How many emails are in your work inbox?

[Cheeesus]

I tried really hard to keep mine tidy in my new job, but it’s at 462 right now.
I might try and file them all.

I’m nosey, what’s normal? Does everyone else manage to keep it to unread only?

sixty three

Of which thirty are pinned ones for forthcoming meetings with external people.

I file others because the inbox is also a todo list

12

I treat my inbox as a "to do" list so only stuff that needs dealing with is in there

Some are e-mails I've sent that I move to my inbox so I don't forget to chase if I don't get a reply

A couple are non-work related

15, I also keep my inbox only for active messages, it's usually around 30. I still file them as I go by project, it has worked since email and folders became a thing and I'm too old to change now

In my personal inbox there’s 6, those are flagged things I’m working on and either need to respond to or need to do something/get a response. Once the action is done, the emails all get filed away into folders.

Then I manage the shared ‘department’ inbox, I don’t bother filing anything as it just causes people to ring me about not being able to find things. I flag things that are pending and then tick as complete when they’re done - any spam, newsletters etc just gets a tick, I don’t really want to be deleting anything from that inbox just in case. There’s about 10-12 things flagged at the moment.

How do people have thousands of emails in their inbox? Do you not feel overwhelmed?!

I currently have 45.

Once it's actioned, it gets moved to an inbox file corresponding to the electronic file on our case management system.

Every email in my inbox needs something doing for it, if it's just an out of office or similar, it's not getting past the pop up notification 😂

I’m a filer too! I only keep emails that need action in my inbox (currently 12), the rest are filed or deleted.
I’m surprised that some PPs haven’t got their IT depts chasing them to reduce their inboxes by doing some archiving, 10 years of email must be expensive to store 🤣

Our emails automatically archive, I think most work outlook emails do. We can access through archive manager. Think the cut off is a year.

Would be interesting to see what people’s jobs are and how many emails they get a day vs amount of emails in their inbox!

I can’t fathom how people can only have 20!

Aren't all these filed emails being stored somewhere? Moving the storage problem around 😀. I've found really valuable stuff in my emails because I can often remember a random key word or person in the email chain and find it like that.

Why would it be old fashioned?

I have over 30 customers I deal with daily, and another countless random ones.

Each customer can have literally hundreds of projects.

Why would I not create sub folders for the customers and then one for each project?

For me, personally, I find a blank inbox far less overwhelming and less cluttered.

If I need to search by any term I just change the search to "all"

None, because I file everything in named folders (and delete any spam etc). I couldn't cope if I left work at the end of day and there were unanswered emails still sitting in my inbox - they have to be dealt with.

Over 30k, currently a couple of thousand unread, I don’t file any, I just search when I need one.

Thirty or so, all current.

I file into folders and subfolders as I finish dealing with something, it's the only way I can keep track.

Probably thousands but I gave up filing them long ago as it's far easier to just search the inbox (I very frequently refer back to old emails and am good at remembering key words/names). I read all new ones daily and delete junk/marketing immediately so 0 unread unless I've been off work.

I think I have approx 4,000 and I reckon 2,000 are unread. I doubt I will ever read them.

I also have a rule applied which automatically files any email with the words 'Inclusion, diversity, racism, sexuality' and a bunch of similar words to folder named 'Pointless'
These then get auto deleted after 5 days so I never have to see them appear in front of me.
I feel so much calmer

I try to keep it below 20, or I find it stressful. I couldn't have hundreds.

I have 75k 😂 but all read and actioned. I guess it depends on the type of work. Mine falls into two camps 1) respond and it’s dealt with 2) part of a bigger project… but bigger projects often have lots of complexities and cross overs so don’t sit neatly in a filing system. I add the job to my list and then I can search with names or key words to find stuff really easily. When I tried filing, I had to search multiple files so that was a pain.

53, all needing action. I file them once they're done, or flag them for later if it's something I don't need to do for a while.

I don't get it, if you have thousands how do you know what you've done and what you haven't???

14 - I also treat my inbox like a to-do list and so it only has things in there that I need to action. Anything else gets filed/deleted pretty much immediately. My overall email volume is much, much smaller than it used to be though as most conversations tend to be on instant messenger or calls these days so it's easy to keep on top of my inbox.

I do a weekly cleanse and I have folders for everything - partly due to company retention poilicy (any email not in a folder now has a 60 day expiration and will be lost if not filed in a folder - which have 5 year retention)
but I hate having a full inbox anyway so have done this for ages (pre retention rules)
Every Monday I go through my inbox and file or reply or flag and get it down to no more than 20 - which is mostly follow up stuff I’m waiting on other people for. Then as I get them done I move to the relevant folder in my emails.
im not a particularly organised person but I do have adhd so it really helps me not become overwhelmed because otherwise I would just ignore them all!!!

so to answer your question - I currently have 17 in my inbox!

@SwedishEdith storage pricing is usually tiered, companies often pay much less per GB for archive storage than for inbox 😊

36, 4 unread
But I'm still fairly new to the company.

Ooooh do I win?? 45,016 of which 76 are unready 🙄

When I left my last job I had 10000. Took me all afternoon to delete them. They contained really useful info or sometimes kept them to cover my back. Fortunately I had a good memory of who sent what so no need to file them

But you can still search if they are filed - when you put into the search box you just click all files.
by creating files and moving emails to them (or setting up so key words always move certain emails to those files) it makes the inbox more manageable - although it sounds like you are already on top of things 😀

2 in my work email because I file things once I've dealt with them and use it as my to do list. To the extent that if someone messages me and asks me to do something I forward it to my email so I don't forget to do it!

Thousands in my personal email because I just let things sit there forever.