To ‘abandon’ my email address

[Lemonylemony]

I’ve had the same email for about 15 years since I left uni. It is completely out of control. I miss emails because they are buried in tonnes of mailing list crap. No amount of unsubscribing, filtering and streamlining I’ve attempted over the last few years have helped. I currently have over 65,000 unread messages.

I’m considering just starting a new email and leaving this one. Change my address with the companies/services I actually need to and go from there. AIBU? Or should I be devoting hours/days to clearing it out?

@BarbaraofSeville I feel you're being deliberately obtuse for the sake of an argument.

You are focussing on my specific example of how I use dead time to keep organized whilst deliberately ignoring the fact that it was an example of a wider point that the OPs issue is not solely down to spam/unsolicited emails. It's about not regularly maintaining her inbox to the point that it gets to such an unmanageable level she is considering just abandoning it.

65k emails in 5yrs sounds like a lot, but it works out at about 35 emails a day. Dealing with 65k emails in one go is overwhelming and feels insurmountable and like you must be constantly bombarded so you can never catch up. Dealing with 35 emails a day is easily doable but making sure to set aside the time on a daily basis is a habit you need to get into, even if it is just a few minutes of "dead time" you wouldnt even think of as being long enough to "deal with emails". Once you are in the habit of setting aside just 5 minutes to whiz through your inbox - dealing with the important emails (whether that's filing for reference, replying immediately, or flagging for later) first and then mass deleting and/or marking as spam all the other irrelevant stuff - then those 35 emails a day get dealt with immediately and dont get chance to build up into the 65k mountain of overwhelm the OP is feeling.

I'm not at all being obtuse, I'm expressing my frustration at a problem that shouldn't be allowed to happen. GDPR means that these companies should not be sending these emails unless specifically agreed to which I certainly haven't nor have most people, and I personally think 35 emails a day is far too many, especially as most are sent unsolicited.

Imagine if it was real rubbish. Someone drops a crisp packet in your garden twice a day. Of course, it only takes a minute to go out and pick it up and of course you'd never let it build up to more than even a few crisp packets, but that doesn't stop you from getting annoyed and possibly taking action against the litterer does it?

You wouldn't spend the rest of your life picking up crisp packets from your garden without doing something to try and stop it would you?

I think that even if you cull your emails regularly, some companies do send far too many emails. Just because I willingly bought something from a company 6 months ago (and had to provide an email address to do so), doesn't mean I want an email from them several times a week suggesting other purchases.

@m00rfarm

OMG - pretty much every email has to have an unsubscribe option on it now for GDPR purposes - whatever you do, do NOT move them to trash!

why not?

sometimes all you are doing by clicking the unsubscribe button is letting them know the email has been seen, and then they can spam you more. You think spammers give a shite about GDPR?

@FooFighter99

I'm not sure about the need for multiple email addresses for shopping, personal and other emails, that's what sub folders are for surely!!

I abandoned my first email address when I got married, set my self up a [email protected] email address and just made sure to change it with all the relevant companies. The I set up sub-folders within the inbox, so Bills; Personal; School and so on. That way, you don't have to keep signing in and out of different email accounts cos who could be arsed with that?!?!?

how do you know who sold your email address if they are all the same?

Don't ditch it and start again as you will have done nothing to address the behaviour that got you to 65k unread in the first place. How this happened is beyond me - I run a business and have zero unread email. I simply deal with things as they come in. Delete or unsubscribe if spam, mark unread and deal with in one go once a day if not, file in a folder if I need to keep for info but make sure it's marked red.
I like the suggestion previously of move the 65k to a folder and start fresh. Put aside 10 minutes every day to tackle the 65k using the advice above, such as deleting everything with the word pizza.

@BarbaraofSeville not every email is received because of GDPR abuse though

Some will be personal emails

Some will be from companies that you want to hear from

Some will be from companies you want to hear from, but that particular online flyer/promo isnt of interest to you

Some will be from companies you used once and had to create an account for and now they just send far too many unsolicited emails to entice you back

Some will be from companies that have mined your details

But regardless of which categories the emails fall into, if you don't deal with them regularly - in small manageable chunks - then the OP is going to be in the same situation in another 5 years. Even if she starts again and only gets 5 "genuine" emails a day, if she leaves them to build up for another 5 years then that will be nearly 10k emails ... better than 65k but a lot more than the 0 it could be if she just got into the habit of checking her emails daily and spending less than 1% of her day dealing with them

You could delete everything and then unsubscribe as new things come in. Depends how much is spam and how much is things you’ve subscribed to.

It took me 4 hours yesterday to sift through my work inbox. Skim reading/filing/deleting/flagging to deal with as appropriate.

With my personal box I currently have 80 unread. Mostly amazon re orders which have been delivered. I usually sort by sender then, using amazon as an example, delete. I have all orders on my account so don’t need to keep the emails. If you go into your amazon settings you can tick boxes to opt not to recieve marketing emails.

With newsletters etc that I don’t want I keep the last one and use the unsubscribe feature. Then delete and block sender.

Unsubscribe has been really successful for me I hardly get any spam. Gmail acct.

I also emailed all companies who sent marketing through the post as it was getting ridiculous. I mentioned on email dont contact me by post or email and they have all gone away too.

I do that @BlackbirdFirst then if they persist I return to sender.

I unsubscribed to boots yesterday. It apparently takes 28 days for them to stop sending you nonsense.

Sigh.