{"id":163218,"date":"2021-01-26T09:40:00","date_gmt":"2021-01-26T06:40:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/why-you-should-delete-emails-instead-of-archiving-them\/"},"modified":"2021-01-26T09:40:00","modified_gmt":"2021-01-26T06:40:00","slug":"why-you-should-delete-emails-instead-of-archiving-them","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/why-you-should-delete-emails-instead-of-archiving-them\/","title":{"rendered":"#Why You Should Delete Emails Instead of Archiving Them"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"ez-toc-container\" class=\"ez-toc-v2_0_84 counter-hierarchy ez-toc-counter ez-toc-custom ez-toc-container-direction\">\n<p class=\"ez-toc-title\" style=\"cursor:inherit\">Table of Contents<\/p>\n<label for=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-item-6a273989ebc28\" class=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-label\"><span class=\"\"><span class=\"eztoc-hide\" style=\"display:none;\">Toggle<\/span><span class=\"ez-toc-icon-toggle-span\"><svg style=\"fill: #dd3333;color:#dd3333\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" class=\"list-377408\" width=\"20px\" height=\"20px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" fill=\"none\"><path d=\"M6 6H4v2h2V6zm14 0H8v2h12V6zM4 11h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2zM4 16h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2z\" fill=\"currentColor\"><\/path><\/svg><svg style=\"fill: #dd3333;color:#dd3333\" class=\"arrow-unsorted-368013\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" width=\"10px\" height=\"10px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" version=\"1.2\" baseProfile=\"tiny\"><path d=\"M18.2 9.3l-6.2-6.3-6.2 6.3c-.2.2-.3.4-.3.7s.1.5.3.7c.2.2.4.3.7.3h11c.3 0 .5-.1.7-.3.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7zM5.8 14.7l6.2 6.3 6.2-6.3c.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7c-.2-.2-.4-.3-.7-.3h-11c-.3 0-.5.1-.7.3-.2.2-.3.5-.3.7s.1.5.3.7z\"\/><\/svg><\/span><\/span><\/label><input type=\"checkbox\"  id=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-item-6a273989ebc28\" checked aria-label=\"Toggle\" \/><nav><ul class='ez-toc-list ez-toc-list-level-1 ' ><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-1\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/why-you-should-delete-emails-instead-of-archiving-them\/#Gmail_Promised_Endless_Storage_but_Hasnt_Kept_up\" >Gmail Promised Endless Storage but Hasn\u2019t Kept up<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-2\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/why-you-should-delete-emails-instead-of-archiving-them\/#Free_Google_Account_Storage_Stalled_in_2013\" >Free Google Account Storage Stalled in 2013<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-3\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/why-you-should-delete-emails-instead-of-archiving-them\/#Why_Pay_Money_to_Store_Useless_Emails\" >Why Pay Money to Store Useless Emails?<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-4\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/why-you-should-delete-emails-instead-of-archiving-them\/#Yes_Those_Emails_Are_Using_a_Lot_of_Space\" >Yes, Those Emails Are Using a Lot of Space<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-5\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/why-you-should-delete-emails-instead-of-archiving-them\/#You_Dont_Need_Most_of_Them_and_Search_Isnt_Ideal\" >You Don\u2019t Need Most of Them, and Search Isn\u2019t Ideal<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-6\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/why-you-should-delete-emails-instead-of-archiving-them\/#Delete_Instead_of_Archive_and_Only_Keep_What_You_Care_About\" >Delete Instead of Archive, and Only Keep What You Care About<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-7\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/why-you-should-delete-emails-instead-of-archiving-them\/#In_the_USA_Emails_Are_%E2%80%9CAbandoned%E2%80%9D_After_180_Days\" >In the USA, Emails Are \u201cAbandoned\u201d After 180 Days<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-8\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/why-you-should-delete-emails-instead-of-archiving-them\/#Time_to_Delete_Those_Old_Useless_Emails\" >Time to Delete Those Old Useless Emails<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/nav><\/div>\n<p><strong>&#8220;#Why You Should Delete Emails Instead of Archiving Them&#8221;<\/strong><\/p>\n<div>\n<figure id=\"attachment_709697\" style=\"width: 650px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-709697 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.howtogeek.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/delete-email.jpg\" alt=\"Deleting an email on a smartphone\" width=\"650\" height=\"300\" data-crediturl=\"https:\/\/www.shutterstock.com\/image-illustration\/delete-message-custom-smart-phone-concept-220713244\" data-credittext=\"CLIPAREA l Custom media\/Shutterstock.com\" onload=\"pagespeed.lazyLoadImages.loadIfVisibleAndMaybeBeacon(this);\" onerror=\"this.onerror=null;pagespeed.lazyLoadImages.loadIfVisibleAndMaybeBeacon(this);\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\"><span class=\"imagecredit\"><a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.shutterstock.com\/image-illustration\/delete-message-custom-smart-phone-concept-220713244\">CLIPAREA l Custom media\/Shutterstock.com<\/a><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>We\u2019ve all been trained to archive every email we get. After all, we have basically infinite storage, and we can just find all the emails we need with a quick search, right? Makes sense. But that\u2019s a trap.<\/p>\n<h2 role=\"heading\" aria-level=\"2\"><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Gmail_Promised_Endless_Storage_but_Hasnt_Kept_up\"><\/span>Gmail Promised Endless Storage but Hasn\u2019t Kept up<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>Whether or not you use Gmail, it\u2019s important to understand that the idea of never deleting emails was widely popularized by Gmail. Before that, people <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/general\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"3\" title=\"General\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">general<\/a>ly deleted their emails regularly. You had to delete them to free up space so that you could get more emails.<\/p>\n<p>Gmail was earth-shattering when it was launched back in 2004. Google\u2019s email service delivered a whopping 1 GB of free email storage. That put its competitors to shame\u2014the free version of Microsoft Hotmail offered a tiny 2 MB at the time. Yes, Gmail launched with five hundred times as much free storage as Microsoft\u2019s email service. It\u2019s no wonder that Gmail became so popular. Its competitors <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cnet.com\/news\/hotmail-to-offer-250mb-of-free-storage\/\">struggled to keep up<\/a>, but even they added much more storage space.<\/p>\n<p>Google kept adding free storage space. In 2005, on Gmail\u2019s one-year anniversary, Gmail\u2019s free storage space was doubled to 2 GB. Georges Harik, the product management director of Gmail, <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.internetnews.com\/xSP\/article.php\/3494491\">said<\/a> the right thing to do was \u201cto keep giving people more space forever.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Why delete emails when Google will keep giving you more and more storage space until the end of time? As Harik pointed out, as <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/technology\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"4\" title=\"Technology\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">technology<\/a> advances, storage gets cheaper for Google and everyone else. Sounds good \u2026 but Google changed its mind.<\/p>\n<h2 role=\"heading\" aria-level=\"2\"><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Free_Google_Account_Storage_Stalled_in_2013\"><\/span>Free Google Account Storage Stalled in 2013<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>In 2013, Google set a limit of 15 GB of storage for a free Google account. That Google account storage was merged across all Google services: Gmail, Google Drive, and Google Photos. If you store 10 GB of files, you only have 5 GB left for emails.<\/p>\n<p>Google hasn\u2019t added any free storage since then. In fact, Google is taking away the free storage space it offers for photos.<\/p>\n<p>If your plan was to never delete emails and hope that Google keeps increasing your account\u2019s storage, that hasn\u2019t worked out. Your email account has been slowly filling up for the last seven or eight years.<\/p>\n<h2 role=\"heading\" aria-level=\"2\"><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Why_Pay_Money_to_Store_Useless_Emails\"><\/span>Why Pay Money to Store Useless Emails?<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<figure id=\"attachment_709698\" style=\"width: 650px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-709698 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.howtogeek.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/email-trash.jpg\" alt=\"Email illustrations going into a trash can\" width=\"650\" height=\"434\" data-crediturl=\"https:\/\/www.shutterstock.com\/image-photo\/group-emails-going-into-bin-metaphor-1201145350\" data-credittext=\"faithie\/Shutterstock.com\" onload=\"pagespeed.lazyLoadImages.loadIfVisibleAndMaybeBeacon(this);\" onerror=\"this.onerror=null;pagespeed.lazyLoadImages.loadIfVisibleAndMaybeBeacon(this);\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\"><span class=\"imagecredit\"><a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.shutterstock.com\/image-photo\/group-emails-going-into-bin-metaphor-1201145350\">faithie\/Shutterstock.com<\/a><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Here\u2019s the thing: Google sells storage as a sub<a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/download-scripts-themes-apps\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"9\" title=\"Download Scripts &amp; Themes &amp; Apps\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">script<\/a>ion as part of <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/one.google.com\/about\">Google One<\/a>. If you pay a monthly subscription fee, you get a lot more space to store your emails.<\/p>\n<p>Google isn\u2019t the only company that charges extra for storage. Microsoft\u2019s Outlook.com offers <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/support.microsoft.com\/en-us\/office\/storage-limits-in-outlook-com-7ac99134-69e5-4619-ac0b-2d313bba5e9e\">15 GB of free storage space<\/a>, boosted to 50 GB if you\u2019re a paying <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/microsoft-365\">Microsoft 365<\/a> subscriber. Apple iCloud email uses your iCloud storage, and Apple famously offers only a tiny 5 GB of free storage for all your device backups and iCloud data.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s why companies encourage you to never delete emails. They make a profit when your email account fills up, and you have to pay for a subscription to keep storing everything.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s a bit like a storage locker company encouraging you to never give away your useless junk. Of course they want you to keep it\u2014they make a profit when you have to pay to store it forever.<\/p>\n<h2 role=\"heading\" aria-level=\"2\"><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Yes_Those_Emails_Are_Using_a_Lot_of_Space\"><\/span>Yes, Those Emails Are Using a Lot of Space<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>But how much space are emails taking up, really? Aren\u2019t they tiny? They\u2019re just text, right?<\/p>\n<p>Well, if you actually have gigabytes of emails in your account, you know that isn\u2019t quite true.<\/p>\n<p>Sure, individual emails are small\u2014but they add up. If your email account is full, you have a lot of space used by useless emails. All those <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/news\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"2\" title=\"News\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">news<\/a>letters, notifications, alerts, and other junk you\u2019ve received over the years are likely using quite a bit of space\u2014when you add them up.<\/p>\n<p>If you\u2019re using Gmail, for example, the Google One Storage page shows <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/one.google.com\/storage\">how much space is used by your Gmail emails<\/a>.<\/p>\n<h2 role=\"heading\" aria-level=\"2\"><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"You_Dont_Need_Most_of_Them_and_Search_Isnt_Ideal\"><\/span>You Don\u2019t Need Most of Them, and Search Isn\u2019t Ideal<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>How often do you go back and search through or look at your old emails? Sure, you probably have some important emails you want to keep\u2014but most of them are probably not important at all. You don\u2019t need them, and you would never have noticed if you clicked \u201cDelete\u201d instead of \u201cArchive\u201d on that useless email newsletter.<\/p>\n<p>What\u2019s worse, having tens or hundreds of thousands of emails makes it harder to search for the emails you do care about. \u201cArchive everything and use search to find what you care about\u201d becomes hard when you have 200,000 emails lying around, and you\u2019re trying to find that one important email from ten years ago.<\/p>\n<h2 role=\"heading\" aria-level=\"2\"><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Delete_Instead_of_Archive_and_Only_Keep_What_You_Care_About\"><\/span>Delete Instead of Archive, and Only Keep What You Care About<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-709699 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.howtogeek.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/delete-gmail.png\" alt=\"The Delete button above an email in Gmail\" width=\"650\" height=\"242\" onload=\"pagespeed.lazyLoadImages.loadIfVisibleAndMaybeBeacon(this);\" onerror=\"this.onerror=null;pagespeed.lazyLoadImages.loadIfVisibleAndMaybeBeacon(this);\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Rather than archiving every single email you get, try deleting the ones you don\u2019t care about. You\u2019ll free up space, and you won\u2019t have to pay to store useless emails.<\/p>\n<p>If an email is important, archive that one\u2014or consider placing it into a folder or label that will make it easier to find in the future. But, even if you only archive the emails you care about (instead of all emails), you\u2019ll be a lot better off.<\/p>\n<h2 role=\"heading\" aria-level=\"2\"><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"In_the_USA_Emails_Are_%E2%80%9CAbandoned%E2%80%9D_After_180_Days\"><\/span>In the USA, Emails Are \u201cAbandoned\u201d After 180 Days<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>Those are all good arguments for cleaning up your email account, even if you\u2019re not particularly concerned about email privacy. But if you are concerned about privacy, know this:<\/p>\n<p>In the USA, emails are considered \u201cabandoned\u201d after 180 days. The government can look at these emails without a warrant thanks to the Electronic Communications Protection Act, a law passed in 1986 when electronic communications were very different.<\/p>\n<p>As <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.wired.com\/2013\/06\/how-ridiculous-is-it-that-email-but-not-mail-has-been-left-out-of-privacy-laws\/\">Wired<\/a> pointed out in 2013, \u201cIt\u2019s beyond ridiculous that email (but not mail) has been left out of privacy laws.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>There have been attempts to fix this loophole and require the government to get a warrant before accessing emails over 180 days old. The most notable attempt was in 2016, when <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/iapp.org\/news\/a\/the-email-privacy-act-what-happened-and-where-we-are-now\/\">the Email Privacy Act<\/a> passed unanimously in the U.S. House of Representatives and went on to die in the Senate. As of January 2021, the law stands.<\/p>\n<p>So, if you\u2019re storing a lot of old emails in an online account, you should keep this in mind.<\/p>\n<h2 role=\"heading\" aria-level=\"2\"><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Time_to_Delete_Those_Old_Useless_Emails\"><\/span>Time to Delete Those Old Useless Emails<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>Now you just need to start cleaning up all those archived emails you\u2019ve been dragging around for a decade or more.<\/p>\n<p>How you do this depends on what kind of emails are taking up space. For example, if you regularly get newsletters from newsletter@example.com and you\u2019ve been archiving them, search your emails for \u201cnewsletter@example.com\u201d and delete all messages from that sender.<\/p>\n<p>Here are some tips for freeing up space in Gmail.<\/p>\n<p><strong>RELATED:<\/strong> <strong><em>How to Free Up Space in Gmail: 5 Ways to Reclaim Space<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><script>\n setTimeout(function(){\n  !function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s)\n  {if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod?\n  n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};\n  if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version='2.0';\n  n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0;\n  t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];\n  s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s) } (window, document,'script',\n  'https:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/fbevents.js');\n   fbq('init', '335401813750447');\n   fbq('track', 'PageView');\n  },3000);\n<\/script><\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong><span style=\"color: #ff6600;\">If you liked the article, do not forget to share it with your friends. 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After all, we have basically infinite storage, and we can just find all the emails we need with a quick search, right? Makes sense. But that\u2019s a trap. Gmail Promised Endless Storage&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":163219,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.howtogeek.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/delete-email.jpg?height=200p&trim=2,2,2,2","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-163218","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163218","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=163218"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163218\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/163219"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=163218"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=163218"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=163218"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}