Are you sometimes overwhelmed with the amount of old mail in your private message inbox? What about all the messages in your sent mail that you’ll probably never read again? It takes a while to delete it all. On Gather’s side, it takes a lot of disc space to store undeleted mail that goes back to when you started Gathering. With this in mind Gather will be instituting a retention policy for private messages in the near future. The retention policy will mean that behind the scenes Gather will delete messages in your inbox and sent box that are older than a certain age. This is where we need member’s input.
How long do you think private messages in your inbox should remain in your inbox? Six months? Three months? 12 months? What about the messages in your sent box? How long should they remain before they are deleted? Please share your input about private messages in a comment below. Thank you!
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Comments: 86
So long as we can keep our email addresses invisible (i.e., can only email other members using Gather), it seems unnecessary to have this functionality on Gather as well.
Delphi Forums allows users to email each other from the forum itself, using the users' email accounts.
If this is not possible (after all, getting people to come to the Gather site is the goal, therefore removing mail on Gather may seem as though it would reduce page views on Gather), then I would say 3 months is fair, but there should be an option to choose to protect something from being deleted - similar to Gmail's starred option.
I dare say that I do empathize with the issue of disc space and I will try to delete 10 /day while I work which are totally unnecessary.
1) Allowing us to set the # of messages view at one time. 20 per page is too small. I have suggested giving us a choice of between 50 and 100 messages per page view. This will make mananging mail easier.
2) Creating and "Archive" Folder. This will allow us to save messages that are important and won't automatically be deleted.
3) Have a way to differentiate between group messages, and direct messages.
And To answer your question: "How long do you think private messages in your inbox should remain in your inbox?" I say 90-days except for those messages added into the Archive folder. Longer, if you do not create and Archive option.
That said, I would think about 2 months storage would be fine - very few people go on vacation longer than 2 months :-) without access to the internet...
I think all unread messages older than 3 months could be automatically deleted.
I have over 700 messages in my inbox and about half of them are unread.
As far as my sent box, I have 169 messages. Again, some of those I might not want to delete either.
BUT, if you really want an answer to your question - I keep my email inbox and sent files on my harddrive for two years.
Even a four month deletion would have deleted it yesterday.
Is Gather considering adding the "easy link" option to emails?
Thanks for the info!
I do not have many emails so it's easy for me to keep up with them. I like having a Gather email spot as it allows me to keep my Gather experiences easily accessible and they do not get lost in my more active private email.
Another possible option is to set a limit on individual disc space with a notice for when it's getting full [as do many email services]. This will let people know that it's time to cull their email and save what's most important. Then the responsibility would be the individual's with no repercussions, e.g. a member becoming unhappy about email deleted that they treasured.
As far as the 'Sent' folder goes ~ don't you know that every word I write is worth it's weight in gold [or maybe silver], LOL? Or not?
That would be a big problem.
Anyway, I want to save that. I'd prefer to see a size limit on space rather than a time limit.
2. I also like the idea of having the full email (and not just a "teaser) go to my personal email address.
3. What would be VERY HELPFUL is the ability to forward mail OUT of Gather TO my personal email account. Then even with the cutoff date, I'm not forced to lose messages I'd really like to keep.
I really do hate that teaser.
Now there are just under 700 sitting there and most of them I never read. I ignore the emails from groups and mostly miss the others due to travel. I can't get them organized and I don't have the time to go backward and delete them.
I know there are a handful that I wanted to save because I cherished the ones from Tom and you and a few other who don't work here any more. (tongue in cheek). Go ahead and take my mailbox and have your way with it. Scatter it to the winds and let me begin anew and not have to clean it out myself.
Is it at all possible (as others have mentioned) to restrict the number of messages one has at any one time, rather than how long they remain? Or is it possible to to give us a Save area or folder that will safely keep a given number of messages that a member wishes to save?
Whatever you do, please give us some notice before you make any of our private messages go poof.
If there was a small "saved" file so that we can save some e-mails that we consider important enough to save.
For instance, if we have a "signature thank you" post for when someone posts in my group.
Without a "save box" that is safe from deletion, then I would have to say delete the whole gather e-mail thing.
When I find out how to make a "hyperlink" for a post/reply, I will save that.
I agree with someone above though. If we have the option to receive emails into our regular email accounts, and we choose who's messages we receive and what groups we receive messages from, why do we need Gather Mail?
Someone suggested we should paste this messages into word. But, that's not always easy. My word program doesn't work well. Sometimes when I copy and paste, it freezes on me, and it stops working. Therefore, my messages won't get saved.
I guess I can always use my bookmarks to save the info.
Or do as one suggestion said, have a button that says, "keep this, until I personally delete it"
Most people have older emails that they want to keep for one reason or another. For Gather to simply go through and delete all emails that are older than X months is just asking for a lot of hard feelings in the community.
Another option might be to have a set storage amount that would trigger the removal of older emails. Perhaps we would be notified in both the Gather email and another private email when our used Gather email space approaches the limit.
I do wish that we could block senders without having to open the message, though.
I really don't know how long I would like the messages to be kept. 6 months? 12 months? How about 9 months?
The problem I have is that my Gather email box gets overrun with messages from one group in particular, making me more likely to miss something that I would like to see. Is there some way to block broadcast messages from selected groups while allowing it from others? Also, if the owner of that group were to send a private message to just me, I would still want to receive it.
If could be sure that I didn't miss something, I'd be more likely to regularly "clean out" my messages.
Anyway, I'd like to know for sure what the time limit will be, so that I have the chance to download any messages that I wish to keep to my own data storage. I don't see a convenient download option on the Gather email box itself, so it looks like I'd have to cut-and-paste.
I too have some messages I would like to keep. The Archive system sounds good, that or maybe limit the number of messages allowed and when they go past that number send a notice to the gatherer as a reminder. If nothing is done then I would suggest deleting the oldest one.
Thanks for asking.
Mass mail, junk mail get deleted on the spot. Messages from groups stay until the next one. Do what you need to do - just let me know what you decide so I'm prepared.
We'll let members know before making any changes and with time to save anything they'd like.