NWR: Holy.Effing.E-mails.

HisGirlFriday13

So, a friend of mine asked me, 'How much would I have to pay you to organise my e-mail in-box?'

I said, 'Oh, nothing, I'll do it for free, I like organising.'

Y'all, that was the dumbest-ass decision I have made recently.

She had, no lie, 14,698 e-mails IN HER IN-BOX ALONE when I started this project this morning. I've got it down to <1,000 in the in-box, which I managed to do by aggressive archiving, but now I have to go through all the e-mails I sorted and start deleting stuff. 

She has:

-- .2K e-mails from Facebook

-- 'Confirmation of your order' e-mails going back to 2005

-- Evites for parties going back to 2007

-- Hundreds of e-mails about get-togethers from law school

-- Hundreds of e-mails about events that are more than three years old

It's insane.

Now I know how hoarders get the way they do. The other night I was watching 'Hoarders' on A&E when DH came home, and I was like, 'How do people let it get that bad?'

The answer is, 'Slowly, over time, when they just don't clean up things.'

lyndausvi

Wait, that sounds like my boss' son.

What a nightmare.    I would just get ride of anything older than 3 years old, unless there was a picture or something attached.  If you haven't read it now, you do not need to read it.

phira

J likes to say that he has every piece of paper he's ever touched. It's an exaggeration, but it's a great way to explain why we have so much more stuff in our apartment than we need. I am not looking forward to cleaning in June!! He promised we could do a massive spring clean and get rid of a bunch of stuff. We'll see.

HisGirlFriday13

Lynda -- that's pretty much my attitude. Other than things relating to huge life events (buying a house, bar exam, RE licence, etc.,), I'm chucking it. 

Photos are getting labelled 'photos' and put in a special folder.

KGold80

You would cry if you saw my work email. It's an absolute wreck. But I have a hard time deleting stuff because I constantly have to go back to things...sometimes from a couple of years ago. I can easily search my inbox and retrieve what I need, so for now it works.

lyndausvi

Boss's son has been striped of a lot of responsibilities lately.  When I got a hold of one of the email account he "monitored" it had 1200+ emails.   A ton were spam, ads, whatever shit that can be easily deleted.   It took me better part of a day to fix.   

Kgold -  I use outlook for emails at work.  I move most emails to different folders so it's easier to find and access.  I also set rules that emails from boss go directly to a certain folder and certain vendor to another, etc.   It's great because I can walk in on Monday and check those boxes first without having to sort through the main inbox.

mschristie123

Omg I can't even imagine! I'm obsessive about organizing my emails, both work and personally. Seeing an inbox like that would legit probably give me a panic attack. I use my inbox only as action items/things To Do. If it's something I've already done/responded to, it either get's archived or deleted.

More to the point, you are a freaking *awesome* friend for doing that, and for free no less! If it were me, I would not subtly hint that "maybe you should take me out for drinks as a thank you."

HisGirlFriday13

I am also obsessive about organising my e-mails, which is why I think she asked me to do this. My two gmail accounts and my work account (Outlook) are sorted, indexed, foldered, cross-referenced and organised within an inch of their lives.

She was my DOC for my wedding, and she's been a really, really, REALLY good friend to me for a number of years, so this is something I'm happy to do for her.

She is, however, going to organise my LinkedIn page for me. YAY!

Maggie0829

My work limits the storage of our Outlook.  We get an email when we are getting close to that limit so then you have to go back and take some time to delete and organize.  I just did this the other day and I basically deleted anything that was from 2013 or earlier.

theartistformerlyknownas

Ha I'm sure my gmail looks like that. It doesn't bother me to have all that shit in there. It's not in the way. If I need to find something, I search for it.

kmmssg

The IT guy was telling me my boss has over 10,000 emails in his Outlook.  I was standing behind him today to look at something he wanted to show me.  Yes, yes he does have over 10,000.

DH is a freaking nightmare. Nightmare.  I clean out our family account all the time but he has all kinds of stuff in there.

He has a personal account with about 2 bazillion emails in it.  99.92% are junk he gets from companies he buys from.  Drives me nuts.

FiancB

Mine is awful. I have 553 in my inbox. I get so much junk every day, even though I unsubscribe from like 3 things a day. Part of the problem was having my old email forward to this one. When I change it to my married name I think I'll just let this one die. 

lyndausvi

Maggie0829 said:

My work limits the storage of our Outlook.  We get an email when we are getting close to that limit so then you have to go back and take some time to delete and organize.  I just did this the other day and I basically deleted anything that was from 2013 or earlier.

DH's old job was like that. Once a month a report came from corp headquarters highlighting the abusers. Even the GM was listed.  The department would be billed  for overages. 

Cookie Pusher

I don't remember what the storage limit is for our Outlook, but I know I violate it regularly. I get very large attachments that I have to keep for a while to cover our butts with clients. I probably have 5k emails total now, but they're all organized into sub-folders so they're easy to find (and later delete).

wandajune6

Wow.

We both have hoarders in the family so we're pretty careful about it at home. In terms of email, I'm pretty careful. I use several email accounts and get fussy if I have above 40 unread emails across all of them. I have folders for each account and use tags for cross-referencing. Thanks to Gmail, I do keep things for years on end but neatly stored away.

I'm also a huge fan of rules on email. They make my job endlessly easier.

huskypuppy14

Yeah I have thousands of emails in my inbox at work (I've been at the same company 6 years), but I sometimes have to go back to them, and it's easier to find if I search, then putting everything in a folder. I do have some sub folders, but for the most part, I just keep everything in the inbox. 

I periodically will go through it and delete the crap I don't need anymore. There has been times when my boss has asked me to find some random item (and I've always found it!).

Now, my personal email is a little out of hand, but it takes hours to go through everything.

ETA: This works for me, but I understand how it could annoy other people. 

lizandmark2014

I keep important things like bill pay notifications and some photos but that's it. If it's a package notification it gets deleted after I receive the package.
There is enough clutter in my life I do not need my e-mail making it worse.

theartistformerlyknownas

I used to land in Email Jail all the time at my old job(s), where it prevents you from sending or receiving until you clean it up. Super annoying, especially since I frequently send and receive huge Excel files. Hasn't happened yet at this job since I just started in December.

I currently have 5,128 emails in my Gmail inbox.

reginaphalange1

My inbox is empty. I can't handle clutter. It gives me anxiety. 

O/T but why do you spell certain words like you're Canadian or British or something? Aren't you from Pennsylvania?

HisGirlFriday13

reginaphalange1 said:

My inbox is empty. I can't handle clutter. It gives me anxiety. 

O/T but why do you spell certain words like you're Canadian or British or something? Aren't you from Pennsylvania?

Because that's how I learned to spell them growing up, and I've just never bothered to learn the American spelling. I actually failed a spelling test in elementary school because I had only ever seen words spelt with '-ou' (honour, labour, neighbour, colour).

Mama HisGirl was an English lit major in college and we read mostly British literature growing up. Old habits die hard

OnceUponAVine

This thread reminded me of a time I went into my mom's office to organize all the files on the shared computer because she didn't have time... It took me 8 hours to weed through everything, delete duplicates, create new folders, and file everything properly. Even as a very organized person I found it overwhelming at first!

mrsmorales2be

That would make me crazy.

Simky906

This thread just made me go check my gmail account- I currently have over 21,000 emails in my inbox. I've had this account since 06 and I don't think I've ever deleted an email. Might be time to get more organized with this, but I'm always able to search for anything so I think that's why I let it get so bad. I swear I'm usually very organized!

wandajune6

HisGirlFriday13 said:

reginaphalange1 said:

My inbox is empty. I can't handle clutter. It gives me anxiety. 

O/T but why do you spell certain words like you're Canadian or British or something? Aren't you from Pennsylvania?

Because that's how I learned to spell them growing up, and I've just never bothered to learn the American spelling. I actually failed a spelling test in elementary school because I had only ever seen words spelt with '-ou' (honour, labour, neighbour, colour).

Mama HisGirl was an English lit major in college and we read mostly British literature growing up. Old habits die hard

I learned how to spell things the same way! I worked at in the US offices of a British company recently and had to force myself to spell things as an American as it was how we could differentiate between marketing and training materials. It took me forever to get it straight in my head!

I've always had very careful pronunciation when I speak. I'm frequently asked what country I'm from - and people are always surprised when I say I'm from the Midwest. I suspect that it's a result of growing up surrounded by much older people and people who learned English as a second language. With so many different accents and hearing levels, pronunciation has always been key. I have a client in PA right now who's convinced that I'm a Brit!

Inkdancer

wandajune6 said:

HisGirlFriday13 said:

reginaphalange1 said:

My inbox is empty. I can't handle clutter. It gives me anxiety. 

O/T but why do you spell certain words like you're Canadian or British or something? Aren't you from Pennsylvania?

Because that's how I learned to spell them growing up, and I've just never bothered to learn the American spelling. I actually failed a spelling test in elementary school because I had only ever seen words spelt with '-ou' (honour, labour, neighbour, colour).

Mama HisGirl was an English lit major in college and we read mostly British literature growing up. Old habits die hard

I learned how to spell things the same way! I worked at in the US offices of a British company recently and had to force myself to spell things as an American as it was how we could differentiate between marketing and training materials. It took me forever to get it straight in my head!

I've always had very careful pronunciation when I speak. I'm frequently asked what country I'm from - and people are always surprised when I say I'm from the Midwest. I suspect that it's a result of growing up surrounded by much older people and people who learned English as a second language. With so many different accents and hearing levels, pronunciation has always been key. I have a client in PA right now who's convinced that I'm a Brit!

People ask me where I'm from a lot because I have a very neutral accent from learning words through reading. Nobody ever believes me when I say West Virginia. (Guess they expect me to talk like a hick who sleeps with her cousins? What would that even sound like?)

ashleyep

I have 9400 emails in my inbox, but none unread. Unread emails drive me crazy. I also have a slew of filters set up for social/invoice stuff that skips my inbox, i have all emails from my old email address forwarded to my new one and that all gets auto-archived because it's all junk mail/mailings. Labels for wedding stuff, etc. But the way gmail does labels, it's all still technically in my inbox. I have a ton of labels and filters set up, my gmail's search is so good that I don't bother archiving stuff.

Not everyone subscribes to the empty inbox philosophy. 

beethery

I have 5508 emails in my gmail box (two email address pipe into it). I have had it since they came out with gmail in 2003 I think.

I like being able to easily search through all my stuff lol