Post date: Mar 17, 2017 9:28:10 PM
Take out the digital trash: Cleaning up Email, Apps, and Photos on Devices
Published on March 1, 2017
Note: This is my recent column in the Waterloo Courier, then posted to LinkedIn. As my hubby Mike would say, "Milk it!"
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/take-out-digital-trash-cleaning-up-email-apps-photos-devices-dargan
Last month we looked at how to do some simple maintenance on your computer: we’re not done, however, because most of us are too busy to stop to read every email and can easily get overwhelmed. So, it is time to look at your email and take out the trash!
Gmail is my favorite email client. It is easy to use and easy to maintain, but we all get a little lazy. Have you noticed that Gmail includes a search bar? Scroll through your email and notice the top 10-15 people and organizations sending you messages: type one of those names in the search bar and you may be amazed to see that you have 50 messages from Bed, Bath and Beyond or your sister.
If you use Gmail, your messages are divided up into three categories: primary, social, and promotions. If you don’t watch out, you will have hundreds of messages that you don’t notice because you only look at your primary set of messages. Periodically, you need to go through and delete old items in all three folders because otherwise you will fill up your free space allotted (15 gigs between Google photos, Gmail, and Google Docs/Drive) and need to buy more. So what should you do?
First, look at your main folder, or Primary, and find your email subscriptions and evaluate which ones you read. Maybe you get updates from the Waterloo Courier, WebMD, Prevention, Amazon, and several political organizations. If you find one that you no longer care about, unsubscribe: scroll down to the bottom of one of the messages and you will find a link to click on to unsubscribe. Then, use the search bar to do a search for those messages, click on selecting them all, and delete them.
Second, notice that those promotional emails from your favorite stores have deadlines, (this sale ends tonight). So if you don’t delete them in a fairly methodical way, they’re just taking up space. Again, search for the name of the store with the search bar and then click on select all and delete them. You will notice that some of these come to your Primary folder while others appear only in the Promotions tab, so think of promotions as trying to sell you something. This folder gets filled up fast and since many of the messages are for a deal that ends today or tomorrow, make it a point to go in and take a look once a month to keep it cleaned up.
Third, don’t forget the third folder, Social. You will find messages from Facebook, Google plus, Twitter, Goodreads, and blogs you follow. Periodically, you will want to clean this folder out as well.
Fourth, look at the spam folder because there may be messages in there that are NOT spam, so it pays to take a look. Before you automatically delete them all, scroll through. If you find messages that don’t belong there, you can move them out of Spam by selecting the button NOT SPAM.
Fifth, after all of that deleting, don’t forget to empty the trash folder! Free up space.
Sixth, cut through the clutter! If you haven’t used Gmail long, you may not know the significance of the “Important” label, which is like magic: it instantly identifies all of the personal email messages you have received. It can help you quickly scan your most important messages without a lot of clicking.
If you follow these guidelines, you should be feeling efficient, organized and on top of your game! But we are still not done. If you have a tablet, whether an iPad or Android device, this is a good time to look at the apps you have downloaded and determine whether you’re using all of them. Most of us use the same dozen apps on our tablets, while many of the apps we downloaded on impulse have never been opened. Get rid of the ones that you do not use, or take the time to try them out to see if you want to keep them. They are taking up precious space: depending on the device, you may get yourself into a situation where you have downloaded so many apps and taken so many pictures, that you’ve run out of memory.
Once you make the painful decision to delete those ten apps you have never used, you should look at your photos. Again, most of us use our phones and tablets to take photos and videos at events, often taking many photos that might be duplicates as we try to get one good picture and take a dozen. So you probably have some photos to delete from your device.
Again, many people do not realize that all of their photos are being copied to the cloud. If you have an Android device and use Gmail, look for your photos by going up to the list of Google Apps: there is one for photos. If you use an iPhone or iPad, you probably set it up to copy photos to iCloud. However, I have worked with several people who never logged onto iCloud and had no idea of what they would find there.
· A digital copy of your pictures “in the cloud.” This simply means that Google has your pictures on multiple servers. Again, most of us take multiple pictures and could delete one-third to one-half of the photos taken, either because they are blurry or a duplicate. Save your space!
· In addition, you will find copies of any documents, spreadsheets, presentations, or notes created. Not using that little free notepad app? You are missing out! I have lots of helpful reminders, family information, etc. on notes.
As with cleaning your house, doing the dishes or laundry, you are bound to download more apps, take more pictures and get more email, so your PC and devices will need your ongoing attention. However, using these guidelines can help you be more productive and be able to find that email or photo you’re looking for more easily.
This article originally appeared in the print and web edition of the Waterloo Courier on Feb. 28, 2017.
newsroom@wcfcourier.com Feb 28, 2017 Updated Feb 28, 2017
Send your technology questions and suggestions to Cherie Dargan. cheriedargan@gmail.com
Last updated March 17, 2017