4 ms·

> People treat email has a permanent data store. Is this strange? I'll be trying to solve some problem, half-remember an email conversation from several years

> People treat email has a permanent data store. Is this strange? I'll be trying to solve some problem, half-remember an email conversation from several years ago on something relevant, and want to look it up. This feels like the most natural thing in the world to me, and it's not like the ability to save emails is new. Why, exactly, would a forced change of habits be for my own good?

esikich 4mo ago
No, not conversations, actual data. Think reports, invoices, large PDFs, etc. Emailing files to yourself, that sort of thing. Then they end up with multiple PSTs.
- pm3003 4mo ago
  Not even counting Sharepoint syncs...
- rescbr 4mo ago
  I very much prefer Outlook's indexing compared to Sharepoint's shitty UI and search capabilities.
  - thewebguyd 4mo ago
    I mean, yeah if your choice is between Email or SharePoint, email wins every time. But I've seen enough corrupted PST files in my days to never trust Outlook/Exchange as permanent file storage. Now with "New" Outlook you don't even get that, you get an ODT cache file, everything else is permanently server side in Microsoft land. Enterprise "productivity" software is fundamentally broken.
  - tevrede 4mo ago
    Copilot search is great for searching SharePoint
    - photios 4mo ago
      I came back to reread this last sentence three times. Well done, sir, well done!
      - esikich 4mo ago
        In my experience it is. Unless your IT leadership blew it on Sharepoint governance, which isn't MS's fault.
    - 7bit 4mo ago
      Yet Sharepoint remains slow garbage.
9x39 4mo ago
>Why, exactly, would a forced change of habits be for my own good? At the personal level, it wouldn't be. It makes a lot of sense, and I do the same with Fastmail. At the corp level where it's often in M365 cloud, you've got hard limits from Microsoft on one hand (100GB primary mailbox - period), and corporate data retention limits on the other. Legal often has strong opinions on how long you are allowed to retain emails which you may or may not be able to personally override. Could be just a few years, which forces a different strategy. I'm not sure on the details of Google, but one imagines corp workspaces have equivalent interests.
- int_19h 4mo ago
  I don't recall any kind of retention limits at Microsoft, at least not for engineers. My mail archives went all the way back to my hire date even 15 years later.
  - annzabelle 4mo ago
    When I worked at Capital One there was a policy of automatically deleting everything that had not been subpoenaed as soon as it was legal to delete it. Usually 3 years or so. Retaining longer was viewed as creating legal risk for future lawsuits. They didn't want to leave evidence lying around if they could help it. Edit: We were on GSuite.
  - hdgvhicv 4mo ago
    My company moved to a 3 year retention for legal purposes a few years ago. Somewhat annoying from a nostalgia point of view when I’d get mails pop up from 2095, but everything I need has been in jiras for the last 10 years.

esikich 4mo ago

No, not conversations, actual data. Think reports, invoices, large PDFs, etc. Emailing files to yourself, that sort of thing. Then they end up with multiple PSTs.

pm3003 4mo ago
Not even counting Sharepoint syncs...
rescbr 4mo ago
I very much prefer Outlook's indexing compared to Sharepoint's shitty UI and search capabilities.
- thewebguyd 4mo ago
  I mean, yeah if your choice is between Email or SharePoint, email wins every time. But I've seen enough corrupted PST files in my days to never trust Outlook/Exchange as permanent file storage. Now with "New" Outlook you don't even get that, you get an ODT cache file, everything else is permanently server side in Microsoft land. Enterprise "productivity" software is fundamentally broken.
- tevrede 4mo ago
  Copilot search is great for searching SharePoint
  - photios 4mo ago
    I came back to reread this last sentence three times. Well done, sir, well done!
    - esikich 4mo ago
      In my experience it is. Unless your IT leadership blew it on Sharepoint governance, which isn't MS's fault.
  - 7bit 4mo ago
    Yet Sharepoint remains slow garbage.

9x39 4mo ago

>Why, exactly, would a forced change of habits be for my own good? At the personal level, it wouldn't be. It makes a lot of sense, and I do the same with Fastmail. At the corp level where it's often in M365 cloud, you've got hard limits from Microsoft on one hand (100GB primary mailbox - period), and corporate data retention limits on the other. Legal often has strong opinions on how long you are allowed to retain emails which you may or may not be able to personally override. Could be just a few years, which forces a different strategy. I'm not sure on the details of Google, but one imagines corp workspaces have equivalent interests.

int_19h 4mo ago
I don't recall any kind of retention limits at Microsoft, at least not for engineers. My mail archives went all the way back to my hire date even 15 years later.
- annzabelle 4mo ago
  When I worked at Capital One there was a policy of automatically deleting everything that had not been subpoenaed as soon as it was legal to delete it. Usually 3 years or so. Retaining longer was viewed as creating legal risk for future lawsuits. They didn't want to leave evidence lying around if they could help it. Edit: We were on GSuite.
- hdgvhicv 4mo ago
  My company moved to a 3 year retention for legal purposes a few years ago. Somewhat annoying from a nostalgia point of view when I’d get mails pop up from 2095, but everything I need has been in jiras for the last 10 years.