How much email do you get?

[kdonnel]

I have been helping my wife unsubscribe from mailing lists, primarily companies she has bought stuff from in the past, and it occured to me that a huge portion of my email is just junk as well.

I'm not talking about the emails that I never see that Gmail filters out but the stuff that is supposedly legitimately in my inbox.

Looking back through my email over the past month I average only 1-2 emails a month that actually provide me with information I didn't previously have or wanted to receive.

I can't remember the last time a person emailed me.

Has email become pointless?

 

[Dead2009]

Over 1K and it's all spam, lol.

 

[leeniewdw]

I use spark mail on my phone and have been pretty good about keeping it manageable with pins and snoozing, but recently got somewhat backed up. I decided to create a folders in gmail (web) for "needs action/review", a folder called "pre-Sept2021" and a folder called Oct2021 (they are actually sub folder of SEP, OCT under a 2021 folder). I put all the important/take action things in the "needs action/review" and then dragged EVERYTHING else into the "pre Sept2021" folder. Now everything that hits my mailbox I try to either unsub, delete, snooze, archive (general archive), or archive in the Oct2021 folders. I've had inbox zero most days. It's lovely.

(I've always been pretty good about deleting SPAM or moving it to the SPAM folder so it learns that it's spam, but my box was just filled with random stuff. Not all spam at all, just emails that are more like noise.)

 

[Christine]

Most of my email is useless. The only thing worthy I get are receipts from stores when I shop and that's only if I have some sort of rewards with them (Nordstrom, Ann Taylor, etc).

 

[leeniewdw]

It would be easier if my email is useless. I'm in several neighborhood groups that communicate via email. Live theater and concerts have my link to tickets (I don't like to put them in my digital wallet until it's closer to the event, so I typically snooze them). Stuff from MYChart or related to healthcare.

Sure it's not a lot, but even my (large) extended family uses email.

 

[OhDannyBoy]

Depends which email we are talking about.

My work email sends anything with the word unsubscribe in it to the junk folder and that works pretty well. I usually get anywhere from 20 to 100 emails a day regarding business at my main job.

I have a a few personal emails I use for different things. I have a few side gigs I use but never share the email address with anyone outside of a business transaction. I rarely get anything junk in there. I have a few that I use for signing up for free stuff or coupons or whatever I just know will be bombarded with junk but they are free so who cares. I have a notifications email for the various message boards I frequent and for facebook for people trying to contact me there. And I have an "important stuff" one for healthcare, banking, and stuff like that. that one I pay for and has a great spam filter on it.

 

[ronandannette]

I use a single email address (through my company's domain) for both business and personal so I literally get over a thousand e-mails a month; almost all of them are for work. My personal stuff (maybe a dozen pieces a week) gets moved into a separate folder. I get about 10 pieces of marketing spam a day; mostly from companies I don't really want to unsubscribe from, at the risk of missing something I would be interested in. I just delete them a few times a day and move on.

 

[Neapolitan Ice Cream]

Too much! For some reason I’m subscribed to a hardcore right wing opinion forum and can’t get off! As a lefty I find this highly irritating!

 

[soccerdad72]

100-150 per day, both personal as well as work. Probably 5% of it is useful.

 

[Meriweather]

Tons of junk in one email account and all of a sudden it is coming in my inbox instead of junk file.
My other email is good at catching it and I don't see it

 

[Mysterian]

.

 

[Miffy]

I'm a freelancer and get all my work through email, and since I'm not on any social media, if someone wants to communicate with me, they often send emails.

That being said, probably 75% of the email I get is unwanted and useless. I regularly unsubscribe from lists, many of which I'd never subscribed to, and the barrage may stop for a couple of weeks, but then it's back up to its old tricks soon after.

I have a rule, though: I never keep more than 50 items in my inbox. If I think I want to read something later and haven't yet, I'll either file it away--I have an organized email file system--or delete it.

 

[neverlandsky]

1% useful, recent orders and communication with Youngest’s school. The rest is advertising and marketing. I really want to downgrade my digital life and make it close to nonexistent as possible. That’s the ultimate goal. Like how things were in the late 90s early 2000s.

 

[BlueStarryHat]

I get on average about 40 emails a day to my main account. Stuff from my doctors, places where I've placed orders, and a few from newsletters that don't share your info. I keep it very clean. I have a Hotmail account for signing up for things like forums, game sites like Big Fish, etc. All the spam that generates goes there instead of my main inbox.

 

[hhisc16]

work email: filter blocks most junk
personal email: too much junk with no filter

 

[TippyThomas]

Depends on which email address we're talking about. I have a regular email that I use for signing up to websites services. That address is filled with spam, but I kinda expected that. My regular email gets one or two spams a week or so.

 

[Marrila]

Too much! For some reason I’m subscribed to a hardcore right wing opinion forum and can’t get off! As a lefty I find this highly irritating!

I'd unsubscribe and wait 10 days. Then I'd hit the spam button.

 

[Carol_]

 

[Julie's Haircut]

One old AOL e-mail address has over 9999 unread messages. It has to all be junk because I haven't used it in years.

Even with my current e-mail at least 90% of the messages are spam, promotional, advertisements, and other crap. I've tried unsubscribing from many; some worked, many didn't.

 

[taterheads]

Lots of emails about 10% are actually important. On gmail you can set your mail boxes so junk goes to spam or promotions immediately. Then I just click shift click and delete it all. It helps a lot to have the filtering tools. I use my personal email a lot though so I keep my mail boxes cleaned up.