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Old 4 Oct 2018, 02:42 PM   #3
n5bb
Intergalactic Postmaster
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Irving, Texas
Posts: 8,925
There are various strategies you could use.
  • A Basic account costs about US $0.08 per day for 2 GB storage, while a Standard account costs US $0.14 per day for 25 GB storage. If that's your choice, then I would think that 6 cents a day is worth the reduction in your aggravation when you accidentally delete a message.
  • You could use an IMAP email client (such as Thunderbird) to move old messages off the Fastmail system to your PC. Then you can be responsible for keeping that local disk drive working. With Thunderbird you can easily move messages back and forth between the Fastmail folder and a local folder.
  • The most straightforward method of automatically deleting old messages while keeping certain marked messages is to change the advanced preferences for a folder to auto-purge unpinned messages in that folder older than one of the day interval choices. On my main Fastmail account I have the Trash folder set to auto-purge when the message is 180 days old.
    • So if I pin a message then delete it, that message will sit in the Trash folder forever (unless I manually force it to be permanently deleted).
    • If I do not pin a message then delete it, that message will be purged (permanently deleted) after 180 messages.
    • The Keep pinned on top tool (at the top of the message list) lets you easily see the pinned messages in a folder.
  • You can also use the various tools in the Fastmail system to find messages you want to manually delete.
    • The mail qualifier buttons at the top of the message listing (All mail,Unread, Personal, Notifications, Mailing lists) and the Keep pinned on top tool help you find messages in a folder which you don't need anymore.
    • The Sort tool (upper right above the message listing) can help find certain messages you want to delete (or from the Trash folder permanently delete).
    • Searches can find old messages you no longer need. For example, this search finds all messages received before January 2015 which are larger than 1 M bytes in size. You can then select some or all of these and delete them (moving them to the Trash folder, or if they are already in the Trash folder permanently deleting them).
      Code:
      before:2015 larger:1m
Bill
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