# How clean do you keep your email Inbox? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [August 19, 2011, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-clean-do-you-keep-your-email-inbox/593323 "2011-08-19T15:14:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![chiroptera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/df705f/32.png) [@chiroptera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chiroptera)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2011, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-clean-do-you-keep-your-email-inbox/593323/21 "2011-08-22T14:40:21Z")
I delete junk and spam but everything else stays. I have several different folders (gmail) and have archived mail going back…eight or so years, whenever I first got gmail. I never leave emails unopened, however (unless it’s junk or smap.) It makes me itch seeing unopened mail. ---
**Author:** ![Ephemera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8baadc/32.png) [@Ephemera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ephemera)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2011, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-clean-do-you-keep-your-email-inbox/593323/22 "2011-08-22T15:19:18Z")
I don’t tag or sort my emails in any particular folder, but I archive everything except things needing action or that I want to look at again later. I don’t like seeing emails in my inbox. It’s a compulsion. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2011, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-clean-do-you-keep-your-email-inbox/593323/23 "2011-08-22T15:55:28Z")
Inbox is only for stuff I haven’t dealt with yet. Obvious junk is deleted unread. Other stuff is read & either deleted if junk, filed if complete, or left sitting until dealt with. Nothing gets older than a week or so; the key to that is being realistic & not saving something because you hope to get to it in 3 days when you’re not busy. That not-busyness won’t happen and we all know it. It either has the importance to actually be worked, or it doesn’t and gets filed immediately. I am considering eliminating my set of categorical folders and simply having a single ginormous folder called “Done”. So the inbox remains just new stuff + work in process and everything else is either deleted or in Done. ---
**Author:** ![Yorikke](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yorikke/32/4335_2.png) [@Yorikke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yorikke)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2011, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-clean-do-you-keep-your-email-inbox/593323/24 "2011-08-22T16:59:12Z")
My wife keeps a messy box. Ahem. And it drives me bonkers, as much as it can, considering how seldom I encounter it. But the very idea of dozens of outdated and long-since-rendered-irrelevant messages just sitting there drives me nuts… Joe ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2011, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-clean-do-you-keep-your-email-inbox/593323/25 "2011-08-22T18:29:04Z")
I have a clean inbox and a bunch of folders - I file frequently. After a recent bout of having my email address co-opted by a spammer or whatever it was that happened, I really cleaned up my act, and have very few emails left in my inbox. ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2011, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-clean-do-you-keep-your-email-inbox/593323/26 "2011-08-22T18:32:50Z")
I delete messages as I read them. I have some messages from people I communicate with regularly. I click on one of those and reply instead of creating a new message from scratch. But I keep few others around. ---
**Author:** ![TreacherousCretin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/treacherouscretin/32/476_2.png) [@TreacherousCretin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TreacherousCretin)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2011, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-clean-do-you-keep-your-email-inbox/593323/27 "2011-08-22T18:35:16Z")
Very clean. Tossers get tossed, Keepers and Temporary Keepers go into designated folders. ---
**Author:** ![ZenBeam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/3ab097/32.png) [@ZenBeam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZenBeam)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2011, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-clean-do-you-keep-your-email-inbox/593323/28 "2011-08-22T21:14:16Z")
I mostly don’t delete anything, except routine emails that I get a lot of and can delete a bunch in one fell swoop. Anything important I keep, so I can (and I have) find them years later. Generally, emails older than six months to a year get sent to a year-named folder for this purpose. ---
**Author:** ![Dallas\_Jones](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dallas_jones/32/3277_2.png) [@Dallas\_Jones](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dallas_Jones)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2011, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-clean-do-you-keep-your-email-inbox/593323/29 "2011-08-22T21:26:05Z")
If there are more than a dozen emails in my inbox they need to be read, moved to an appropriate folder or deleted. I really don’t get spam. My wife shops and forgets to un-check the little box that says ‘please send me promotional spam’ but I go back into those accounts and reset the preferences. Then I wipe the whole thing down with Clorox. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2011, 5:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-clean-do-you-keep-your-email-inbox/593323/30 "2011-08-23T05:26:27Z")
I’ve never seen any reason to remove anything from my Inbox. If I do ever file something, I just use search to find it. And I will use filters to keep certain types of _new_ emails from cluttering up my Inbox. The old ones don’t matter, as I’ll never see them again unless I want to. ---
**Author:** ![RadicalPi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/radicalpi/32/9806_2.png) [@RadicalPi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RadicalPi)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2011, 10:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-clean-do-you-keep-your-email-inbox/593323/31 "2011-08-24T10:23:52Z")
I don’t think I’ve deleted more than two or three emails in the past ten years. My inbox has about 20,000 messages in it, including spam and whatever. When I need an old email, I can easily search through it. The two or three emails I have deleted were from people I didn’t want to hear from. So, instead of waiting for it to just disappear off the first page, I deleted them. ---
**Author:** ![sandra\_nz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/eada6e/32.png) [@sandra\_nz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sandra_nz)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2011, 10:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-clean-do-you-keep-your-email-inbox/593323/32 "2011-08-24T10:30:22Z")
I save emails from my parents on the rather morbid idea that it will be nice to read through them again when they’re gone. I save emails confirming purchases, then delete them once I have recieved the purchased goods/service in good order. Everything else gets deleted. ---
**Author:** ![dogbutler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dogbutler/32/428_2.png) [@dogbutler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dogbutler)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2011, 11:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-clean-do-you-keep-your-email-inbox/593323/33 "2011-08-24T11:07:10Z")
I keep emial conformations about online payments till the billing cycle, and I have a folder for any Booster Club related stuff. Otherwise I keep mine clean. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-clean-do-you-keep-your-email-inbox/593323.md?page=1)