I'm still committed to clearing my inbox (but not my Gmail archive). I'm down to 9XX from 2XXX, and still hacking away. I can't live with the clutter. I've also made a commitment to reply to, delete, or archive a new email within minutes of receipt. Seconds, even.

Re: Gmail. Anything that may require my attention in the future gets a star. Once every few days I select all Unstarred and Archive.

Over the weekend I try to address the starred messages.

No deletes though. I don't have nearly enough volume to force me to run up against Gmail's storage limit.

I take the approach, both in work and personal email, of keeping things in one big Archive, keeping specialized folders for those things that I need to keep in a much tighter organization, and deleting other things.

I also like to keep things lean. At work, since we have an extensive archiving solution in place, I do tend to do some extensive housekeeping. Our Archive is searchable, so that works splendidly for me.

For Gmail, I may not clean the same way, but I do Archive to folders or delete.

I do like to keep my Inbox very lean, though. Even if I archive/file away an email, I will create a task out of it such that I can manage that deliverable/item in a different location. Doing so allows my Inbox to be less of a "To Do" list.

Canceled the yahoo acct don't even try to manage email online. Use Eudora to check the gmail acct.... every now and then just sort by sender (alphabet). the 10% or so that are from people I actually know (or remember) get saved.. the rest gets trashed.

The Tribune email policy was and is insane. Two decent-sized Powerpoints would easily lock my mailbox.

It got so bad that I wrote a script to offload my mail to a local folder every single day, lest I get caught with my precious 70 megs full.

Vacations, of course, were hopeless. A guaranteed lockup if I left my mail unchecked for more than a few days.

I can't fathom why large corporations continue to support closed systems such as Microsoft Exchange where there are many better options for much less (or free).

Great topic, Gus. I use Gmail and Macmail at home, Outlook at work. Every few months the oldest work email is automatically deleted, unless it is archived. Under a previous work email program I had organized dozens of folders by topic. After I lost all those when we switched systems, I made a conscious decision to let the email go. If it is something I think I will need to refer to, I print it out (not green, I know--but I do print on both sides and recycle the paper). I try to keep most of my personal mail on Gmail and use the Macmail at home for the more commercial email. There are currently 6139 messages in my Macmail inbox--I might delete some from time to time, but it is a struggle to keep up with them.

I've had Gmail for five years and only managed to fill up 20% of the space. Logically, I will be in my 40's before worrying about deleting anything. But by then, email will be obsolete and info will be beamed into everyone's brains via satellite.

I have to admit, Gmail has made me lazy as long as I search for what I need I usually find it. I usually star things I want to come back to like logins/etc.

At work I use Entourage on my Mac and use folders or else I would be lost. Who needs to delete emails when you can archive them and see them.

For large files, I just use my mobile me account. And google docs. Ah, "the cloud" is so nice.