Swamped by Mail

[Dave2002]

email is now beginning to be a really big problem for me with a laptop.

I just looked at what Apple lists as major resource hogs on my MBP, and to my surprise mail comes out top, with over 90 Gbytes.
This is a real pain.

Of this mail, some will be mail I want to keep on the laptop, some will be mail I want to keep "somewhere", and a lot is now mail I'd be happy to get rid of.

Looking at my inboxes over recent months, I'm noticing more and more junk coming in. Almost every firm/website I've ever dealt with wants to send email every day - and this is getting ridiculous. I may occasionally want an email from one of these, telling me that there's something new, but more often than not the emails are not urgent, not really needed, certainly not to take up space on the laptop.

Some email messages are large, because they contain files or copies of things I really want to keep, and they have been sent by people whose messages I want to retain.

At one time most of the email which took up space was from me or my contacts, with useful data, but now I fear that this is no longer the case.

Is there any sensible way to backup email on Apple macs so as to get most of it off the MBP? Although the amount of mail is quite large and the size allocated is large, it is still less than 100 Gbytes, so would hardly cost anything much to store externally - (though in locations I have control over - not cloud storage), but having much of this on the laptop is really a great nuisance.

[Old Grumpy]

I look at all my email online and delete most of the type of stuff you describe without opening it. I don't keep anything on the laptop. I admit this may not suit everyone.

OG

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Blocking spammers saves much frustration. But unsubscribing doesn't work as well as it should.

[Pulcinella]

Perhaps I lead a simple life, but I have no such problems with any of my accounts (old BT, which still receives; icloud; gmail; even hotmail). The occasional email ends up in junk (usually when a contact's account has been hacked, or if it's a message from a new contact address with a very generic header), but (hope I'm not speaking too soon!) I get no other spam.
I seem to have sorted out regular mailshots (shops, banks, college, local events, etc) successfully by only subscribing to aspects I want to know about.

[Braunschlag]

I must lead an even simpler life. I don’t keep any emails after I’ve read them. Mostly based on the premise that if it’s that important they’ll get back in touch. Gets cleared and trashed around once a week and I don’t even bother archiving anything. Simples!

[Frances_iom]

Depends on what type of company you are running and what is the loss to you of losing emails - for small volumes set up 3 mailbox goups - wanted, possibly wanted, junk - delete junk daily (maybe automatic at shutdown allowing time for misclassifications to be detected) , 'possibly wanted' delete old 'hold box' at end of week and copy possibly wanted into hold (again automate), 'wanted' sort using your own system. Review 'possibly wanted' if you get follow up queries or suddenly realise that you should have replied on an ad hoc basis.

If it is bulk Spam that is causing the problem and your current mail program is ineffective, pay for your mail to be handled elsewhere with you merely checking their 'possible' spam rating. Running several mail addresses for different classes can work but leaks always occur as many simple domestic users get their email accounts hacked - a significant leak is of course the companies like Google that run 'free' email systems to harvest addresses sent to and received from - company email lists also generally leak as marketers can't resist temptation to misuse them.

[Dave2002]

I have found a partial solution, using Smart Mailboxes. Set up one called “Begins with A”. This should match senders whose email or name begins with A. Replicate and edit 25 times, for B, C ... X,Y,Z. Then open each one, and sort on the relevant field. This way it’s possible to delete hundreds or even thousands of emails quickly.

This isn’t perfect, but does make the clearing out very much faster. I used to sort just the main mailbox, but that tends to focus attention on the beginning and end of the alphabet, allowing a whole bunch of junk from others with an initial letter somewhere in the middle of the alphabet, which I never got round to pruning, to remain.

Deleting all mail as soon as received doesn’t really work for me, as sometime I want to access specific data from years ago.

Sometimes just one email saved might turn out to be important much later on - I don’t subscribe to the view that small things can be discarded without due consideration.

My only worry is whether the mail server will remember, and send them out again, which I suspect is sometimes a problem.

If it is obvious during the pruning operations that some senders are significant and unwanted sources of problems, then would be appropriate to unsubscribe - if that’s possible.

[eighthobstruction]

....don't highly rate/fancy your chances Dave if corona-vrus takes hold uk....you seem susceptible ....

[Dave2002]

....don't highly rate/fancy your chances Dave if corona-vrus [sic] takes hold uk....you seem susceptible ....

Fortunately that only seems to affect people, not computers!

[Frances_iom]

why do you leave mail on a server - much better to move immediately to something under your control and not that of an American? company

[Dave2002]

why do you leave mail on a server - much better to move immediately to something under your control and not that of an American? company

Good question. Probably laziness, and some aspects of convenience, though I assume that everything sent by email is effectively public knowledge anyway.

You’’re right to point this out, but should I:

1. Always download each email onto one designated machine which I own and administer
2. Use my own mail server
3. Use a UK based hosting service
4. Other?

I’m not sure that there’s a single good/right answer.

[Serial_Apologist]

Good question. Probably laziness, and some aspects of convenience, though I assume that everything sent by email is effectively public knowledge anyway.

You’’re right to point this out, but should I:

1. Always download each email onto one designated machine which I own and administer
2. Use my own mail server
3. Use a UK based hosting service
4. Other?

I’m not sure that there’s a single good/right answer.

It would certainly be an onerous solution, that's for sure!

[Frances_iom]

Good question. Probably laziness, and some aspects of convenience, though I assume that everything sent by email is effectively public knowledge anyway.

You’’re right to point this out, but should I:

1. Always download each email onto one designated machine which I own and administer
this is trivial just change the way you access the mail server
2. Use my own mail server
not recommended as you need to ensure you are fully up to date with various security features otherwise most receiving ISPs will mark your outgoing mail as spam - thus use a company hosted ISP but not gmail etc
3. Use a UK based hosting service
other Islands are available - in Europe German based companies are reputed to be most respectful of privacy
4. Other?
you can have an incoming only mail name which is the one which transfers mail to a spam filtering company and pipes back on a different but private address to you (ie a simple mirror with a filter in the middle) ; but you send replies from a different address using the reply-to (a by-product of this is you soon find out who uses an apple as their mailer does not it seems handle reply-tos in a correct manner) those replying to your 'no-reply' address can be ignored as if they can't handle mail correctly what use is the rest of their contribution

This assumes that really see enough problem mail to set up the mechanism tho once set up most is then automated

[Anastasius]

Can you not archive Mail by some strategy ? I use Year.

I also use Rules a lot to move emails according to a rule set into folders on my machine. I did come unstuck though recently as my mail is IMAP ...so moving the mail into a folder deletes it from the IMAP server. Not a problem until one day...I don't recall the exact circumstance but finger trouble on my part meant that the easiest solution was to restore from my backup. What I'd not realised was that my backup s/w had ceased functioning on a daily schedule (again..my fault). Regardless, when I restored it was to a datum point some 3 weeks prior and so any emails moved into folders inside that period went 'Poof' .

[Beresford]

You’’re right to point this out, but should I:
.......
3. Use a UK based hosting service
other Islands are available - in Europe German based companies are reputed to be most respectful of privacy

The German email server site posteo.net (small subscription) has a strong privacy policy, resisting even the German Federal Government's requests.
I don't use it, as I don't care who reads my emails. Also I suspect the service may be used by criminals.

When I was working as a volunteer for a charity, some hackers broke into our account on the email server. They used it for sending out millions of "adverts", and we were drowned with "reply: non-deliverable" messages, about a thousand each day, mixed in with about 30 real messages.