Viewing 11 posts - 41 through 51 (of 51 total)
  • How to deal with 23,000 email messages?
  • thecaptain
    Free Member

    Life’s too short for filing email into folders. What’s the point of that? If you’re looking for an old email, or some info that may be in an old email, then having to work out what folder(s) you might have shifted it into is just extra work at the other end of the process too, on top of the work of choosing a folder for it now. Or conversely, if you search across all folders, what was the point of using them?

    I have 39,676 email in my inbox, apparently.

    Simon-E
    Full Member

    Life’s too short for filing email into folders.

    Conversely, plenty of people find separating emails out can reduce the time spent searching later.

    It doesn’t take long to run a few finds and add labels (if it’s gmail) or drag them into a folder. In gmail I have filters set to up so that many of them get labels assigned before I even see them.

    If you had 39,676 letters from banks, utility companies, council, insurance companies etc etc would you put them all randomly in a single huge drawer? I wouldn’t and that’s the principle I apply to emails – if a small up-front effort filing reduces the time and effort spent identifying them later then it’s a worthwhile step in my book.

    scotroutes
    Full Member

    If you had 39,676 letters from banks, utility companies, council, insurance companies etc etc would you put them all randomly in a single huge drawer?

    I would if there was a way of retrieving the correct document in an instant by means of typing in a simple search.

    FWIW I have various Labels automatically apply in Gmail.

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    redthunder
    Free Member

    In gmail use the take out option in gmail.

    Use MBox to view offline when needed.

    https://sourceforge.net/projects/mbox-viewer/

    Back at gmail delete everthing older than say a year.

    🙂

    molgrips
    Free Member

    If you had 39,676 letters from banks, utility companies, council, insurance companies etc etc would you put them all randomly in a single huge drawer?

    If I could instantly find anything by asking for it then yes of course I would. The reason you sort stuff is to be able to find it later, and a well indexed search does that for you so no need for folders. Google are the masters of instant searches.

    burns2k
    Free Member

    I just checked and I have 45744 emails in my gmail. I agree though, why waste time filing stuff when you can just search the lot? You still end up searching anyway, just on a smaller subset of emails.

    Cougar
    Full Member

    If you had 39,676 letters from banks, utility companies, council, insurance companies etc etc would you put them all randomly in a single huge drawer? I wouldn’t and that’s the principle I apply to emails

    But if you could open your drawer and go “hey drawer, give me my council tax bills for the last three years” and have them magically in your hand in a split second, would you then still be fannying about administering multiple drawers? Because

    if a small up-front effort filing reduces the time and effort spent identifying them

    it doesn’t.

    thecaptain
    Free Member

    As a real-world example, I just found in a few seconds the size, type and cost of pond liner that I bought an unknown number of years ago from a company whose name I couldn’t remember. I didn’t have to wonder about whether I had filed it with other garden stuff or receipts or arranged by year or…whatever. I can’t see how folders could possibly have helped me.

    Paper OTOH isn’t readily searchable and requires more careful and time-consuming treatment. Which is one reason I try to avoid it.

    Simon-E
    Full Member

    To everyone stating the bleedin’ obvious – that gmail is wonderfully searchable – yes, we know! I posted a link to the list of search operators available in gmail, FFS.

    molgrips said “I now need to migrate to another system” so I believe that means moving away from gmail (and thereby losing its great search functionality).

    If you think that a standard email client or set of offline files is equally capable then you may be in for a surprise.

    The filing cabinet analogy was to illustrate my point that I find filing emails in folders useful, not that it is compulsory.

    scotroutes
    Full Member

    Just migrate them to another Gmail account then?

    thecaptain
    Free Member

    I do all my mail management on thunderbird, dating to well before I had always-on access… I don’t use gmail web interface at all if I can avoid it. Didn’t occur to me that you might need gmail’s super-clever searching and filtering to just search a mailbox.

Viewing 11 posts - 41 through 51 (of 51 total)

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