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I have in the past (when disk was a lot more expensive than it is now) deleted email that I was sure I'd never care about -- archives from projects that had concluded, for instance, and mostly consisted of "hey, can you come into my office for a minute" type stuff.

But I've never deleted sent messages. I pretty much have every message I've ever sent, minus a few here and there that perished due to hardware failure. This is mostly for CYA reasons but also just because it's a useful personal historical record.

I would be pretty suspicious if someone told me to go through my workstation and delete messages pertaining to a certain subject.

Although there are companies which, due to the legal climate they operate in, have information-destruction policies (basically keeping stuff for the amount of time legally required and NOT A DAY MORE), having a policy that's in effect all the time is a lot less suspect than requesting specific emails be destroyed.




I don't delete sent message either, but I do go through my inbox from time to time and clear out things I don't think I'll care about in the future. That may very well bite me in the ass later on, but that's why god invented backups.




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