Do you delete email?

[seanwes]

I want to know how popular deleting email is. Do you have a compulsive need to delete email that you've read/don't need anymore? Honestly, I don't bother wasting the time it takes to delete email. I use gmail, and I can always do a simple search to conveniently find anything I need. I know people that feel the need to have a "clean" inbox.

Basically, I'm just wondering how popular/unpopular my viewpoint is. Please vote, and post your opinion, and reasons for deleting or not deleting email.

[chris]

I want to know how popular deleting email is. Do you have a compulsive need to delete email that you've read/don't need anymore? Honestly, I don't bother wasting the time it takes to delete email. I use gmail, and I can always do a simple search to conveniently find anything I need. I know people that feel the need to have a "clean" inbox.

Basically, I'm just wondering how popular/unpopular my viewpoint is. Please vote, and post your opinion, and reasons for deleting or not deleting email.

I clean email by the thousands. I never get close to a zero inbox. Not in this lifetime.

[psylichon]

I also use Gmail. I hate having an unread indicator on my phone, so I often will read messages as they come in. If something is important that I need to reply to, it stays in my inbox, otherwise I push all messages to archive every couple days from the desktop.

I only delete forum notifications or other non-human correspondence. I like using Gmail as a sort of search function for my life. I'm constantly remembering things by searching my mail history, so I do not delete.

[psylichon]

I clean email by the thousands. I never get close to a zero inbox. Not in this lifetime.


...Would explain your aptitude at returning PM's :tounge:

[PepeRB29]

right now i have 123 new email messages on my iphone between my gmail, university account, and my business email. i delete as many as possible but it is never ending....

[iconone]

I clean my inbox about once a week and still have about 500-600 read emails.

[seanwes]

Thanks for the responses.

Every other month I may clear out forum notifications, but that's about it.

[chris]

Every once in a while, I'll go through my inbox and unsubscribe to countless newsletters. Most I don't even recall signing up for...

I also sort by sender and bulk delete that way. It's much easier to delete Dave's PM's that way.

[psylichon]

Booyah! :D

I do find it a lot easier to manage my email now with the iPhone. It's so easy to delete something right when you get it (like notifications) that my inbox stays pretty tidy these days.

[dcom]

I sync with MobileMe so I keep some messages in the inbox but only until I get them on my Mac at home and keep them sorted there then delete them off the iPhone. My inbox has maybe 20 in it at any given time.

[acosmichippo]

i only keep things in my inbox that i need to remember to either reply to or take care of... like bill payments, school correspondence, etc.

[chris]

Thanks to this thread, I'm doing a bit of spring cleaning.

[The Apple]

I keep my work box tidy. My personal (home) email box does not get checked frequently. I only give my home address to people I suspect of doing bulk emails regularly.

[Youngbinks]

i only keep things in my inbox that i need to remember to either reply to or take care of... like bill payments, school correspondence, etc.

This is exactly how I am as well. I'll read through everything that warrants it and keep the stuff that I need to remember. There are only like 4 e-mails in my inbox currently. Many more than that in my university account.

[Lincoln]

I clean my inbox, but it's never empty. I usually delete about 300 messages per week, leaving a few more hundred in there. Gmail's spam filter in addition with Apple's Mail spam filter keeps my inbox pretty spam clean, so I don't ever worry about that.

[chris]

Thanks to the OP for getting me sidetracked today. Put off a number of projects to clean my inbox. I thought paring down from 6,000 messages to 3,000 was impressive. In the past few hours, I've got my dot mac down to 1 message and gMail is down to 877. Moving, sorting and deleting.

Now I need a plan (or perhaps another inbox) to keep things clean.

[coasts]

same as hippo and binks...

[TarekElsakka]

I definitely delete unwanted emails, but I never even try to open them :). Subjects and senders are enough.

[chris]

gMail down to 57, 26 unread. Moving, sorting, deleting. Once I'm done, I'm going to rethink what gets sent there and perhaps set up a few gMail accounts. The one inbox thing just isn't working for me.

[styfle]

I rarely delete emails. Usually only if its spam.

[Ramesh]

I also use Gmail. I hate having an unread indicator on my phone, so I often will read messages as they come in. If something is important that I need to reply to, it stays in my inbox, otherwise I push all messages to archive every couple days from the desktop.

I only delete forum notifications or other non-human correspondence. I like using Gmail as a sort of search function for my life. I'm constantly remembering things by searching my mail history, so I do not delete.

Pretty much what I do. I archive it all.

[glsda]

I have a business email that I try to keep specifically for business. I have gmail and comcast email accounts. I use the gmail for all on line merchandise orders or where I have to provide an email address. I create folders in the business and comcast accounts to keep mail I may need in the future. Comcast is mainly personal. The business email never gets completely cleared out. Gmail and comcast get whittled down but seldom to zero.