I know I’m a bit late to the party, posting my March sum-up being we’re in May and all… but here it is anyways 😉
As my shoulder wouldn’t allow me much time on the computer since the last March update, there isn’t really all that much to tell. So this one will be short and sweet 😉
E-mails:
Even though March decluttering was mostly about cleaning up my hard-drives. I couldn’t quite leave the e-mails alone 🙂
05.03.18 – 26.03.18 – Outlook file no 13 – From 10228 to 0 = 10228.
10 228 deleted e-mails – minus the emails that have ended up “permanently” in File no 1 (yeah, you have to read February’s update for this) which are 1527 added e-mails.That makes March/April = 8 701 decluttered e-mails
Hard-drive declutter:
Since my mid March update, I haven’t done much on the hard-drives either. You might remember I started out with about 1,001,766 files and 2,20 TB of data!
Today this is what my hard’drive is at:
That’ s 620 GB and 339 140 files deleted so far 🙂 Still way’s to go – but it’s gonna have to wait for a while.
As you all know – or at least some of you know – I’m working my way through my digital life.
After having deleted 35 360 e-mails in February, I decided to put the e-mail decluttering on hold for the month of March.
At the beginning of the year I wrote a little piece about ALL the data I have 😦 Stored on 8 external hard drive’s, 11 memory sticks, Dropbox, OneDrive, iCloud, computers etc.
Since a lot of the data are backups and backups of backups… I know a lot of the information is the same.
I needed a game plan: So I decided to put most of the data onto one hard drive. I’m thinking that this might make it easier to consolidate and find duplicates.
And this is what I did earlier this month. I consolidated data from all my memory sticks, 6 of my external hard drives + my Dropbox and iCloud photo storage.
This is what I ended up with – one drive with:
Oh boy! That’s 1,001,766 files and 2,20 TB of data – and that isn’t even everything!!!! I think I need to lie down
You might notice I only consolidated 6 out of 8 hard drives.. the reason?
One of the extra hard drive which has about 201 774 files and 95 Gb of data – will in it’s entirely be deleted – so no reason to add it to everything else 😉
The other one has my 2 computers Factory Resets + Image backup from when I installed windows 10. So these files will stay… this is non generational as I will need them if anything (God forbid) should happen to my computers.
Over the last couple of weeks.. Iv’e been chugging along, deleting a little here and there… and I’m currently at:
That’ s 600 GB and 330 748 files deleted so far 🙂 But as you can see.. I have a long way yet to go, before I’m done (sad face).
At this pace it might be months before I’m done.. but hey! This is my ONE big project this year, to get my digital life somewhat in check 😉
I know I’ve been a bit MIA lately… but as some of you know.. I have limited time I can sit by my PC (health reasons). So guess what! My allotted computer time has been spent roaming through my digital clutter.
I have mentioned before that I have a shit load (pardon the french) of data to sort through. There are music, videos, documents, e-mails, bookmarks, software… you name it, I’ve got it.
Three weeks ago I decided to tackle some of the mountains of e-mails I have lurking around.
You see, not only do I have a lot of e-mail hanging around in my daily used e-mail accounts. But I also have a bunch of backups. Backups going back to when I first started using e-mails in the early 1990s. Not only do I have backups of my personal e-mail accounts, but I also have a few backups from my work mail account (as I had a bit of personal stuff going into my work mail).
Believe or not – my last count wielded about 34 backups equaling 12,8 GB of data. Yeah, that read tens of thousands of e-mail (probably more like around hundred thousand e-mails)
A lot of the backup files has the same e-mails… mostly because I did a poor job at deleting old backups when I made new ones 😦
I know there are software out there, that will let me consolidate and find duplicates. But I don’t have any of this type of software on my computer, so I’m going about it the old fashion way.
I use Microsoft Outlook as my main e-mail program – and one of the finesses of that program, is that I can open old Microsoft Outlook backups (.pst files) within the program. Opening a .pst file as opposed to importing it.. means the file ads itself as a separate mail “account”. I like this because I can work on the attached file without mixing everything with my current daily e-mails.
Example of added files
To keep some sort of control this is how my process is:
I started out adding one file (File no 1) – cleaned the heck out of it (from 6687 down to 756).
Then I added a new file (File no 2) – cleaned that one down to what I wanted to keep. Then, since I knew some of the e-mail in file no 2, was the same as I already had in file no 1, I had to find a way to easily find the duplicates.
To find my duplicates – I do the following in the file I’m currently cleaning (e.g. File 2)
I mark all e-mails as unread
I mark all e-mails with a category color (red or blue or green….)
I change font color on unread e-mails to the color red. This is how to do that; Go to View, View settings, Conditional formatting, “choose color/font style for your unread e-mails”, Click OK, and OK again. While you are still in the same view – go to Change View, Apply current view to other mail folders, Mark the outlook file(s) you want this to apply for, Mark of “Apply view to subfolders”, and Click OK – and presto all unread email is now the color and font style of your choice 🙂
When all the e-mail left in File no 2 was marked with the color of red and with a category color, I moved the e-mails from File no 2 to File no 1.
Since a lot of my e-mails was already organized in a folder structure, I moved it to the equivalent folder in File 1. Then all I needed to do was go to the respective folders, sorted it according to date, and I could easily compare File 2 mails with File 1 mails as File 2 mails was the color of red and marked with a category color. The duplicates then was deleted.
As you can see, it’s easy to find the duplicates according to e-mail topic and date.
I’m using File no 1 as my default catchall, and as I’m going through and “nulling” out mailboxes, I am moving the keepers (well at least the current keepers), to File no 1 for comparison. Since not all e-mails are duplicates, File no 1 is slowly growing in size. When I am done going through all the other backups and extra mailboxes, I will perform a final cleanup of File no 1 to get rid of the “trash”.
Decluttered e-mails:
Now that I’ve semi explained my process – it’s time to get back to how I’ve been doing with my e-mail decluttering:
14.02.18 – To ease into it I started with my G-mail account (which was in desperate need of decluttering) – deleted 2421
17.02.18 – 20.02.18 – Outlook file no 1 – From 6687 to 756 = 5931 (this is my default move and compare file)
20.02.18 – 21.02.18 – Outlook file no 2 – From 6786 to 0 = 6786
21.02.18 – 24.02.18 – Outlook file no 3 – From 5166 to 0 = 5166
24.02.18 – 24.02.18 – Outlook file no 4 – From 377 to 0 = 377
24.02.18 – 24.02.18 – Outlook file no 5 – From 238 to 0 = 238
24.02.18 – 24.02.18 – Outlook file no 6 – From 1707 to 1121 = 586 (really, really old stuff – I’ll leave the rest for later)
25.02.18 – 25.02.18 – Outlook file no 7 – From 441 to 0 = 441
25.02.18 – 25.02.18 – Outlook file no 8 – From 1464 to 0 = 1464
25.02.18 – 27.02.18 – Outlook file no 9 – From 7568 to 0 = 7568
27.02.18 – 27.02.18 – Outlook file no 10 – From 550 to 0 = 550
27.02.18 – 27.02.18 – Outlook file no 11 – From 279 to 0 = 279
27.02.18 – 27.02.18 – Outlook file no 12 – From 441 to 0 = 441
28.02.18 – 28.02.18 – Outlook file no 13 – From 14187 to 10228 = 3959 (had a break – I’ll dive right back tomorrow)
By my calculations that should be about : 36 207 deleted e-mails – except – I have to deduct the amount of e-mails that have ended up “permanently” in File no 1.
File no 1 – new total 1603 minus old total 756 = 847 added e-mail
Which brings my total for February to – 35 360 decluttered e-mails
Adding it up with January’s and we get:
Bookmarks – 1625
E-mails – 35795
That should make the total so far this year =37 420 digital “items out-the-door” 😉
Now – wish me luck as I dive right back into e-mail hell!!!
I was thinking it was time to give you an update about how my digital declutter is going.
It’s taken me a while to post this January status, due to my head playing up again. When my headaches gets bad, I tend to cut down on my computer time, as hanging around the computer makes it worse. Which means I pretty much haven’t been on my computer, since… yep, you’ve guessed it, since last time you heard from me.
I had all these elaborate plans for showing you pictures of before and after for each bullet below… but for the sake of getting this post out there, I’m going to take a cue from John and Barb, at Decluttering the stuff and just write it all out.
E-mails – I’ve got a ton of emails to go through (thousands of emails) as I have a bunch of e-mail backup files (more on this later). For now however I’m just going to be digging into one of my everyday accounts, my main account. I started out with 2065, and are now at 1630. That’s 2065 minus 1630 = 435 e-mails decluttered.
Bookmarks – Deleting bookmarks turned out to be a bit of a pain –
I started out with almost 3000 bookmarks! I chipped away at it a little every day, and after a good week I was down on the 1200 level – and then – a hiccup!
Something went wrong with a synchronization between iCloud, Google and Internet Explorer.. and suddenly I had 3332 bookmarks in my Favourites folder. Noooooo!!! Guess who had to start over 😦
Thankfully I remembered some of the major deletes, so within a short time I was down to a more manageable number to chip away at.Today I’ve got 1375 bookmarks sitting nicely in my Favourites folder. So I guess that makes 3000 minus 1375 = 1625 bookmarks decluttered (decluttered twice.. mind you 😉 )
I have to admit, it’s been kinda fun cleaning up old bookmarks. It’s been fun, because the bookmarks shows where my interest and focus has been. I’ve been roaming through topics like cars, IT user equipment, minimalist wallets, DIY sheds, house stuff (for when I was building my house), travel, golf ++ just to mention a few. It’s almost like looking at old photos.. it takes you down memory line 😉
So here you have it – total decluttered =2060 digital “items”
Minimalist Sometimes 