Um, gmail rules.

As an Apple user, I have a completely different system that I think works well.

I use this little key called "delete". And I get rid of all that shit that just sits around in my inbox that doesn't really need to be kept.

If Outlook was actually a decent piece of software, you wouldn't need a third party application to help you with your overly anal order of inbox folders.

I like the use of the 'delete' key. Just remember in the Law enforcement world, it is never truly deleted!

DB: Where do y'all work where you can just delete your business-related emails? The White House? I wish I could, but sometimes I'm required to reference them for various things (i.e billing, project history, proving someone is a liar, etc).

Wow, thanks for that!! I have a habit of keeping old e-mails since you never know when they can come in handy :D

Why go thru all that trouble when I can just use Thunderbird? It does that already

At work I generally have a finely worked out series of folders and PST's in which I keep things organized by subject, date and time.
Yes, I'm that anal little shit who likes to know where everything is at all times.
I don't think it would pay for me to get a third party app for something I do sorta naturally.
Cool idea however.

Oh Durban Bud! I'm sorry your work environment forces you to use things like Outlook. At least it's not Lotus Notes. That's almost as bad as getting scabies.

Don't feel bad for Apple Users. We have Entourage instead of Outlook. It's usable, but not great. However, most Mac folks have found a way to use Apple Mail or Tunderbird, or hell; PINE instead! (remember Pine? Unix interface, so streamlined... oh nevermind).

I never delete any email messages either. I have archives from 1994.

The company I'm consulting at right now automatically deletes received and sent emails more than 90 days old. A lot of companies are doing that these days to limit usage of storage space (*enron*cough). I've been there almost a year and a half, so I just archieve all of them in one big blob by month on the computer's hard drive. If I need to find something older than 90 days, I remember roughly when I got the email and copy that month's files from hard drive back into an Outlook temporary folder so I can use the Outlook search and sort functions. I look the email up by sorting "from", or "with attachment", etc and I only have to deal with one month at a time. It ain't perfect but it's worked well enough for me so nyeh.

At my job, we're not supposed to keep e-mails more than 60 days so that they can't be subpoened, in the event that we get sued.

I hate those little add-on programs, though. They tend to slow your system down and have the potential to attract spyware. Outlook 2007 is an improvement over 2003. The search function is much faster.

Hmm....this is ideal for me. Any idea if it's any better or worse than just using Google Desktop?

Now if they invent a tool that will search Outlook Public Folders, I'm there.

I attempted to download for my work Outlook but instead the download was blocked. The reason: "The category "Sex" is filtered." What does that mean?

I am forced by the evil amazon women's empire where I work and our all powerful IT division to use Outlook at work. It sucks donkey dick for many many reasons.

That said, If I were so bold as to add this little add on program, a Darth Vador like IT goon would appear at my door and I would be immediately transported to their own little Abu Ghraib aka "the server room" never to be heard from again...ya know kind of like Pinochet's Chile.

At the end of the dau it's just easier to be anal about pulling messages into files.

We can’t download anything at work without being a system administrator. We have an Orwellian internet policy. As the web guy for the organization, I am occasionally granted permission to download applications. This privilege has its advantages. ;-)

At work (Fed Law Enforcement) e-mail starts getting deleted if it is 90 days or older. If I need to keep any, I move them to a folder, archive them and burn the archive to cd or dvd, depending on size. I have five folders set up for certain topics. That is just internal email.

Searching on a DVD is a pain in the a**, better to just delete e-mails. External work e-mail I delete regularly. Don't need any of it coming back to haunt me....

Home e-mail is another animal entirely!! I keep all electronic receipts and archive to CD at home or onto my .mac account. I have to deal with PCs at work, why would I want that same pain at home. My house is all Apple baby!

DB: Awwww...it's okay to spell out the word "ass" on this site. Really, I'm cool with it. But your thoughtful sensitivity to not offend anyone is endearing.

I must be the only person on this planet who doesn't use Facebook. (Or have plans to do so.)

We don't like to think of ourselves as "shit out of luck" More “quietly superior.” But we don’t like to rub anyone’s nose in it.

Outlook is a lot better than some of the alternatives, like Notes... There's a lot of talk about re-writing Outlook from the ground up but that would be such a huge undertaking and with the softness in the Office app franchise, not something MS is likely to spend money on. On the flip side, they are encouraging companies to produce things like Xobni, to act as plug-in like functionality. There's a search program we use called X1 at work and while I don't heart it, lots of the LEOs do.

Outlook's built in search feature, unless you have WindowsSearch (or whatever they are calling it now) and Outlook 2007, is PATHETIC. Even when you tell it to search a subfolder it won't do it, unless you go in and select every goddamn one. I think I will test it at work, because hey, I'm in IT and I can.

I have about 2GB of email from my last job, which after 4 years doesn't seem like much. They vaulted e-mail so after 30 days you COULDN'T delete it, thus meeting the legal requirements.

TonkaManOR: Nothing is ever deleted, unless it's written over. Ask your computer crimes guy, he might enjoy the challenge. Hell, it might give him an excuse to get the new version of EnCase.

I do see one big issue with Xobni: How much data and what, is it sending to an external site where I no longer can control who has access to it? Is someone going to "monetize" my information, my PII if you will, and what are the risks?

DB: Thanks for freakin' me out, Carl!

A-S-S! Wow, that felt good!

I know I didn't mention it before, but it gave me a great big hard-on that you offered up the Xobni alternative like you did. Tanks boss.

Coppered, NB: even written over only once, there's a ghost of the original bits still left on the disk surface. There exists low level software to read these faint bits; that's why the government standard of obliteration when it comes to magnetic media is to overwrite it umpteen times with very specific bit patterns each time. This assures that the ghosts are completely unreadable.

Raybob: Well if I know what EnCase is, I probably know what it takes. ;-) 7 times is the charm, not 3, and if all else fails, break out the industrial microwave.