I never delete emails, whether it be a friendly email from a friend, a blog comment notification, or an ad from Kirkland's notifying me of a sale I never delete it.
So this week I began the process of going through my inbox and taking it from 4370 to zero. It is a big job, but somebody has to do it. I have emails dating back all the way back to 2005.
I found an email dated March of 2005 from my mom asking me if I knew when I was getting engaged because she wanted to grow her hair out for the wedding. Little did we know she had plenty of time.
I also found an email that I wrote to my dad begging him to let me drop out of college. He told me to stop whining and finish school. Father's know best.
At the end of my email sorting I was down to 3939 in my inbox. I have a long road ahead of me.
It wouldn't take so long if I didn't feel the need to read every single email, I feel like it is my own personal journal (pre-blog of course).
Does anybody else have a 'junky' inbox, or are you one of those crazies that puts each email in a categorized folder and feels a great sense of accomplishment when you have an empty inbox?
You reminded me about my own Yahoo mail.I never check the mail since last year.So,after read your post I went to check my mail.Can you guess how many mails I got???
ReplyDelete6738!!!!!!! OMG!!!!!
Wow! That's a ton of emails. It's kind of neat to go back and read them tough!
ReplyDeleteI keep anything that a friend sends and put it in it's own folder cleverly titled "Letters from Friends". I know, genius right?
ReplyDeleteMy work inbox though? I keep EVERYTHING and just leave it sorted by date.
I never delete any e-mails... except the junky spam e-mails about sales. Those I can toss.
ReplyDeleteI can't imagine deleting them - I feel like they are my own little piece of history.
Clearly i am not ready.
I can't imagine having a full inbox. I hate it to be full, so I keep it empty most of the time, and I just sort them out and file them in folders that are relevant. It makes life seem a bit more organized!
ReplyDeleteI never have more than maybe three. It drives me nuts! I delete most of them, but there are a few that I file in folders. After reading the above comments, I realize I am the weird one!
ReplyDeleteAlthough that's kind of neat to have something to look back on and go back and read... but I would be beside myself if I had that many e-mails, I am constantly deleting, deleting, deleting, haha!!! :O)
ReplyDeleteI'm OCD about mine!
ReplyDeleteI can't leave a lot in there. I've gotten a lot worse since college. Everything is in folders. I have a gmail account and it is AMAZING. One of my friends told me that I had joined her as a fellow gmail snob. It's so true. You would probably love the fact that you can archive things. Now, instead of deleting them I just hit archive. This way it's out of my inbox but if I ever have a need to look back at one that I didn't think I needed I can just search for it in the search bar. I can also search by name. This way if I want to look at all the e-mails that my husband has sent me (even the unimportant little notes - but kinda sweet) I can just search his name and every e-mail from him or about him comes up. It's fabulous! I highly recommed gmail (if you don't already have it). But beware, you'll turn into a gmail snob pretty quickly and never look back! Just imagine, no more 4000 messages in your inbox but all 4000 archived so you can search for them any time you want! Could it get any better? Really?
I have saved EVERY email my husband sent me while we were dating, but it's nowwhere near 4,000!!
ReplyDeletei'm sooooo the same way! i was cleaning out my work email's inbox last week and kept finding wedding planning emails between me and my mom :) of course i had to read them! i now currently have "only" 2809 left to sort through.
ReplyDeleteI categorize my work emails, but I go back to them too. My personal emails get deleted. I can't stand for them to just sit in the inbox!
ReplyDeleteThat happened with my yahoo account, so I did the mature thing and ran. Ha. ;) I got a new gmail account instead of cleaning out the yahoo account... now my yahoo account is still full and still existing, but it's kind of like my garage... when people are coming over and I have something I don't know what to do with, I quick throw it in the garage. I don't have to look at it or figure out how to live around it, but it's there if I really wanna dig.
ReplyDeleteI am so unorganized and junky in all areas of my life EXCEPT for my email! I have gmail and everything has a place in this email account. I have about 9 different categories and everything goes into a category after I've read it, unless it's clearly just junk. It keeps me sane to keep my inbox organized!
ReplyDeleteHmm- I have so many emails. I delete the sale ones (sometimes) but mostly I keep everything. And so does my husband. I didn't know it wasn't weird. Hmm.
ReplyDeleteI can't imagine having that many in my inbox. I definitely strive to have an empty one. However, I certainly think it's kind of fun to be able to go on a personal journey of how things have changed in such a long period of time. Happy reading!
ReplyDeleteYeah...I feel free when I have an empty mailbox. If I didn't sign up for so much stuff, then I would. But it's never empty. So that stinks. :)
ReplyDeleteha! I have about 2000 in my inbox right now. I need to delete them, I guess. It's just takes so much time and effort. But, I digress...
ReplyDeletewow that is a lot of emails! i dont delete very many of mine either.
ReplyDeleteWow girl! That's a lot of emails! I can't stand to have a full inbox, so I have 7 in my inbox right now. :)
ReplyDeleteBut how fun to go back and read those emails. So nostalgic....
I never delete either! I have so many and I'm slightly intimidated by them....
ReplyDeleteI delete but I also save so much! I save emails from friends who are even not around anymore. I have a friend who died of cancer in 07 and still have emails from her. Like you, I like to read them. Things change so much so it's nice to read about it. I agree that it is like a personal journal! Fun post :)
ReplyDeleteWell, I'm definitely not one of the crazys you speak of. I have 9968 emails in my inbox right now...yikes!
ReplyDeleteI use gmail and just archive as I go - my inbox usually has about 20 messages in it.
ReplyDeleteGood luck with the clearing out!
Most definitely a crazy, I am an organizing queen. I have tons of folders and coordinating colors for certain people. I never have anything in my inbox when I leave unless its a reminder for the next day. I am aware that I have issues and I'm ok with that. ;)
ReplyDeleteMine's about like yours. I went through a time where I printed out emails from friends and kept them in a notebook but the dang thing got so big I had to stop. I just can't delete sweet notes from people without feeling horrible! Good luck with your sorting!
ReplyDeleteOh my gosh! I need to do this too. I have about 2500.....
ReplyDeleteI rarely if ever delete e-mails!
ReplyDeleteoh girl! I FEEL YA!! I never delete emails at work and have about 4000 too! But in my gmail it auto archives for me! I know some ppl who keep things soo orangized and I have tried but I cant do it..
ReplyDeleteoh my gosh, I'm terrible at cleaning the inbox too! I have like 1500 but I really do reference back to them quite a bit..I know, I still need to clean out! good luck!
ReplyDeleteI just did this back in April ... I had over 5000 emails !! I had to bring it down, that's just too many. Anything previous to 2009 I just deleted. All others I read through ... it took a while, but you'll like what you see when it is done! Good Luck !
ReplyDelete:) I love having a clean inbox! However, I almost never delete anything ... I even have a JCrew folder that has hundreds of sale notifications! I guess I'm one of "those people." haha
ReplyDeleteI struggle with this too! I just hang on to them all thinking that I might need to go back and look at them later, for some reason. I love the one that you found from your mom about growing her hair out....so funny!!
ReplyDeleteLove your pics from the weekend with your cute fam =)
You can clean those things out? Who knew!!!
ReplyDelete=)
Dawn
Haha. I thought I was overwhelmed with over 100. You win! Cute blog BTW! You've just found yourself yet another follower.
ReplyDeleteThis is so funny to me! I have categories and folders and I still have a hard time cleaning out my inbox. Have you made anymore progress?
ReplyDeleteI have an MSN acct. that I never check. Sometimes when I do check it, I have about 300 or so to go through. Some (most) are devotions and sale ads from places I like to shop. I just start deleting because it drives me crazy.
ReplyDeleteI keep my yahoo acct. nice and clean.
Hope you've made progress. :)