Inbox Limit?

Hi Ramona

In the Preventive Browser Maintenance page, you say to keep the Inbox to a "reasonable size" and to copy messages to an archive folder.

What is a reasonable size?

Is there a known limit to the Inbox?

Does that include subfolders under the inbox?

Folders under that email account?

Should the archive folder be in Local Folders? The help system seems to imply this.

Thanks

 

I am sure that Ramona will agree with me on this. Reasonable means any amount of mail which is organized in a way that you can find it. I would never allow my active Inbox to exceed 100 messages, but I heard of people using 1-2 GB of mail, and then losing it. It depends on the amount of clutter that you can live with, but also on the possibility of e-mail corruption.
I think that the only place that it is reasonable to back up e-mail is on a CD .

 

trephin,

I do agree with Westside. I don't even allow 100 messages to accumulate, before achiving them to CD. If you use the CD Archive, all you have to do is pop in the CD to read, and to answer messages.

Ramona

 

Hi

So, is there something inherent in the number of messages or file size that leads to corrupting the mail account or the profile itself? Thus, keeping the inbox small will keep the profile healthy?

Since I use, install and uninstall extensions, I feel that I eventually have to create new profiles. I just transfer my mail, addressbooks, etc. Does inbox size/count contribute to profile corruption?

If you are just advising archiving the mail because of harddrive failure or whatever may happen, then I won't worry as much since I leave mail on my server.

Thanks

 

What do you save to the CD and after it is saved, how do you open it to read your old e-mail? Specifics, please

 

The link above gives the details on how to work, with, more specifically CD-RW.
It is from Ramona's website.
As for corruption of files, I don't have an answer since I consider risky to have a very Inbox, and, I can't even think at a large content. Until recently, ISPs did not allow more than 10 MB, and if you save any mail, why not save it, and in a way that it can easily be used. Probably, I am too distracted by e-mails with profound subjects which I can't even remove in part, or phishing attempt like from: BANKING MAIL FROM CHARTER ONE BANK, a bank which I have no idea where it is.
Really, it is matter of preference, but I would never trust a large Inbox, even if I knew what was where. The larger the file, the more you have to lose.
Actually, my largest file has 73 e-mails. However, with a business, it may be necessary to save large amounts of mail, years back. But, I would feel more insecure with it on a hard drive. Sorry, I can't answer to your question, as placed.

 

The size of the Inbox doesn't necessarily contribute to Profile corruption.

I archive in order to not lose mail in the event of a reformat, power outage, Thunderbird crash, or Windows BSOD.

Ramona

 

Thanks everyone for their replies.

I personally am able to leave mail on my server as well as copy my profile in its entirety on a regular basis to a separate harddrive. Not quite the CD archive in hand solution though.

Again, thank you for your replies.

 

I can leave my mail on server as long as I wish, although my ISP set a limit. Under my prsent set up, I need to be careful with my POP accounts, although IMAP account are much less of a worry. One account lets me set it up as IMAP, as well as POP, and I m ay end up switching to all IMAP,. on account of SPAM.
Even wkith Junk Controls, it is tedious. So, kleep down things as they were.

 

Ramona,
I would like to use CD's to back up my mail accounts but am confused by the instructions. What do you mean by:
archive@someplace.invalid
Am I supposed to substitute something for "someplace.invalid" or is that what I should use?
Sorry for being soooo thick.

 

ackerberg,

From the Solutions page:

Open the Browser
Access Mail & Newsgroups Account Settings
Click on New Account
Select: Email Account
Your Name: Archive
Email Address: archive@someplace.invalid
Select: POP
Incoming Server: archive.someplace.invalid
Incoming User Name: archive
Account Name: archive@someplace.invalid
Click: Finish
---

The archive@someplace.invalid is the email address that you will use for the CD archive. It is the "dummy" email address of the "dummy" account.

Is this what is confusing you?

Ramona

 

Yeah, I'm easily confused. Thank you Ramona for the info. I remember writing on the forum several years ago about archiving mail and I guess this is the answer which I have not seen before.