k_ctbz,,,, k_disk_hog

Accidentally and intentionally, Gmail is becoming an important archive of my life

• accidental .. so much important info buried in my gmail
• intentonal .. I avoid instant messaging for important communication

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Based on educated guess (without enough evidence) I perceive two main categories of gmail disk hogs — AAttachment and RRepeated system-generated mails. See also AAA defind below.

Q: what if I don’t have time to (find and) delete thousands of worthless old emails?
%%A: I think they will stay in gmail account indefinitely. Not a big headache if footprint small. I think this is a benefit/tcost decision.

For AA (including AAA), I now use a combination of larger:1M and before:xxxx. Removing these AA items could free up at most 1GB. So how about RR?

I first go to the builtin PromotionTab, SocialTab, and ForumTab. These tabs tend to have usuallly worthless mails. These are often RR mails but not always. Once I wipe out those tabs, I look for any sender with high RR rate. I put such a sender into  theSearchBox and count the hits. If hundreds of hits, then we have a big red sender. I can then delete all the hits or move them to ForumTab. The UpdatesTab unfortunately has a huge mix of important/unimportant items, so I propose to designate ForumTab as Temp_Important.

best_practice ==> I have realized it is so important to be proactive about unsubscribing-ASAP esp. in UpdatesTab. In office mail box, I can ask tech support to help, but with Gmail, I must declutter by myself!

Extra 100GB storage costs SGD 28/Y, or SGD 300 for 10Y… affordable.

— (I often feel unsure about …) in gmail, all 5 tabs are part of a huge “inbox”. So “skip inbox” will make the new message go straight to archive, and disappear from all 5 tabs … not good, because I want to keep those messages in those tabs.

— identify individual disk hogs (usually AA items) .. gmail -> search -> specify size, but leave other settings unchanged.

You should see “larger:5M” as the only searchString_in_the_searchBox. You can also specify within 1Y of “today” and you will see “before:yyyymmdd after:yyyymmdd”. You can then remove the “after….”

best_practice ==> incoming large emails .. send straight to trash (30D expiry) rather than archive. Once achived, they tend to disappear into the dune (of emails)

Sugg: I have a tried-n-tested gmail tag for “attachments”. Drill into the tag -> its earliest segment -> delete (all AA) items selectively one by one. AAA [i.e. Ancient mails with attachments] tend to be worth-less. 

— Common practice: Using gmail as permanent archive for specific “data assets”
* is unsuitable for heavy items such as AAA. Alternatives? gDrive [categorization, easier eviction]
* is convenient for small items. Gmail offers history and context. Less than 0.1% of regular gmail items deserve permanent archiving.

— specific case: pff RR emails [banks, brokers,,,] .. Some are AA items.
I usually _need_ to keep recent 1Y-3Y history.

Sugg: set up Gmail filter to label them, and move them to ForumTab. Have a habit to monitor them.

— specific case: wpress RR mails .. I now apply a label. This way, I can see an unread_count (and total_count) on that label. Most of these mails are worth keeping for 1Y, and safe to delete even for those generated yesterday.

— risk of deleting “good” mails.. Any search-n-mass-delete operation is inevitably imprecise. It is prone to false-positive error i.e. deleting a “good” email that appears worthless based on search criteria.

We have to accept the “risk” in the risk-reward equation. We have to recognize the “tcost” in the cost-benefit equation — more effort/legwork could reduce those inevitable false-positives but is it worth the tcost?

best_practice ==> Here’s one way (as of 2023) to assess the false-positive rate — I go into trash folder, and randomly checks a given page. Suppose there are 55,000+ mails in trash, there will be about 550 pages. If I randomly visits /p77, I will get to see the 100 mails on that page. (It’s useful to display them on a long monitor in portrait orientation.) If I don’t see any false-positive on 5 pages, then I feel reassured.