Archive or Delete?(email-is-good.com)
email-is-good.com
Archive or Delete?
https://email-is-good.com/2025/11/05/archive-or-delete/
67 コメント
Your kids collect stones and sticks. You collect emails, and probably browser tabs and desktop icons. When you move to new PC, all your desktop files ends up in a directory called New folder on the new pc’s desktop and the journey to fill the new desktop starts over before you have New folder and New folder 2 on the upcoming pc.
It's beautiful. Thanks to Moore's law, you can always fit all historical data in half your latest disk space. Though I personally tend to call them "Stuff" or "Junk".
But don't do
But don't do
Stuff
Junk
Stuff /
Stuff / Stuff
Stuff / Stuff / Junk / ...
I've been telling myself I'll organise my now 4 layers nested stuff folders for 15 years.
A bit off-topic, but can anyone recommend tools to organise this much random stuff?
A bit off-topic, but can anyone recommend tools to organise this much random stuff?
You should only organize things as you actually use them. The things you use are then generally organized and you haven’t wasted a bunch of time organizing stuff you never use.
If you do decide to organize a bunch of stuff you never use, that decision is then totally aesthetic, so you should choose a method of doing it that you find aesthetically pleasing.
Source: obsidian user who spent a bunch of time organizing stuff he never uses.
If you do decide to organize a bunch of stuff you never use, that decision is then totally aesthetic, so you should choose a method of doing it that you find aesthetically pleasing.
Source: obsidian user who spent a bunch of time organizing stuff he never uses.
I largely agree, that's why I've still got all of it stored away, but I guess I'd like to keep track of what is it that I'm not using, what can I delete and what can I deduplicate.
Not the answer you're looking for, I know, but I used to have 100+ labels/folders, 4-5 deep, and decade+ old emails, obsessively organized etc.
5 years ago, I dropped down to 20 labels, and started routinely deleting anything over 5 years old except for a specific "keep forever" label.
No regrets. No instances of searching for old items and not finding them, etc.
5 years ago, I dropped down to 20 labels, and started routinely deleting anything over 5 years old except for a specific "keep forever" label.
No regrets. No instances of searching for old items and not finding them, etc.
I moved my old pc into a vm. The vm is the new folder.
I moved my SSD from my old computer into my new one. Because I'm a masochist who manually sets up my partitions with custom labels, it literally worked the first time I booted it. (The only change I did was swapping to the AMD microcode from the Intel microcode because of the processor in my new machine being different). When upgrading SSDs, I just replicated the same partition structure on the new disk and copied everything over with rsync, which also "just worked".
I still can't decide whether these strategies are obvious and intuitive or if they go against literally everything I've learned about what should be feasible. Can't argue with the results though!
I still can't decide whether these strategies are obvious and intuitive or if they go against literally everything I've learned about what should be feasible. Can't argue with the results though!
I had to leave Windows 7 and start using Windows 11.
You need to solve the migration strategy from stones and sticks to first desktop.
I'm an unrepentent "neither".
Trash, Archive, Folders in Folders, Tags, forget it!
Where is it? In the Inbox. If it's unread, I need to do something, if it's read, I don't.
Although if my clients start to slow down, I will export and delete the oldest year from my personal email. So I guess I do technically archive. But only in bulk and begrudgingly.
Trash, Archive, Folders in Folders, Tags, forget it!
Where is it? In the Inbox. If it's unread, I need to do something, if it's read, I don't.
Although if my clients start to slow down, I will export and delete the oldest year from my personal email. So I guess I do technically archive. But only in bulk and begrudgingly.
Yup, another inbox only user here.
Unread means it's a to-do.
In Gmail you can set it to group all unread at the top.
Sometimes I'll open an email and mark unread again if I need to come back to it.
In Gmail you can set it to group all unread at the top.
Sometimes I'll open an email and mark unread again if I need to come back to it.
I’m in the same camp. Unread vs read is all I need. Also it’s funny when I’m with someone from the “inbox zero” camp and they get stressed seeing my 6-figure inbox count.
I was inbox-only since GMail was in beta, and received tons of email notifications and extraneous mail over that 20 year period that didn't get read.
My inbox was at about 100k _unread_ emails with about 280k total.
I am happy to say I am now at inbox-zero (ish).
My inbox was at about 100k _unread_ emails with about 280k total.
I am happy to say I am now at inbox-zero (ish).
Impressive. I've also been using gmail since beta. I'm only at 27,980 unread.
> If it's unread, I need to do something, if it's read, I don't.
What if you read an email, and need to do something, but can't do it right now? Do you mark it as unread so you can deal with it later?
I did that for years. Thankfully no longer!
What if you read an email, and need to do something, but can't do it right now? Do you mark it as unread so you can deal with it later?
I did that for years. Thankfully no longer!
And then while checking your email you mindlessly click it and realize its the one you have "snoozed" by marking it unread, so you need to mark it unread again.
Rinse, repeat
Rinse, repeat
Yes - that was Hell.
Now I have a keystroke that will automatically create a TODO with a link to the message. I hit the keystroke and then archive so it no longer shows up in my inbox.
There are lots of poor productivity books/hacks, but the "Do not treat your inbox as a TODO list" has stood the test of time.
Now I have a keystroke that will automatically create a TODO with a link to the message. I hit the keystroke and then archive so it no longer shows up in my inbox.
There are lots of poor productivity books/hacks, but the "Do not treat your inbox as a TODO list" has stood the test of time.
Exactly so. If I'm going to do anything with it later, I'll have to read it again anyway.
It's self-culling with time. I've got unread messages deep down on the list. Things that I wanted to do something about months ago, but never did, and they weren't important enough to come up again. And if they ever do come up again, I can see that I received a message and didn't do anything with it.
It's self-culling with time. I've got unread messages deep down on the list. Things that I wanted to do something about months ago, but never did, and they weren't important enough to come up again. And if they ever do come up again, I can see that I received a message and didn't do anything with it.
[deleted]
Terribly triggered by this
Sorry, but unless I can manage my email with sensible rules, I'm not going to manage it.
I need to be able to have rules that let me move email automatically after it's been read or after it's been in the Inbox for some time. But that's not really possible with most server side rules engines (they only look at mail when it arrives), client side rules engines are dead and I don't use email from a fixed desktop machine anyway, and I'm not going to write an imap based filtering engine (I did it once on company equipment, and it wasn't fun enough to do it again).
So Inbox 40,000 it is.
I need to be able to have rules that let me move email automatically after it's been read or after it's been in the Inbox for some time. But that's not really possible with most server side rules engines (they only look at mail when it arrives), client side rules engines are dead and I don't use email from a fixed desktop machine anyway, and I'm not going to write an imap based filtering engine (I did it once on company equipment, and it wasn't fun enough to do it again).
So Inbox 40,000 it is.
A rules engine is our primary next focus at Marco. What you're describing is exactly the way email should work.
https://marcoapp.io
https://marcoapp.io
If you need more inspiration, I used to use Pegasus Mail, and I'd have a small number of filters on Inbox open: there were some lists I was on that didn't need to ever be in the inbox, and most of my filters on Inbox close: move read or timed out mail into folders it belonged; read mail with no other rule would end up in Archive/YYYY-qQ; I found quarterly was the best granularity, monthly archive folders were too fiddly. But modal flow like that isn't very current.
Pegasus Mail was very good when it owned the mail (pop3), and works ok with a competent IMAP server, but work switched to Exchange and it was very slow, and Pegasus didn't work well with a slow IMAP server. That was the start of my slide into inbox 40k :(
Pegasus Mail was very good when it owned the mail (pop3), and works ok with a competent IMAP server, but work switched to Exchange and it was very slow, and Pegasus didn't work well with a slow IMAP server. That was the start of my slide into inbox 40k :(
I've recently started writing an app intended for a raspberry pi that uses IMAP to automate this exact thing.
The goal is for it to apply the rules and followup with actions while still letting me interact with my email from any client I want.
The goal is for it to apply the rules and followup with actions while still letting me interact with my email from any client I want.
Check out our product. I'm also a "leave everything in inbox" kind of user.
I've got 100k+ threads in my inbox and full text search is single digit ms.
IMAP search itself is unusable. SQLite on the other hand...
https://marcoapp.io
I've got 100k+ threads in my inbox and full text search is single digit ms.
IMAP search itself is unusable. SQLite on the other hand...
https://marcoapp.io
That's just Archive with fewer steps
Chaotic neutral here.
I am that person.
I delete almost everything:
- 1:1 or 1:n conversations get archived
- appointments, receipts, ... snoozed until day before use/event, then deleted afterwards
- newsletters, automated messages deleted after read
- promotions, discounts, ... deleted immediately
The trash serves as a 30-day buffer for things I may need to recover, e.g. shop discounts I threw out that I end up needing before they expire.
I also use Fastmail's expiration period on my inbox, so anything older than 1 month is deleted too. If it received no action in 1 month, the chances it was actually important are close to zero.
- 1:1 or 1:n conversations get archived
- appointments, receipts, ... snoozed until day before use/event, then deleted afterwards
- newsletters, automated messages deleted after read
- promotions, discounts, ... deleted immediately
The trash serves as a 30-day buffer for things I may need to recover, e.g. shop discounts I threw out that I end up needing before they expire.
I also use Fastmail's expiration period on my inbox, so anything older than 1 month is deleted too. If it received no action in 1 month, the chances it was actually important are close to zero.
I only delete spam and such useless emails. Other than that, I just mark email as either read or unread. I never archived an email.
I also maintain an always zero inbox and everything is neatly classified thanks to the power of automation.
I also maintain an always zero inbox and everything is neatly classified thanks to the power of automation.
Which camp is it if you don't even look at or read email unless you know there's something specific you need in it? I have 100,000 unread but that's because I did a concerted cleanup sometime in the last couple years. I even unsubscribed to a bunch of stuff. I am planning to tackle it again this month. I've heard of people who use Black Friday as a good trigger on what to unsubscribe from as every company wants to send you something for that.
> I've heard of people who use Black Friday as a good trigger on what to unsubscribe from as every company wants to send you something for that.
That's a good idea. I also use app updates to decide whether I actually need to keep an app on my phone. (There is a convenient "remove" swipe on that screen, so I'm not the only one.)
That's a good idea. I also use app updates to decide whether I actually need to keep an app on my phone. (There is a convenient "remove" swipe on that screen, so I'm not the only one.)
I use notmuch, which is tags based.
The most important thing is not what to do with emails in your inbox, but figuring out what should go in the inbox to begin with.
I have a whitelist. Anything not in the whitelist goes into "quarantine". I give some details here:
https://blog.nawaz.org/posts/2018/Sep/solving-my-email-probl...
HN discussion at the time: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18100807
Once we take care of the bulk of emails that way, it's easier making decisions on the items in the inbox. I usually delete if it's some automated email (e.g. calendar reminder, etc). I archive if it's personal or may have some useful information I want to refer to later (e.g. notification that my electricity bill was paid).
But I lie. Even when I "delete", I don't delete. I merely tag it as "deleted". It's always there on my hard drive. Normally when I do a search, I have to specify "and not tag:deleted".
And those quarantined emails? I neither delete nor archive. They just stay there with the "quarantine" tag.
The most important thing is not what to do with emails in your inbox, but figuring out what should go in the inbox to begin with.
I have a whitelist. Anything not in the whitelist goes into "quarantine". I give some details here:
https://blog.nawaz.org/posts/2018/Sep/solving-my-email-probl...
HN discussion at the time: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18100807
Once we take care of the bulk of emails that way, it's easier making decisions on the items in the inbox. I usually delete if it's some automated email (e.g. calendar reminder, etc). I archive if it's personal or may have some useful information I want to refer to later (e.g. notification that my electricity bill was paid).
But I lie. Even when I "delete", I don't delete. I merely tag it as "deleted". It's always there on my hard drive. Normally when I do a search, I have to specify "and not tag:deleted".
And those quarantined emails? I neither delete nor archive. They just stay there with the "quarantine" tag.
I haven't seen this option yet: archive things you think are important, delete things you think are not important, but don't permanently delete anything. Just use archive and trash as folders of differing degrees of importance. If you run out of storage you can manually delete some of the oldest items in the trash and be pretty sure you didn't need those things (but this will never be necessary because who runs out of email storage).
>Archive: Anything you have a feeling might be useful
>Delete: Anything you’re pretty sure would be useless in the future
Basically what I do, but the problem for a certain type of mind is that "might be useful" is a pretty broad category to fall down. "Years and years of Perl mailing lists in case I want to search them instead of SE/PerlMonks/etc." Yeah, in theory. "Any newsletter I haven't ever read?" I mean, in theory I might search for something from 2011. "ThinkGeek purchases from back in the day?" Yes, definitely! So, in practice, just archive, and let your search results be polluted by daily newsletters.
Still, I try and keep Merlin Mann's Wisdom advice in mind:
>Organizing your email is like alphabetizing your recycling.
That being said, though, there's a line that only becomes clearer and clearer as time goes on: family and friends >>> everything else. I'd take a relative's email I didn't want to reply to when I was in college over pretty much anything. Do whatever you need to do to keep that.
>Delete: Anything you’re pretty sure would be useless in the future
Basically what I do, but the problem for a certain type of mind is that "might be useful" is a pretty broad category to fall down. "Years and years of Perl mailing lists in case I want to search them instead of SE/PerlMonks/etc." Yeah, in theory. "Any newsletter I haven't ever read?" I mean, in theory I might search for something from 2011. "ThinkGeek purchases from back in the day?" Yes, definitely! So, in practice, just archive, and let your search results be polluted by daily newsletters.
Still, I try and keep Merlin Mann's Wisdom advice in mind:
>Organizing your email is like alphabetizing your recycling.
That being said, though, there's a line that only becomes clearer and clearer as time goes on: family and friends >>> everything else. I'd take a relative's email I didn't want to reply to when I was in college over pretty much anything. Do whatever you need to do to keep that.
Yeah I agree with this. Archive everything that I think could potentially have value. Any newsletters or nonsense (before I end up unsubscribing) get nuked. Edit: Login codes and login links as well are clear to be deleted as well.
Any actual two way communication with another human absolutely gets archived. I love myself an audit trail. It's saved my ass more than once.
Any actual two way communication with another human absolutely gets archived. I love myself an audit trail. It's saved my ass more than once.
For my personal mail I like using labels in Gmail instead of archive button. Basically, I categorize mail in a few categories:
1. Receipts, bill, utilities, etc. (Sublabel for every company)
2. Friends&Family (Sublabel for every person)
3. School and school related (Sublabel for every person)
4. Government and government related (Sublabel by organization)
5. Random and miscellaneous
It's archive, but somewhat organized
1. Receipts, bill, utilities, etc. (Sublabel for every company)
2. Friends&Family (Sublabel for every person)
3. School and school related (Sublabel for every person)
4. Government and government related (Sublabel by organization)
5. Random and miscellaneous
It's archive, but somewhat organized
Yeah, I do this too. Folders works pretty well in both Gmail Web and IMAP, but I don't do sub-labels, I just jam them all into folders for Commerce, Friends ( one folder per City), Interests, Family (One folder for each closest relative, so stuff from my Mom's sister goes in the Mom folder.)
I use Thunderbird a lot, so Archive is an anti-pattern (I believe it removes all tags from an email, leaving it only in All Mail. I have All Mail turned off in IMAP because it makes a second copy of everything, which is bad in a 20+ year old mail archive.)
I use Thunderbird a lot, so Archive is an anti-pattern (I believe it removes all tags from an email, leaving it only in All Mail. I have All Mail turned off in IMAP because it makes a second copy of everything, which is bad in a 20+ year old mail archive.)
I dislike that the Gmail app on Android only lets you archive an email from the notification; fastmail has both archive and delete buttons.
I'd like to have a retain-for-one-year button, to move things out of my inbox, but not keep them perpetually. I'd rarely delete immediately, and I'd seldom archive for eternity.
I'd like to have a retain-for-one-year button, to move things out of my inbox, but not keep them perpetually. I'd rarely delete immediately, and I'd seldom archive for eternity.
I never delete mail other than spam. I archive every single one and there were times where I needed an old mail and found it. It's incredible useful and doesn't take much space (and nearly every web mail and program has a good search function).
My inbox's default retention policy deletes anything that is more than 90 days old unless it has a tag. Receipts, billing statements, messages from real people that I added to my contacts etc all get tagged and retained. Your newsletters, the OTPs, the appointment reminders all fall into the abyss.
But I personally do not like email as a system of record. My response to 'what if I need to know something about the tires' is that I keep a spreadsheet with everything I do to my car.
But I personally do not like email as a system of record. My response to 'what if I need to know something about the tires' is that I keep a spreadsheet with everything I do to my car.
Neither for me on the server. I "move" the emails via IMAP(s) to a local folder in Thunderbird. Thunderbird gets backed up to an encrypted NAS. The NAS gets backed up to multiple encrypted external NVME/SSD drives and placed in lock boxes. One lock box ends up in a vehicle. Data not on the server can not be leaked unless legal hold was enabled creating archives outside the visibility and control of the user.
I leave everything in the inbox and mark unread if I need to follow up. Following up may involve nothing more than a note about the task on my to-do list. I also delete a lot of useless stuff and have never regretted it.
My inbox is (1) things I need to read (2) a big searchable archive of things I might need later. Nothing more, and certainly not my to-do list. So I don't feel the need to do anything more than I'm doing.
My inbox is (1) things I need to read (2) a big searchable archive of things I might need later. Nothing more, and certainly not my to-do list. So I don't feel the need to do anything more than I'm doing.
I'm using claws-mail and currently have 53,399 mails in my INBOX and 62,138 mails in my spam folder. I've got a few other mailboxes for mailing lists, some of them 100k entries but I barely read them. I guess I could delete these but my mail folder is only 19.2 GB in size. The storage medium sizes increase so fast that I've never had to delete anything.
It feels like a waste of my time to archive, delete or even read emails if its subject doesn’t look important. I haven’t deleted or archived an email since 2004. There are always 10k+ unread. But I’m fine with that, I glance at the list, then close it. No effort. Works for me. Search is my friend.
Personally (not using GMail) I flag messages I do not want to delete, the others got deleted with a bit of step, some after an year, some after 5 years etc. It's not much anyway, but enough to avoid extreme growth.
Mails are PARTIALLY spread in a taxonomy via MailDrop but partially because keeping my filters is tedious...
Mails are PARTIALLY spread in a taxonomy via MailDrop but partially because keeping my filters is tedious...
People make a big deal about Spike Jonze's extended Black Mirror episode (pretty much) Her, but the one part that sticks to me from that movie is when the AI is introduced, it scans the main character's inbox and comes up with the number of useful emails worth saving.
I use the "baby bear" strategy mentioned in the article. My criteria are something like: archive emails from humans as well as important emails like receipts and invoices; delete advertising emails, newsletters, notification emails, and things that I can just as easily find online.
Archive or read is what most people ask. Benefits to both approaches.
Archive instead of delete is what we recommend to Inbox Zero customers. As you won’t accidentally delete something important.
But if you really need to claim back that space our tool offers ways to delete the stuff that doesn’t matter.
Archive instead of delete is what we recommend to Inbox Zero customers. As you won’t accidentally delete something important.
But if you really need to claim back that space our tool offers ways to delete the stuff that doesn’t matter.
I keep emails in my inbox until they are no longer relevant (which may be immediately for some emails) and then 99.9% of the time I delete them. I archive maybe a half dozen emails a year, and delete the rest.
Delete!
You’ll rarely keep something you’ll use again. Just the knowledge of the heap of junk is a mental drag.
If it’s really important, archive it. But anything less, just tell yourself you’ll get by somehow. Less is more.
You’ll rarely keep something you’ll use again. Just the knowledge of the heap of junk is a mental drag.
If it’s really important, archive it. But anything less, just tell yourself you’ll get by somehow. Less is more.
And that’s why email compromises are so dangerous- aside from all different accesses tied to emails, there’s also a wealth of information inside the inbox.
archive.
I have partial/spotty archives going back to the early 90s, which then turn into a full archive starting in 2004. It's not often but there are plenty of times where it's been useful to be able to dig up some nugget from 20-30 years ago to answer a question. And also, sometimes it's just fun to go on a nostalgia trip
I have partial/spotty archives going back to the early 90s, which then turn into a full archive starting in 2004. It's not often but there are plenty of times where it's been useful to be able to dig up some nugget from 20-30 years ago to answer a question. And also, sometimes it's just fun to go on a nostalgia trip
I'm on the delete or archive + tag + clear trash every 3 months + export archive and delete every X team
A good portion of emails are basically a unified notification mechanism. Delete those once dealt with.
- Archive: Anything you have a feeling might be useful
- Delete: Anything you’re pretty sure would be useless in the future
This has always been my strategy, though some might say I'm closer to "archive almost everything". I still do a lot of deleting, though. Deleted mail tends to fall into the following broad categories:
- security alerts and passcodes - notifications for events happening in a different systems (e.g. Venmo payments, bank alerts, etc.) - receipts for non-durable things like restaurants
I guess I could try to move these more forcefully from email versus phone notifications, but this still is really low priority and it's kind of better to just deal with it in a batch at the end of the day.
This has always been my strategy, though some might say I'm closer to "archive almost everything". I still do a lot of deleting, though. Deleted mail tends to fall into the following broad categories:
- security alerts and passcodes - notifications for events happening in a different systems (e.g. Venmo payments, bank alerts, etc.) - receipts for non-durable things like restaurants
I guess I could try to move these more forcefully from email versus phone notifications, but this still is really low priority and it's kind of better to just deal with it in a batch at the end of the day.
Delete - if it’s important, then they’ll contact me again if necessary.
Archive everything team
Archive: Nothing
Delete: Everything
Delete: Everything
I occasionally mass delete useless emails.
Just keep everything in your inbox, find recent things by scrolling down, and anything beyond that is basically inaccessible, since the search is so bad
(I'm in camp archive everything, delete nothing; but see the Neither camp frequently in colleagues)