outlook until it is done. It will also ask you if you want to continue. When you click ok the Cleanup Wizard will start and it will run through each of the folders in your NewsGator Inbox folder tree. This may take several minutes depending on how often you run the tool and how you setup the Cleanup Wizard options. As an example I have been using the NewsGator Inbox for 3 weeks. I selected the focus to be on cleaning up just the news posts and left the default options. When I ran the tool it took roughly 4 minutes to complete. Upon completing you will be asked to click Finish, when you do the Cleanup Wizard window will close.

After you run the Cleanup Wizard you will notice that any feeds that only have 1 post per day (like Dilbert) will only have the number of posts that you selected in the options for the number of days old that the Cleanup Wizard should include in the cleanup. Since I have only used the NewsGator Inbox for about three weeks my Dilbert folder only included 21 posts. You will also notice for your folders that contain feeds that have multiple posts per day, each feed folder will only have the number you selected to remain in each folder. In my case since I selected 200, my high volume feeds like MSNBC only have 200 posts in the folder.

One nice thing about it is that if you choose the archive option you will have access to the posts later. Since the NewsGator Inbox archive is a .pst file you can use the Outlook Data File Management tool to add the archive to your folder tree. You will just have to find the NewsGatorInboxArchive.pst in your hard drive. Although this may be a little cumbersome it will give you access to past posts should you inadvertently remove a post that you wanted to keep. Based on this I think this is a good tool, especially since it allows you to separate your clippings from the news posts. For me I utilize the archive only for the clippings because I usually don’t have a need or desire to go back old news posts that I have not saved to clippings.

Next time we will go through the NewsGator Inbox options. As always please feel free to give me feedback!