Do You Clean Out Your Email Inbox?

[ejchase]

I never do so have thousands of messages in it. This is usually not a problem except that suddenly my mail search feature has stopped working which means I can't find old emails as I need them unless I put them in a folder or spend a lot of time going back manually trying to find what I'm looking for.

Sometimes I think I should be vigilant about deleting or filing away every email - sometimes I think it's a waste of time.

Your thoughts?

[fidgiegirl]

I do at work, though I have at home as well. To be very frank, I can only kind of vaguely think of one time I needed a message that I'd deleted. At work I can archive, though I don't. I try to deal or delete very immediately. In my personal inbox I don't so much care, but at work I have a storage limit, and also messages in my inbox are about current projects, so if it fills up too much, I go back and get rid of some old ones.

My coworker, however, keeps everything, and he's fine. I think it's all a matter of preference.

Why would your search feature quit working? Weird. What mail program do you use?

[bunnys]

At home I only have about 5 permanent messages.

At work I delete everything that doesn't have to do with a kid. Otherwise I keep it. I have stuff in my in box from 5 years ago.

[Tradd]

Heck, yes! At home and work. Messages are only temporarily left in inbox for a reminder on something.

Emails I need to keep are in the proper subfolder. Those are very organized. :)

[Kestrel]

I usually let them accumulate for awhile, a month or so, then I go through and delete the majority of them. If it's really important, or I think it might be, I "flag" it. Coincidentally, I had just finished deleting a bunch today and I just saw this message and I've made a sort of mental resolution to delete them more often.

And yes, I have some folders where I file subscriptions and the like that I may not have time to read when I get them. I need to go thru those too and delete the ones I don't need and perhaps print off the ones that are important. We'll see ...

[Miss Cellane]

I try to read every new message that comes in, but not right when it comes in. I check my work in-box about every half hour or so; my personal in-box 2 or 3 times a day. I try to delete the messages I obviously won't need to save right away. The rest hang around in my in-box until I deal with them, then they get deleted or filed.

I spend about 1/2 hour every Friday afternoon clearing both my work and personal in-boxes. If there's something I need to do, I do it. Then the message gets deleted or filed. I probably file too many messages, but they are organized and out of the way. About once or twice a year, I do a major purge and get rid of most of the old messages that I won't need again. The only messages I really save are some family messages--the ones announcing the birth of a new niece, or other major family event, or the ones that are just fun to read.

[Square Peg]

I am terrible about it. There are 1500 unread emails in my gmail account and 1012 in my outlook.

[Rosemary]

Yes. I have email file folders that I use for messages I need/want to keep. This is why I do not like gmail - I prefer yahoo mail for the folders.

[creaker]

It depends a lot on what mailer you're using. I use filters to direct email into various folders as it comes in and that helps.

When I have to clean up manually I've found sorting them by sender helps group them together in a way which makes it easier to see what needs to be kept and what needs to be deleted, and then sorting by subject and doing it again.

[SteveinMN]

I always have messages in my in-boxes. Some are reminders, some are kind of unclassifiable using folders. Every now and then I go through and purge messages which turned out to be dead-end issues, and where I worked sponsored an annual day to go through folders and purge messages from them based on the company's retention policy. But, yes, I never reach inbox-zero.

[Tussiemussies]

I clean mine out from time to time, my husband says it makes the computer work faster but I don't know if that is true....

[fidgiegirl]

I am terrible about it. There are 1500 unread emails in my gmail account and 1012 in my outlook.

I will disagree that there is anything terrible about it, SP. If you haven't read them yet, they must not be that important . . . I think you could probably delete them all en masse and not feel any impact on your life - except maybe a lifting of guilt! :D

(Of course, I have no idea what your industry is . . . so maybe not. But it's a nice fantasy, and probably a reality for many of us!)

There is a lot of guilt around technology, I find in my job, and I vote to let it go!

[Tradd]

Yes. I have email file folders that I use for messages I need/want to keep. This is why I do not like gmail - I prefer yahoo mail for the folders.

You can do folders - they're just called something else. Took me a bit to figure it out when I first started using Gmail a few years ago.

[iris lily]

Both at work and at home, my inbox is my "to read and/or to do" file. I read every email message daily. I don't get many and don't want to get many. If it is a message that I think I need to save for a while or longer, I move it to one of several subject designated folders. My daily goal is a clean inbox. I don't always meet that goal but I do 9 out of 10 days.

I share my home email address with DH. He likes to keep most all message forever. While I think that's ridiculous, it's really not my business and is fine as long as we don't use up our space allotment. Our procedure is this: I move messages that I think should be deleted to Trash and that gets them out of the inbox. He reviews messages in Trash and either moves them to one of his digital hidey holes or else leaves them in Trash and empties the Trash bin.

[Tradd]

I am terrible about it. There are 1500 unread emails in my gmail account and 1012 in my outlook.

Several coworkers of mine are like that. The problem is that their search skills were extremely lacking, they had a difficult time finding anything, and so on. They also never emptied their trash/deleted folder. It really DID slow down their computers.

About two weeks ago, due to a new email server, the old email system was cut off (we can still access old email via the web). We started from scratch. The clean slate approach was actually a good thing, as the email hoarders can't hoard any more. We now have a 2GB limit for what we save. If you go over that, you won't be able to receive any messages until you delete some old ones. Our manager and I actually had a talk with the department on the importance of organization and how to do it (I'm the department's poster child for organization!). We had a few folks whose computer skills had huge holes - they had no clue how to create a new folder in Outlook. That surprised me. It's just right click. Others don't know that the magnifying glass icon is for search.

In some jobs email hoarding and disorganization might not be an issue, but we *do* often need to access back emails, and in a timely manner. The disorganization, with an overstuffed inbox, and lack of subfolders, can cause major issues. In fact, one of the worst offenders, due to her email disorganization, missed something very important. The customer now is facing a large fine from Customs, that we're going to be on the hook for if I can't get it mitigated down to something reasonable. All because the coworker didn't see the email alert in a very overstuffed inbox and fix the problem in a timely manner. This just popped up over the holiday weekend.

My coworkers sometimes razz me (more or less gently) for my "organization freak" (as they call it), but I generally can find what I need, pretty much when I need it, and we don't incur additional costs as a result.

[Float On]

At home I'm good about sending things to folders and keeping 25 or less emails in the inbox.
At work....I need to do a little better.

[ToomuchStuff]

I went web based, some time ago. This allows me to keep things, and I can choose to setup a program, and download them as well (did that before). I generally prefer web based, however (can access stuff elsewhere, if work needs something). I do need to and have room for improvement, with time limited stuff. I did start going through my email accounts, early 2012, but I still have a lot to clean out. (tempted to download them all to a searchable archive, and then start over).

[shadowmoss]

I bought Getting Things Done a few months ago. I had read it years ago, and get his email newsletter. One of his recommendations is zero inbox messages. I'm working on it. 950 in Gmail, and 614 in Outlook at work. It is a work in progress.

[Mrs-M]

Absolutely! Filing? Never. Cleaning-house, doesn't start and end with just the house.

[Bootsie]

I used to be good about this, but have gotten very sloppy with my email inbox. I have so many emails that I haven't deleted. Time to work on that! I like the look of a sparse inbox with only emails that I'm working on, so why do I fight it? It's not a big deal, more of a visual thing for me, but I should set up a space that I like. Why not?

Thanks for the nudge.