The transference of information and documents through email is unarguably fast, efficient, and more environmentally friendly than using paper documentation. In terms of how we communicate ideas, email has become the go-to method for sending queries, making statements, and delivering responses. But for as many conveniences as email can afford us, there are an equal number of inconveniences—most of which take the form of indefinitely stored electronic files.

While email can save a lot of time that was once spent communicating by other methods, it is necessary to spend more time organizing that communication. A survey conducted by Microsoft’s Hotmail concluded that 10% of users never delete their emails, and nearly 40% reported that they purposely use their inboxes as ‘a digital record.’ The result: wide-scale email hoarding. Adapted from the characteristics of compulsive hoarding listed by Elements Behavioral Health, you might be an email hoarder if you have:

• Excessive attachment to unnecessary emails—keeping them “just in case”
• Extreme clutter in your email inbox
• Inability to dispose of emails, especially junk mail
• Multiple folders containing useless emails that you refuse to part with
• The tendency to move useless emails from one folder to another instead of properly disposing of them
• Subscribing to seemingly useless email product and/or service updates (read: SPAM!) that you don’t even check
• Difficulty organizing your email or allowing others to assist you with organizing your accumulated email
• Procrastinating—saying you’ll clean it up and/or organize it but then always putting it off
• Trouble making decisions about how to categorize even the most useless emails

While it may not seem to be much more than an annoyance or a well-hidden mess, email hoarding can have multiple negative implications for a business, especially in the event that the company becomes involved in litigation. Not only does the presence of old emails increase the risk of liability, it also slows down the e-discovery process leading to the possibility of being sanctioned for failure to produce required documentation.
The good news is that email hoarding has a cure! With a clearly defined retention schedule, tools that enable users to simply drag and drop critical emails to designated folders, and automated archive and destruction of the remaining emails, hoarding can be avoided. Emails can be saved, stored, and disposed of in a timely manner, eliminating some of the risk associated with email.