How long do you keep your e-mails for?
Thread poster: LinguaLab.net
LinguaLab.net
LinguaLab.net
United Kingdom
Local time: 06:20
English to Norwegian
+ ...
Sep 5, 2012

Fellow ProZians,

I use Google Apps e-mail and have 25 GB worth of storage, but I just noticed today that I have already used 10% of that. Clearly, it will still be a long while before I run out of storage, but it got me thinking - how long should you really hang on to your e-mails for?

As storage has never really been an issue since I changed to Google Apps e-mail, I tend to just label everything as soon as I have dealt with it and file it away in All Mail. About once a
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Fellow ProZians,

I use Google Apps e-mail and have 25 GB worth of storage, but I just noticed today that I have already used 10% of that. Clearly, it will still be a long while before I run out of storage, but it got me thinking - how long should you really hang on to your e-mails for?

As storage has never really been an issue since I changed to Google Apps e-mail, I tend to just label everything as soon as I have dealt with it and file it away in All Mail. About once a year, I will go through all e-mails labelled 'enquiry' (the ones that never turned into actual jobs), and delete all e-mails that are older than a year. However, I have over 600 e-mail conversations filed away as 'delivered', and the oldest e-mails in that folder are over 3 years old. That is a LOT of e-mails and file attachments!

I'd be very interested to hear what your e-mail policy is like - how long do you hang on to different types of e-mail and what is your procedure for deleting and/or archiving them?

I am really looking forward to hearing other people's thoughts on this subject!
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Annamaria Amik
Annamaria Amik  Identity Verified
Local time: 08:20
Romanian to English
+ ...
As long as required by law Sep 5, 2012

I tend to keep e-mails forever. I have business e-mails that are 10 years old.

As a general rule, I keep the actual work related e-mails as long as the law requires (that's 10 years in my country, plus additional years for any assets with a longer lifecycle), as they are supporting documents for my tax-liable operations.


 
neilmac
neilmac
Spain
Local time: 07:20
Spanish to English
+ ...
Don't know Sep 5, 2012

I use webmails like Yahoo and Google, and usually only delete spam and repeated emails or non-work-related stuff. It's not an issue for me yet.

I don't use Outlook or any email manager, AFAIK, but I understand from colleagues who do use Outlook that it ends up bloated and unwieldy after a while.


 
Tina Colquhoun
Tina Colquhoun  Identity Verified
Local time: 06:20
Danish to English
+ ...
You need to archive... Sep 5, 2012

Outlook does not end up bloaty and unwieldy as long as you archive regularly. You don't need instant access to those e-mails from 2002 anyway...

 
Philippe Etienne
Philippe Etienne  Identity Verified
Spain
Local time: 07:20
Member
English to French
I keep them forever Sep 5, 2012

I have plenty of .pst (Outlook archives) files on my NAS (and subsequently CDs/DVDs), weighing many tens of GB.
Pst files used to grow and grow and get unmanageable (Outlook unable to start, stalling, etc.) with previous versions of Outlook if you didn't start afresh with an empty pst file now and then, but the problem was solved with v2003 I seem to remember.

As regards Gmail, after a few years of use (I download mails to Outlook), I have reached almost 4GB out of about 10 av
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I have plenty of .pst (Outlook archives) files on my NAS (and subsequently CDs/DVDs), weighing many tens of GB.
Pst files used to grow and grow and get unmanageable (Outlook unable to start, stalling, etc.) with previous versions of Outlook if you didn't start afresh with an empty pst file now and then, but the problem was solved with v2003 I seem to remember.

As regards Gmail, after a few years of use (I download mails to Outlook), I have reached almost 4GB out of about 10 available at this instant, but the available space grows with time and I don't seem to ever get over half of the available space.
AFAIK, to remove emails received/sent in Gmail you have to check each and every one you want deleted, so it's a major pain in the neck. Of course Google uses the email contents to target ads and add to its big data, so I understand why they don't provide an easier way of deleting emails. In Hotmail for instance, checking one box selects all emails in the page.

Philippe
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christela (X)
christela (X)
3-6 months Sep 5, 2012

Besides in case of legal conflict or non payment. => I tend to print out these latters because I already lost e-mail during hardboard crashes.

 
Christine Andersen
Christine Andersen  Identity Verified
Denmark
Local time: 07:20
Member (2003)
Danish to English
+ ...
Until the invoice is paid Sep 5, 2012

In principle until the invoice is paid. This is often a couple of months after the job was delivered, and if clients have not complained by then, they are not going to. (At least so far).

In practice I keep most mails a fair while longer, because I don't have a lot of time for regular clean-ups. When I do, I sort and delete several hundred mails at a time.

All chitchat, "thanks, job received" and other trivia without attachments are deleted more or less immediately aft
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In principle until the invoice is paid. This is often a couple of months after the job was delivered, and if clients have not complained by then, they are not going to. (At least so far).

In practice I keep most mails a fair while longer, because I don't have a lot of time for regular clean-ups. When I do, I sort and delete several hundred mails at a time.

All chitchat, "thanks, job received" and other trivia without attachments are deleted more or less immediately after they are read, and the deleted mails folder (containing anything up to 30-40 mails!) is emptied every day when I close down.

Payments by me - subscriptions, whatever - are archived separately, and all jobs are archived in a 'completed work' folder under clients once I have sent the invoice out.

I have a folder for miscellaneous saved mails as well - all sorts of odds and ends there, again in sub-folders for various categories.

That way it is far easier to find what I am looking for than despairingly searching through thousands of mails!

I don't think there is any legal requirement about mails here. My accountant keeps everything needed for tax purposes on paper.

It is not good for the environment to keep masses of useless information 'in the clouds' somewhere - it does actually cost a lot of energy!
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Stanislaw Czech, MCIL CL
Stanislaw Czech, MCIL CL  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 06:20
Member (2006)
English to Polish
+ ...
SITE LOCALIZER
Indefinitely Sep 5, 2012

At least emails regarding work. I have already used 41% of available space, I guess that in a few years when I run out of space I'll have to buy some more.

Cheers
S


 
Samuel Murray
Samuel Murray  Identity Verified
Netherlands
Local time: 07:20
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
I download all my Gmail mail Sep 5, 2012

LinguaLab.net wrote:
I use Google Apps e-mail and have 25 GB worth of storage, but I just noticed today that I have already used 10% of that.


I use Gmail online, but I regularly download it. I set up SeaMonkey as my "Gmail mail program" because I don't use it for anything else and the mailbox format of SeaMonkey is pretty robust.

My 10 GB Gmail account is 73% full (after 4 years of use). I don't delete anything except spam. That said, my Gmail account is used exclusively for work related mails, and I use a separate mail account for other mails.

An unwelcome surprise for me was to discover that although one's GoogleTalk chats are stored in one's Gmail account, the chats aren't downloaded when downloading mail to the computer.


 


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How long do you keep your e-mails for?







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