Comments on: Emails You Should Delete NOW

By: Andrew Flusche

Andrew Flusche — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 01:23:52 +0000

@voila_marisa – Actually, information you delete on the computer isn’t usually deleted permanently. The average computer user probably can’t retrieve deleted emails, but an expert could.

By: voila_marisa

voila_marisa — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 00:58:20 +0000

Once an email has been sent to the TRASH
location, is there any chance of retrieval by others?

By: Michael Woods

Michael Woods — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 14:24:54 +0000

I tend to have all work emails redirected to a sky.com or gmail account, with a filter applied so that they don’t clutter my inbox. That way, even after spring-cleaning my work Outlook application, I can still retrieve emails from the archives if someone says “Remember that discussion we had in February 2006 about something or other…?”

By: Andrew Flusche

Andrew Flusche — Sat, 10 May 2008 18:48:08 +0000

@Christian – I guess I’m not a conventional lawyer. Seriously, I never delete an email that has value. Anything related to my clients or other business pursuits is saved indefinitely. I would advise that you everyone else does the same. But I don’t advocate anyone saving pointless little emails like I describe above.

By: Christian

Christian — Fri, 09 May 2008 21:31:16 +0000

I was searching on legal advice about deleting emails and found this article. It’s interesting to me that a lawyer is advising to delete emails. There’s two sides to this:
-Delete useless emails to clean up your inbox and protect yourself from putting your foot in your mouth (in certain situations)
-Never delete your emails so that you have them all for your records and accountability.

I always thought conventional business wisdom was to save all your emails no matter what. When searching on the internet, I haven’t found many opinions on this (I probably haven’t searched hard enough). So, what’s your legal perspective on this situation?

By: Andrew Flusche

Andrew Flusche — Sun, 30 Dec 2007 02:55:05 +0000

Jeanne,

I’m glad the post meant something to you. Ironically, on Friday I overheard a coworker say “I never delete any emails.”

Thanks for the comment!
Andrew

By: Jeanne Dininni

Jeanne Dininni — Sun, 30 Dec 2007 02:12:20 +0000

Andrew,

Great points! So often we tend to keep a huge number of e-mails “just in case” until our archives–if not our inboxes–swell to such unmanageable size that archiving an e-mail can feel somewhat like dropping it into the abyss!

I agree that we need to become ruthless in deleting unnecessary e-mail messages, and the end of the year would be the perfect time to crack down on our e-mail hording addiction!

Thanks for your excellent advice!
Jeanne