Managing old emails..

[SpokeyDokey]

What I do at home and what I used to do when in business:

Archive anything REALLY important.

Delete anything REALLY unimportant on the fly.

Delete anything else after 3 months.

Business only:

Every time I was sent an email or cc"d into that I really didn't need I would send a polite "not needed and don't clog my Inbox again" message. It didn't take long for people to get the drift.

Email was only ever meant for quick & dirty comm's not as the staple fodder of a virtual filing cabinet substitute and allround stealer of productive time..

 

[mustang1]

A long time ago, a friend asked me why I sort out my emails into folders and why I keep files on my computer into folders, nicely categorised. I told him it made sense to me.

This was also around 2004.

He said he prefers to dump everything all in one huge folder for both his emails and regular files. This seemed odd to me (especially since we're both in R&D related fields).

Slowly over time, I also stopped putting emails and files into folders, I just can't be bothered. Google search is pretty good these days so whenever I need to find anything, I search for it.

Sure, disk space in the cloud keeps ramping up and priced keep coming down. I've relented and decided I have better things to do. So, in a way, I've let myself go.

 

[All uphill]

@wafter have you tipped off the Google Police about my sloppy email habits?

Look what's just dropped into my inbox this evening.

 

[Ming the Merciless]

Delete your gmail account and get another one. Job done.

 

[Dogtrousers]

At work I keep everything, delete nothing and never file anything.

You never know when something will come in useful. Just this week I dug out a brief exchange of emails from about 3 years ago, to get the name of a contact I had forgotten and pass it to a colleague who needed help on that subject.

Personally I can't see the point in filing things into separate folders. It all sits in one archive. It's searchable.

 

[Tenkaykev]

Delete your gmail account and get another one. Job done.

I’ve mentioned it on another forum but my forum name came about from a promise I made to myself when I used to run quite long distances. I told myself that one day I’d stick to just running 10k. That also became one of my gmail addresses. I was also prescient enough to register fivekaykev for when 10k proves too daunting 🤔

 

[tom73]

My personal main account I archive really important stuff.
The rest tend to read , act on it if needed then delete. Any that I miss i've set up mail to auto delete monthly.
Use another account for all the crap and internet accounts. That get's deleted every few months on mass one click and bin.

 

[Petrichorwheels]

Microsoft Outlook

One thing I'll just mention as although I prefer this, the Android App it has recently had some changes. The full Outlook App is now too demanding for my phone so I switched to Outlook Lite but that doesn't support multiple accounts yet so I have to look at Gmail again every so often. And my tablet doesn't support Outlook Lite at all

On desktop luckily its still fine

Microsoft Outlook on Android (I use it) is a right bloated pig. It's forever doing mega updates for no perceivable user benefit. Gmail seems to need far less updates. But am stuck with outlook as my main email handler for various reasons.

 

[Petrichorwheels]

Feeling a bit bereft this morning as I only had one junk female offering services. Recently I dumped up to twenty every morning.
This is over two different addresses.

wondering why this is.
I get none.
(stress I'm not feeling bereft - though I could in life have benefitted massively from an email service that warned me about real life women. Am hoping that google will develop such a thing - "forget her - she's not worth it" - "she's a fraud" - surely not beyond the capabilities of big tech?

 

[oldwheels]

wondering why this is.
I get none.
(stress I'm not feeling bereft - though I could in life have benefitted massively from an email service that warned me about real life women. Am hoping that google will develop such a thing - "forget her - she's not worth it" - "she's a fraud" - surely not beyond the capabilities of big tech?

When my wife died I had floods of them since I presume they garner information from death notices in local papers. It is traditional in Oban at least to publish fulsome thanks to everyone who was of assistance and my DIL did this as she belongs in the area.
They stopped for a long time but have for some unknown reason restarted.

 

[wafter]

Cheers all. I pretty much did as @SpokeyDokey suggests; binned the easy stuff, sorted the rest - probably far too granularly but it's a starting point and the stuff's easy enough to move around.

I agree to a point about leaving it all in a chunk and letting the search do the work although sorting it at least has allowed me to know I was working through everything.. plus it allows me to keep stuff I need to attend to visible in a relatively minimal inbox.

I started with 27k messages and am left with about 11k, so that's about 60% binned. The bulk of what's left is automated stuff from ebay, rightmove etc, which would be easy enough to can in future should I feel the need.

 

[Slick]

Cheers all. I pretty much did as @SpokeyDokey suggests; binned the easy stuff, sorted the rest - probably far too granularly but it's a starting point and the stuff's easy enough to move around.

I agree to a point about leaving it all in a chunk and letting the search do the work although sorting it at least has allowed me to know I was working through everything.. plus it allows me to keep stuff I need to attend to visible in a relatively minimal inbox.

I started with 27k messages and am left with about 11k, so that's about 60% binned. The bulk of what's left is automated stuff from ebay, rightmove etc, which would be easy enough to can in future should I feel the need.

Should you feel the need?

I'll probably not sleep tonight thinking about that.

 

[Arrowfoot]

Family, friends, colleagues, delivery people etc all switched to whatsapp, instant messaging etc nearly 10 years ago. Only incoming emails are bank, Govt, utility, Insurance correspondence, statement, etc. Others are online order confirmation, annual subscription and membership renewals etc.

And I never asked anyone to switch, most people intuitively do. And so is the phone. Never received and called a friend or family members, texting is convenient for both sides.