Organizing email

[George K]

All of my email lives at Microsoft's servers (GoDaddy transitioned to them about two years ago) in an IMAP account.

I have emails going back to 1994. Yes, 1994.

I use Apple's "Mail" app, and it fits my needs, the search is good enough.

However, I keep wondering if I should download these emails to my local computer, and if so, what would be the best way to organize it all. If I had to guess, I'm looking at more than 50K mails.

I suppose I could cull the herd, but I'd hate to lose some of the things from old mailings lists, etc.

What, exactly, does "archive" mean? Just put everything into one searchable file?

[Mik]

Yeah, that's usually what it means, but that archive file is not usually very useful. If you open it finding what you are looking for is nigh impossible. They no longer look like an email.

I have emails that old too. Maybe I just don't know how to use the tools correctly.

[George K]

I think I can download all that stuff to my computer. If I switch email providers (Hello, Proton!), I might just do that.

I used to have everything organized into folders, but now , with IMAP, that's not as useful as it was.

Also, "Search" is pretty good.

[George K]

Another thing, I just don't want my email living at Microsoft.

I know if I download them locally, they'd also be living at Apple (in my iCloud account), but, they would at least also be living on my computer, in my living room, in my house.

[George K]

Another question: What to keep, what to delete (forever)?

[Klaus]

@george-k said in Organizing email:

Another question: What to keep, what to delete (forever)?

Simple. Keep everything, delete nothing. There is no reason anymore to delete anything

I have about 30K emails in my inbox that I haven't even read.

[Klaus]

Maybe you'll find this tool helpful.

[Klaus]

By the way, it also wouldn't be too hard to set up an IMAP server on your local network, migrate the emails there, and you could continue accessing the emails in the same way as before.

[Copper]

@george-k said in Organizing email:

Another question: What to keep, what to delete (forever)?

When they knock on the door with a subpoena you will wish it was all deleted.

Learn from Ms. Clinton.

[George K]

it also wouldn't be too hard to set up an IMAP server on your local network

@klaus how hard would that be for a non-geek like me?

I know I could simply download all my mails to my Mac locally, but the convenience of IMAP is attractive.

Keep everything, delete nothing.

Well, yeah, of course. But if I switch from GoDaddy to another service, and GoDaddy uses Microsoft Exchange, don't they all go away if I use a different service?

[Klaus]

@george-k said in Organizing email:

@klaus how hard would that be for a non-geek like me?

If you want to give it a try, check this out. I assume you do have homebrew?

It does seem to involve some fiddling with configuration files etc., so maybe it's not worth it.

[George K]

@klaus said in Organizing email:

I assume you do have homebrew?

That's where I stopped reading, LOL.

[Klaus]

I don't know what other hardware you have around. If you have a NAS, some NAS web interfaces make it very easy to install an IMAP server.

[George K]

@klaus just my iMac and a bunch of external drives for media storage, backup, etc. I've considered getting a NAS, but I don't see the advantage for me.

[Doctor Phibes]

I don't keep anything outside of work stuff, and that's mostly taken care of for me.

I've got better things to do than fuck about with old email. That beer's not going to drink itself, you know.

[Mik]

Funny, I purge my emails all the time. Weekly.

[89th]

I just have my gmail since (whenever I started). I do search it at times to find an old purchase or email address, otherwise it might be cathartic to just purge it all, man!