How bad are your unread work emails?

[RosieLeaLovesTea]

How bad are your unread work emails and how long have you worked there?
for reference I had 1700 unread emails this morning. After a couple of hours I have cut it down to 845. Still got a way to go. I have worked there 3 yrs.

I read all my emails every day and "file" them per client once actioned. I rarely have more than 20 emails sitting in the inbox. I'm there over a decade.

I have colleagues who just leave emails mount up in their inbox. One has over 7,000 (she was off yesterday so I had to check her inbox for anything urgent) though I'm unsure how many were unread. I feel I would never be able to keep track if I didn't file /archive them.

I should note, we are obliged to keep anything client related for several years but our emails "fall off" the inbox after 12 months so I dread to think what information is potentially being lost!

I always kept on top of mine and would not finish the day without opening, reading and deleting (where necessary) every email.
Had a colleague who rarely opened an email and instead just looked at it in preview which meant is was still classed as unread. Caused massive issues as he could never locate anything and people thought he was ignoring emails as a read receipt was never sent. He was eased out of the company.

I have none! I read every email, action everything or file what doesn't need my input. I get around 80 a day and only spend an hour or so at an actual desk. If it's rubbish I delete via my work phone or iPad on the go

Zero! Having any unread emails at the end of the day would stress me out massively. How do you know if you've missed something important?!

None. I read emails as they come in. Quick replies are done there and then. I flag others if I need more time to reply. Sometimes I just acknowledge with a thumbs up. Others I read and then don't do anything.

Depends on the organisation and role.

In my current role one has ever emailed me anything important, most of my emails are notifications or about charity cake sales.

If something needs my attention I get messaged on slack or a ticket is assigned to me that I can see on the board.

You need to filter properly. Set up folders for "cc'd to me" and filter any email where you are cc'd into its own folder for you to read "one day". If it's not important enough for you to be in the "to" line, you probably don't need to read it, especially when coupled with everyone's apparent need to cc the whole world these days.

I would add that it might be useful to set exceptions for emails from important people (line management etc).

I also set up folders for circulars (company propaganda / newsletters etc).

Separate folder for any project I'm working on, and one from my manager. All with associated rules.

If you can, encourage people to send emails to only the person they want a response from. If someone else needs to be aware, get the sender to put them in BCC so that nobody can "reply to all".

I used to receive hundreds of emails per day, most of which were dross.

Which is fine if answering emails is your entire job, or you don't get many emails.

Some people get loads of emails that alone require more work to deal with than their working hours and often they have more non-email related work on top, so it's just not possible to read and action every email as well as doing your actual job.

I use my unread emails as a todo list.every week I remove all the junk with a rule. And I usually get down to 20 at the end of every Monday.

I don't have any. Unread e-mails stress me out.

I don't have any unread work emails - just the thought of it brings me out in a rash! I read every single one - if they are junk, then deleted.
Every other email is dealt with, then filed in the appropriate folder. I can't leave the office happy if any emails are left "not dealt with" at the end of the day.
Worked there 8.5 years.

I use the same system for personal emails. It baffles me that people .leave things unread, or unfilled, because then they can never find anything.

I read them as soon as they come in, so I don't have any unless I have been out of the office, in which case I clear them as soon as I come back. I get around 250-300 in a typical week which may not be as many as some here.

I use this method for clearing my inbox:

• If reply needed and I can reply straight away, do this and delete or file email as appropriate
• File or delete as appropriate if no action needed
• If it can't be actioned straight away and isn't urgent, add it to my task planner and file the email
• If it's urgent but can't be actioned straight away, keep in inbox; file/delete once actioned

I try not to have more than about 10 emails in my inbox at any one time.

None. When an email comes in I will either reply, convert it to a task if I need to come back to it or delete. I try to keep opened ones in my inbox to around 50, though it can get up to 100. They’re usually things I need to get to as soon as I can.

I couldn’t cope with thousands of unread emails (at work anyway, my personal email is a different matter), it would be too cluttered for me. Someone in my office clearly uses her inbox as a filing system, thousands and thousands of emails that she has opened and dealt with, but she doesn’t delete, so it takes her forever to find stuff. I don’t know why she doesn’t delete - it’s only moving them to a different folder.

if I have a lot of emails to sort through quickly e.g. after a few days of back to back meetings etc., I sort them by ‘from’, quickly identifies guff, junk, and 15 emails in the same chain so can delete all but the most recent one if I need to keep it.

This is what I'm like. I've been in my job for 17 years and currently I have an empty inbox apart from 1 email. It sometimes build up to about 10, but then I panic and have to clear them down 🤣

That's what I did, go through emails by reading the newest ones first, so I read the final thread and deleted all others on the thread when I came across them. I think if you start with oldest first and read each one, you will never clear it. Prioritise those that look important.
By doing this I quickly cleared my emails after 2 weeks away, unlike a colleague who took several days just going through each email starting oldest first.

Also zero, following same strategies as other posters.

Personal emails is another issue entirely. I don't click on updates from amazon or lots of other random stuff. So I probably have thousands! Oh dear!

Posters who don't delete - if you're using Outlook, deleting is effectively just moving into another folder. They don't disappear irretrievably unless you double-delete them; i.e. delete them from the deleted folder. You don't have to worry about deleting them because you can always get them back if you need them.

@RosieLeaLovesTea dont have work emails but i do have 94,241 unread emails still in my inbox!

3500 in my inbox. It's fine. I know high level what comes in, deal with anything that needs to be actioned, and leave the rest as unread in case I need them in the future. I only file them when dealt with. Works for me. Been there 7 years and never had any issues. Amusing that so many people with zero can't compute that others can work effectively in a different way.

It's much better for your carbon footprint to fully delete the ones in your deleted box.

I create a rule on Outlook to filter the ones with certain words. All the ones I've excluded go straight in the deleted folder. Works a treat.

Currently 16 unread emails in my work mailbox, 2 came in after I finished. Others I have read and marked unread until dealt with.

Been there 8 months, previous mailbox far worse but was getting about 150 emails a day there

I clear them every day, delete stuff I get copied into but don't need to action, and then prioritise the things I either need to respond to our do something about. I work 5 in 4 and after that one day off I have over 100 so if I didn't it would get out of hand and I'd probably miss something important in the mess

Nil.

Unread emails older than a day make me feel physically sick.

I have previously used auto-sorting for emails copying in the entire agency so they are marked as read and plonked in a separate folder.

I also delete anything I don't actually need immediately.

None. I work in a professional role and only get about 50 emails a day that I need to look at but each email has about 20 minutes to 5 hours worth of work attached to it so I wouldn’t be able to cope with more than that. I can mostly delete anything else by just scanning the contents. We have a comprehensive filing system so everything is filed somewhere and doesn’t need to be kept in my inbox so can just delete and re find again late if needed. Surely anything that’s been sitting unread for longer than 2 weeks should just be deleted as in my line of work you’d already be seriously late in dealing with the contents of the email and matters would have moved on.