Sperry Software’s Attachment Save for Microsoft Outlook

We live in such a fast-paced world where we're constantly looking for ways to and are reminded to save everything -- time, money, space, steps, trees, breath, the earth -- the list goes on and on.

Thanks to the Internet and company intranets, email has become a primary means of communication among colleagues. Typically, say in a medium-sized information technology firm, it is not unusual for an individual to receive dozens of emails per day. Often, the email messages contain attachments, large and small.

In this article, I'll review Sperry Software's Attachment Save for Microsoft Outlook (Version 4.0), which is an excellent product for automatically managing those email attachments, worry-free.

Introducing Attachment Save

Attachment Save automatically removes the file attachments from any of your Outlook folders. Since most people will use this type of product for removing email attachments, I'll focus on Outlook email folders.

Saving space in your Outlook inbox couldn't be easier. As email messages arrive, Attachment Save detaches the attachments and saves them to a Windows folder on your server (or your local computer). Other attachment management products require you to use rules to save and remove email attachments. With Attachment Save, you have the flexibility of managing email attachments from certain people, with certain subjects, with certain filenames, or all attachments.

As with products of its kind manufactured by other software companies, Sperry Software's Attachment Save 4.0 offers a variety of valuable features. The program:

• Integrates directly into Outlook upon installation
• Runs automatically in the background
• Monitors multiple folders at the same time
• Replaces attachments with URL links to the saved file
• Removes the URL when replying or forwarding the email
• Retains the paperclip icon, but removes the attachment
• Saves attachments in a Windows sub-folder (copies the Outlook folder structure)

The current 4.0 version of Attachment Save also boasts some new features as upgrades from previous versions:

• Multi-folder Undo which reverses all changes and puts attachments back in place
• Accepts UNC paths as well as networked mapped drives
• Optionally saves the email in five different formats

What I thought was great is that Attachment Save allows you to scan all of your previous email messages, not just the new ones that come in, and manage the attachments. This feature works perfectly with your Sent Items folder, where you most likely have copies of all of your attachments as well.