I recently did a post on this topic based on a pilot I am running on my own Inbox with our classification software. Here’s an update:

    Number of days: 41 including weekends
    Number of emails: 816
    Total size: 21.9MB

Man, I get a lot of crap. Good thing I have this set up to route to specific sub-folder.

I need to do some spring cleaning and remove myself from these various lists or at least identify the ones that are of value (which very few seem to be). Also keep in mind, I am eating for two after picking up a departed co-worker’s mail.

My results are not atypical of what we have seen from our customers before they head down the road of intelligent email classification. This enormous volume of easily identified non-biz stuff not only makes its way to the Inbox but to the archive.

How big a deal is this? Go ask the person responsible for email retrieval/e-discovery how much they enjoy sorting through mountains of useless stuff like Joke of the Day, Fedex delivery alerts, or even Out of Office replies as they seek out requested emails.