image by Nieve44/Luz on flickr
Full Inbox = No Email — if you are hosting your email on a web server.
This has happened twice in the past two weeks for two different clients…and several times for clients over the past year. I get a call from a client saying I can’t login to my email. The culprit: a full email inbox. I’m just as guilty as doing this as anyone else. Sure, we can always increase disk space – but in the long run that costs – for server space and for declining performance issues.
Let’s look at a several ways to resolve this issue and to prevent it from happening.
If you are like me, I tend to just accumulate emails in my inbox. This is not the way to handle emails. If your email is hosted on the same server as your website, you’re loading up your webserver. Yes, disk space is cheap. Yes, internet connectivity is fast..but, however minutely it is, the speed and ease at which others view your website is compromised.
Most web hosts give you an ample amount of disk space, but if your inbox is just accumulating emails, meaning you’ve read them but don’t delete them, or you don’t save them in local folders – even a lot of disk space runs out quickly…especially if multiple individuals within the same company are accumulating emails.
Let’s look at ways to prevent this from happening.
Delete Emails
The first option is obvious. Delete emails you don’t need. If you’re not sure, put them into a 90day local folder. (Create a folder called 90days and move them to this folder.) Make it a regular habit to review that folder and delete or move email accordingly.
Save Emails to Local Folders
Create local folders with appropriate names from within your email client. Click and drag emails you want to save to these folders. For example, I create folders with clients names. If I get an email from a client that I need to save, it goes to their folder. I may have multiple sub-folders for projects under a clients folder.
Set the Option to Delete Emails from your Mail Server
If you are connecting to your email through an email client (Outlook, Windows Live, Thunderbird, etc.) and using the POP protocol, check the option to delete emails from your web server. This removes them from the web server but keeps them in your local area.
What’s the difference between POP and IMAP?
These are the two protocols used for email access. A POP account downloads your emails to your local computer. To delete them from the server after downloading, be sure to check the option to delete them from server. If you are using an IMAP account, your email messages are stored on the server. The advantage of this you can access email from anywhere. The disadvantage is that it accumulates disk space if you are not managing your emails. Be sure to move emails to a local folder to prevent your inbox from getting full.
What do I do if I can’t login?
You can use mail2web.com to access your account till your disc space is increased by your webhost.
Other Options
If you want to keep your emails accessible when logging in from anywhere, consider Google Apps to handle your business email addresses. You get up to 25gb for every user and up to 10 email addresses free. For individuals, consider setting up a gmail account. See How to Run Your Own Email Through Gmail.
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