So, did you do your homework assignment from last week?  You remember – you were supposed to find and determine the size of the folder that holds your e-mail files.  (And don’t tell me your dog ate it.)  I did my homework (a relatively easy thing for me to do as I assigned it to myself), and discovered that the folder located on my Mac at: petez (my user account) > Library > Mail was 146 MB in size.  Further in-depth analysis revealed that the single largest mailbox folder in my Mail folder was the “Sent Message” mailbox folder.  It was 64 MB in size, making up almost half of the entire Mail folder.

Why so big?  Because my Sent Messages folder is still full of the e-mail messages I sent in the last half of 2007 and the first few months of this year.  I choose to have Mail save a copy of every e-mail I send.  It’s a great way to keep a record of my correspondence (or lack thereof).

However, what makes my Sent Messages folder so big are the documents, photos, and other files that were attached to those messages I sent.  The attachments are “saved” in the Sent Messages folder along with the messages.

Do I need them there?  Nope.  Now, before you accuse me of being obsessive about this – after all, what’s 64 MB on Pete’s 500 GB hard drive moving over 800 megabit-per-second FireWire 800 or Gigabit Ethernet – hear me out.

You’ll remember in the last few weeks I mentioned that there are better, more efficient places to store data on your computer than in e-mail messages.  As it turns out, if you don’t use those better, more efficient places, you’ll almost certainly end up with multiple copies (and possibly versions) of your files.  These extra files take up hard drive space, and can slow down your applications and your computer.  Especially if your Windoze-based PC has to check them all for malware.  But, I digress.

Let’s use my bloated Sent Messages folder as an example, since I haven’t “cleaned” it in nine months.  Here’s what’s attached to my Sent Messages.

Photos.  Most of them are smaller (to expedite sending and receiving) versions of high-resolution family photos from my iPhoto Library.  As I have the originals in iPhoto, and it’s incredibly easy to re-address and re-attach photos to e-mail messages from within iPhoto, I don’t need those smaller versions anymore.

Movies.  Only really small ones, as my Internet service provider caps the size of e-mail messages.  If they’re a personal family movie I’ve sent to family or friends, the originals are in iMovie.  If they’re an interesting or humorous movie someone sent me (like cats boxing) that I’ve forwarded, I’ve most likely placed a copy in my Movies folder.

Text documents (like these articles and columns).  I, of course, store the original version of every MS Word document I send to the Times Record in a folder to archive them for my eventual Pulitzer consideration.  No need to keep an extra in my Sent Messages folder.

So, how do I combat Sent Messages bloat?  Every six months or so I go through my Sent Messages folder and delete every message that contains data or attachments that I know are stored elsewhere on my computer.  If I’m unsure, I take a moment to “mine” important data and attachments – add recipients to my Address Book, import photos into iPhoto or other locations, etc.  Then, I delete them and empty the Trash.

Next time we’ll take one more look at e-mail management and explore some methods to archive your old important messages to make room for your new important messages.