The Secret to Keeping the junk out of your Sent folder
Quick Tip: This will help keep the junk out of your sent folder and keep your mail file smaller.
Step 1: Create a folder called “Delete Later” (or just use the Junk folder).
Step 2: ALWAYS use Send and File instead of Send. If the message is important, it should be filed into the appropriate folder. If it is not, then file it in the “Delete Later” folder.
Step 3. Whenever you get a quota warning, start by deleting all the messages in the Delete Later folder.
If I had it my way, the option to send without filing a message would not even exist. I preach this method to my users and have seen some users trash 1/4 to 1/3 of all their sent mail using this method. That’s a huge savings of space and clutter.
If you liked this tip, please rate it and spread the word. If you didn’t, please keep it a secret.
Posted on December 21, 2010, in Uncategorized and tagged email, managing email, send and file, Sent mail. Bookmark the permalink. 8 Comments.
The Notes Guy in Seattle 
If you don’t like copies of your sent messages you always can hit ESC and “Send only” – No cleanup required.
🙂 stw
Quite true. But I found that a tougher habit to teach and often people want to hang onto the message temporarily even if they don’t want it permanently. If you always use send and file, the process is the same regardless of what you’re doing with the message. That’s one less thing to think about. Not to mention that you can’t recall a message if you use “Send only”.
Delete from Sent folder used to give me a warning (offering Remove vs. Delete) but just now it deleted without warning? I dragged (copies of, or references to) my Sent messages into other topic folders, but this time the Delete key really deleted, without offering choice, and copies (references) are gone from the dragged-to folders too! v8.5.1
Pete, check your preferences. Pull down File – Preferences. Click on Mail – Basics. Find the field labeled “When I delete any document in the Sent view” (You may have to scroll down to see it. Change it to “Ask me”. That should fix it. Also, you might want to check out my idea for an enhancement posted on IdeaJam. See http://ideajam.net/IdeaJam/P/ij.nsf/0/4E2EC41E5D1F15898625784200780502?OpenDocument
IBM follows ideas posted here and uses the popularity in deciding what to add to Lotus software.
Vote for it.
Go here to see more of my ideas posted: http://ideajam.net/IdeaJam/P/ij.nsf/profile?openform&id=B8D73ABD967EA7FA862573F5002364E4&view=ideas
Also, check out the ideas posted by the other Top Innovators at http://ideajam.net/IdeaJam/P/ij.nsf/topinnovators?readform
Cheers
Thank you! The “Delete from Sent” dialogue pop-up is indeed appearing again. I did check the Preferences | Mail – Basics checkboxes; however they were already checked; is it possible my visit “re-set” them? The only significant event in this history is that I had just recently connected to my network repository from v8.5.2 under Windows 7 (booted from a different hard drive in the same PC; the two were never online simultaneously). I appreciate this lively site!!!
Pete, I’m glad you find value in my website. The blog entries give something to start with, but the dialog in the comments is what gives it life.
This tip would be even more effective if there were a way to disable or remove the “naked Send” button, so that “Send and File” would be the only choice.
You’re so right and in the past I have tried to get my management to let me remove the Send button and rename the Send and File to Send. But it didn’t happen.