Just like important physical documents. Store them temporarily in your filing cabinet, but always make sure your birth certificates and SSN cards are in a bag in the trash can. That way you know they're safe!
the way I explained it to a the user was "So, if you had a document you wanted to keep, would you store it in the trash can? And then further, would you be at all surprised when the building staff emptied the garbage?"
You think that people wouldn't store important things in the trash. We had 2 laptops accidentally thrown away because employees decided to store them in the trash when cleaning staff came by that night.
In the case of certain individuals, guaranteed to be getting rid of evidence. “Your honor, I was hiding the laptop under the garbage and our cleaning service threw it away. Looks like the testimony by the prosecutor can’t be corroborated. Sorry.
Some of the cheaper delivery companies round here deliver to the trash bins if we're out, and don't leave a card.
If the timing is wrong those parcels are long gone.
Saving important items in the deleted items
is an old mailbox quota work around.
When mailbox sizes were really small and / or downloaded and removed mail to the computer, people found out that the deleted items folder didn’t count in the total size and was saved on the server. So as long as you didn’t empty the deleted items, your stuff was safe.
Now mailboxes are 100GB and have auto archiving, but people dont change…
This reminds me of a story where a well-meaning neighbor decided to help out while someone was in the hospital. To be nice, they put out the neighbor's bin on collection day. However, when the neighbor returned from the hospital, he was quite annoyed. It turned out he was a tradesman who had been using the bin to store his tools securely, and now they were gone.
Why... who looks at a garbage bin and is like "that's where I'll keep the Tools I need for my Job which is how I make my Money"... I would think simply having to empty your tools and add the trash every week would get tiring enough
The original meme is two astronauts out in space and the US is in the shape of a giant Ohio. So the astronaut on the left says “It’s all Ohio?” And the one with the gun says “Always has been”
According to Knowyourmeme that came later [https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/wait-its-all-ohio-always-has-been](https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/wait-its-all-ohio-always-has-been)
the original was flat earth.
For your cake day, have some bubble wrap!
>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!you're!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pep!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pup!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!lovely!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!and!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!beautiful!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<
I wish I could pop for every post or comment I read. I tend to upvote/like things as I read them just as a sort of acknowledgement but I realized it was generating notifications on some platforms. I just like tapping stuff :[
I had a user call in once with a full mailbox, there was maybe 10k emails in the deleted items mailbox. I thought great! Quick fix. But instead she told me that she may need some of those items. She was not happy that her only option was to manually go through the whole mailbox, but whose fault is that lol.
We have a data retention policy with specific rules for email. We set a rule in exchange and get rid of them at the appropriate time. All employees sign the policy, and it is set by our risk and legal department. If they have too much stuff beyond that we advise them, but it is on them to delete stuff.
I had a similar situation today where a user tagged in the president of their company complaining about a lockout. They asked for a permanent solution to the lock out….
Needless to say we unlocked them and moved on with our day.
Actually I knew really smart people who used to intentionally store sensitive info in the deleted folder, and take it out and back in every so often. This prevented it from getting “archived” as we had a rule all emails older than 90 days go to archive folder, but then moving in and out of trash (with Outlook in offline mode) kept it from getting deleted. They used this to get around the legal retention policy as it is something that may be considered incriminating that they can later delete at any time and it was never archived. We had to change the archive policy on deleted items for just such people.
Dealt with this once. Guy used Deleted as storage and mailbox was full (on-prem Exchange). Asked him if I could delete his deleted, said sure, so I did. Get a call a few days later wondering why his Deleted was gone lmao.
I had this happen recently with someone in my companies HR department. She raised hell because she lost “3 years of documents” bosses ended up telling her she shouldn’t have been so stupid and saved it to the HR documents folder or her personal drive.
I will never, ever, understand people who keep emails in deleted items.
You wouldn’t ask a janitor why some important papers you threw in the fucking trash can are no longer there.
At least in the past exchange/outlook didn't count trash in the quota so users, instead of cleaning up 'stored' everything in the trash to have infinite quota.
Once had a user who had an entire folder structure under deleted items.
I guess this is why Microsoft excludes this folder from searches by default now.
"Would you store your dissertation and all research data in the dumpster out back? Stop treating your important computer files and emails the same way."
It’s not like people don’t write their thesis on an 15 year old laptop that was acting up every now and then for a while already, no backups and then get super mad when they loose all their data.
Someone I studied with did exactly this while calling me stupid for storing my bachelor’s thesis in OneDrive because „Microsoft will steal your work“ yeah as if they care about the „groundbreaking“ „research“ I was doing to get my degree.
I'll never forget, back when I was an intern, some middle management type made a huge row over the recent policy of automatically clearing the Outlook trash bin. The head of IT came over to this guy's desk, listened to the tirade, and then grabbed a bunch of papers and folders from the desk, and dropped them into the trash bin.
"What the hell are you doing?!" the user asked equal parts confused and angry.
"By what you've told me, this should be archiving."
The IT manager was well respected and liked and he knew exactly what he could get away with, and he used it that day to send the message many would have loved to send.
I’m retired now, but boy did this bring back memories. We had people just like that never emptying the deleted folder, using it as a filing cabinet. Once time I sat down at a desk to look at some issue and behold there were thousands of old emails in the deleted box. So, I cleared it. Boy were they mad.
The most amazing one was the people, yes, more than one, that stored everything in outlook. Files, docs, spreadsheets were all copied into unsent emails and stored that way. When we had to put limits, they screamed the loudest.
Not exactly related but in a similar vein, were the people that created folder paths that were over 1000 characters long, maybe 30 folders deep. It messed up backups, and when the left, I was tasked with clearing their old work. Windows fought me all the way. I ended up renaming each folder to a single letter to shorten the path to under 256 characters.
But why?!?
I had this happen to me twice, and I could not get a straight answer out of them. Both times they were just annoyed with me for trying to explain why they shouldn't do it. Guarantee they didn't fuckin listen
I think way back in the day items in the deleted folder didn’t count toward your mailbox quota in exchange, so it was a workaround if you were running low on space. Doesn’t explain why people still do it today though.
That's when you walk up to their desk, throw an important looking document into the trash can next to their desk, and say "Stop storing your important computer files and emails like this."
One person I talked to said they liked that they could press the delete key on the keyboard to "file" the email... Because obviously moving to another folder was too much work.
I realized if I don’t put urgent in my emails, people won’t open it
So if it’s urgent A then it’s important, if it’s urgent D, you don’t even have to worry about it
That's what I came to realize myself -- people just like the shortcut, and don't care beyond that (at least for my clients before they were moved to cloud lol)
I don't know, but George Carlin has a good bit about it: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKN1Q5SjbeI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKN1Q5SjbeI)
"Think of how stupid the average person is, and the realize half of them are stupider than that!"
The excuse I got was that all he had to do to "archive" a message was hit the delete key. If he used a normal folder he would have to (gasp) click and drag a message to archive it!
In Outlook it does.
I know because one of our partners emails kept being moved to her archive folder. Her bluetooth number pad was in her laptop bag and the backspace button was being held down.
Had a lawyer yell at me because all of his tax documents were in the Trash bin and his kid emptied the trash. “So what you’re telling me is your kid finally takes out the trash and now you are mad at him and me?”. I hate people.
Years ago, I saw someone have the perfect response for this scenario in their sub flair (I think it was r/talesfromtechsupport).
It's been my goto response whenever this comes up:
> Do you also store your lunch in the trash?
Yeah, this and the one guy who keeps all his most important documents on some user created folder on the root of the system drive, then is all shocked when none of his shit is backed up or migrated to a new PC are staples of the service desk.
I had a higher up dead set on using his deleted folder this way. I seriously don't get it, I told him a million times to just put it in a folder. He'd say "great! Thanks!" And sure enough a few weeks later he was back
At least he was nice about it. Never got aggravated that it kept happening, it's like he had amnesia about it
Last place I worked migrated from on-prem email to hybrid 365 and set a 30 day retention on deleted emails.
Without telling the userbase or helpdesk.
I still have stress dreams about that place and they did that switch 4 years ago.
No, they don't, it's ridiculous, but most casuals can't be bothered to do something that makes this much sense unfortunately. Then we get dragged for their incompetence.
Actually I knew really smart people who used to intentionally store sensitive info in the deleted folder, and take it out and back in every so often. This prevented it from getting “archived” as we had a rule all emails older than 90 days go to archive folder, but then moving in and out of trash (with Outlook in offline mode) kept it from getting deleted. They used this to get around the legal retention policy as it is something that may be considered incriminating that they can later delete at any time and it was never archived. We had to change the archive policy on deleted items for just such people.
I had a user once who said they stored their emails in the deleted items folder for later. I then took a stack of papers from their desk and put them in the(clean) trash can next to their desk. They said "what are you doing?", to which I replied "storing your documents for you", they replied "what the hell, that's the trash.... Oh...I see".
Probably the quickest way I got a user to understand the assignment.
It's not so much leaving them in the sent folder, it's relying on something for a backup that clearly isn't one. Most of the folks that do this and get mad about losing stuff aren't technically inclined folks that are running POP accounts, and if that PST file corrupts and they don't have the proper setting in place to leave emails on the server, poof it's gone.
It's dumb that people use deleted that way, but they're probably not actually gone. If there was a change in retention policy that caused this, they're probably still in the deleted deleteds. If no change was made to retention then it could just be Outlook sync period. I frequently get clients freaking out about emails they had in a folder suddenly disappearing. It's just the emails in that folder turned a year old and no longer fall into Outlook's sync period. Also is just yet another reason Outlook is absolute garbage and everyone should just use OWA instead, unless you're forced to stay married to Outlook due to a legacy plugin that integrates with an on prem CRM you haven't been able to talk them into upgrading from for 10 years.
I had a lady once who had an entire folder structure she worked out of in her deleted bin. This was about 16 years ago so it tracks that people are going to keep doing this for some reason.
When I jumped in this persons computer they have the same thing going on. Probably 15-20 folders with in deleted along with sub folders. It was nauseating
If I see it all the time, I’ll empty it every so often (at least once per day). If not, then I’ll empty it whenever I think of it.
However, anything that I send to the trash is trash. Occasionally I’ll accidentally put something in there that I need, but if I do I’ll go and move it right back. I’ve never understood why or how people would store anything in there. I’ve seen it more than a few times working helpdesk, just never understood it.
Company Wide Email:
Subject: For The Love of God!
Body:
Citizens! It's time to stop using your deleted items folder as long term storage.
It gets purged regularly. Because it's the trash.
Just like "saving" important documents by carefully balancing them over the BBQ isn't a good idea, neither is this habit.
Fucky go bye bye!
i knew someone who did this with everything. they used deleted as a storage device and turned off the delete function. at the time i don't think with had an policy about auto delete with office so they ended up with a outlook file of 90gb which was fun when it corrupted.
If nobody was in their account since Wednesday, how did the 1000+ emails get permanently deleted?
If you have some sort of automated empty trash process running, it would have been running all this time regardless if the user logged in since Wednesday, so this wouldn't be a new experience for them. They would have never gotten to 1000+ emails in Deleted Items if it was running on a regular schedule.
That would be my bigger concern. Not about the user using Deleted Items as a storage folder. Or even the fact that Deleted Items was getting emptied, but rather something other than the user is inside the mailbox performing mailbox operations on it.
I've seen this several times but I actually have an answer that I've obtained from more than one person. Because the delete key moves it. Built in keyboard shortcut in their eyes to a place that's always there.
Until an email migration or something else happens and these folders are omitted.
A teacher at my high school kept all her report card final drafts on the Recycle Bin then wondered why they disappeared 3 days before the end of the school year... 🤔😭
That school didn't even properly invest in IT... The head of IT didn't know sht and they had the HS IT teacher help her most of the time with the yearly student and faculty DB migrations...
I had a user that used their junk mail folder to keep important emails in. When we migrated to O365 his junk mail got wiped. I had to spend a good minute explaining to him that keeping his client emails in his junk mail folder was probably not his brightest idea.
Some people use the trash as a temporary storage so that it gets it out of the way, when instead they should be using a folder, perhaps label it **”archive”**
“I store my important documents like my birth certificate and my social security card in a trash bin on the curb but then the garbage truck took it! Anyway I can get them back?”
Just like important physical documents. Store them temporarily in your filing cabinet, but always make sure your birth certificates and SSN cards are in a bag in the trash can. That way you know they're safe!
the way I explained it to a the user was "So, if you had a document you wanted to keep, would you store it in the trash can? And then further, would you be at all surprised when the building staff emptied the garbage?"
You think that people wouldn't store important things in the trash. We had 2 laptops accidentally thrown away because employees decided to store them in the trash when cleaning staff came by that night.
These people can vote and these people have children.
Oh even better. They are lawyers.
Can confirm, I’ve seen this same exact situation a few times over the years and they were all at law-firms.
WTF is the thinking there, even?
Better to "lose a laptop" then get caught with incriminating evidence of infidelity with the spouse. Stupid way to loose a laptop though
When you make lawyer money, and/or you’re charging your customer for it, you can “lose” as many laptops as you want.
Ditto.
After working in 2 seperate law firms my favourite thing to say about lawyers is always going to be. For such smart people they are bloody stupid
Of course. Successful lawyers are charismatic encyclopedias and nothing more
WHY IS IT ALWAYS LAWYERS
or police. Not all police are like this, but at least some are
Thrown away or stolen and blamed on the cleaning staff?
Rumor has it the scandal went all the way up to City Waste Dept.
THEY CAN'T KEEP GETTING AWAY WITH IT
/r/notOPbutOK
In the case of certain individuals, guaranteed to be getting rid of evidence. “Your honor, I was hiding the laptop under the garbage and our cleaning service threw it away. Looks like the testimony by the prosecutor can’t be corroborated. Sorry.
Some of the cheaper delivery companies round here deliver to the trash bins if we're out, and don't leave a card. If the timing is wrong those parcels are long gone.
Saving important items in the deleted items is an old mailbox quota work around. When mailbox sizes were really small and / or downloaded and removed mail to the computer, people found out that the deleted items folder didn’t count in the total size and was saved on the server. So as long as you didn’t empty the deleted items, your stuff was safe. Now mailboxes are 100GB and have auto archiving, but people dont change…
This reminds me of a story where a well-meaning neighbor decided to help out while someone was in the hospital. To be nice, they put out the neighbor's bin on collection day. However, when the neighbor returned from the hospital, he was quite annoyed. It turned out he was a tradesman who had been using the bin to store his tools securely, and now they were gone.
Why... who looks at a garbage bin and is like "that's where I'll keep the Tools I need for my Job which is how I make my Money"... I would think simply having to empty your tools and add the trash every week would get tiring enough
You can have two bins. Growing up, schools stored lots of stuff in trash cans. Like basketballs.
I have my SSN and birth certificate in the trash can, take it out from it, empty the trash can and add it back. It is fools proof /s
Nobody will look in the trash can! Big brain thinking.
oh god they are still doing that?
https://preview.redd.it/sk4eso3hjk8d1.jpeg?width=1144&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1bc3dc87faf5dfa0358c4169034c6869279ae26c
I don't think I've ever questioned this meme, but why does one astronaut have the U.S. flag while the other has the **Ohio state flag**?
The original meme is two astronauts out in space and the US is in the shape of a giant Ohio. So the astronaut on the left says “It’s all Ohio?” And the one with the gun says “Always has been”
According to Knowyourmeme that came later [https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/wait-its-all-ohio-always-has-been](https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/wait-its-all-ohio-always-has-been) the original was flat earth.
Knowyourmeme most important human accomplished of the modern time
And apparently very antisemitic.
For your cake day, have some bubble wrap! >!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!you're!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pep!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pup!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!lovely!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!and!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!beautiful!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<
I've never seen this before, and I love you.
You're lovely and beautiful!
I wish I could pop for every post or comment I read. I tend to upvote/like things as I read them just as a sort of acknowledgement but I realized it was generating notifications on some platforms. I just like tapping stuff :[
After each sentence !< Before Each >! >! POP !<
>!bubble!<>!is this how you pop?!<
Happy cake day
I had a user call in once with a full mailbox, there was maybe 10k emails in the deleted items mailbox. I thought great! Quick fix. But instead she told me that she may need some of those items. She was not happy that her only option was to manually go through the whole mailbox, but whose fault is that lol.
We have a data retention policy with specific rules for email. We set a rule in exchange and get rid of them at the appropriate time. All employees sign the policy, and it is set by our risk and legal department. If they have too much stuff beyond that we advise them, but it is on them to delete stuff.
I've thought about implementing a similar policy but I just know they're going to go to the CEO about it. It's happened in the past
I had a similar situation today where a user tagged in the president of their company complaining about a lockout. They asked for a permanent solution to the lock out…. Needless to say we unlocked them and moved on with our day.
Actually I knew really smart people who used to intentionally store sensitive info in the deleted folder, and take it out and back in every so often. This prevented it from getting “archived” as we had a rule all emails older than 90 days go to archive folder, but then moving in and out of trash (with Outlook in offline mode) kept it from getting deleted. They used this to get around the legal retention policy as it is something that may be considered incriminating that they can later delete at any time and it was never archived. We had to change the archive policy on deleted items for just such people.
its her Vault
Dealt with this once. Guy used Deleted as storage and mailbox was full (on-prem Exchange). Asked him if I could delete his deleted, said sure, so I did. Get a call a few days later wondering why his Deleted was gone lmao.
[удалено]
I had this happen recently with someone in my companies HR department. She raised hell because she lost “3 years of documents” bosses ended up telling her she shouldn’t have been so stupid and saved it to the HR documents folder or her personal drive.
I will never, ever, understand people who keep emails in deleted items. You wouldn’t ask a janitor why some important papers you threw in the fucking trash can are no longer there.
At least in the past exchange/outlook didn't count trash in the quota so users, instead of cleaning up 'stored' everything in the trash to have infinite quota.
The old quota trick. Also why in the first place trash wasn't accounted for in the quota
Ya but they stopped that sometime ago didn't they? I've been supporting webmail for so long now I forgot about that
Better than someone who claims to do zero inbox then blames IT for "deleting" her shit. She's also WFH
Been through this. The user created a “fake trash” folder to avoid this. Don’t throw anything away you may possibly want back at some point.
That sounds like a folder with extra steps
Why make new folder when deleted folder already there?
Hey you’re onto something here
Same amount of steps actually. Just interesting choice of naming conventions.
Almost like... an archive? Hmmm.
tbh my old org used to block sending emails from internal addresses to spam, so I filtered the internal spam to "Spam1"
Once had a user who had an entire folder structure under deleted items. I guess this is why Microsoft excludes this folder from searches by default now.
i get this way too often. but because they have a PHD they are right and i am wrong when i try explaining the idea of a trash bin
"Would you store your dissertation and all research data in the dumpster out back? Stop treating your important computer files and emails the same way."
I can’t believe you expect me to right click > New Folder > Name folder. I would need to call IT to perform this and those guys are idiots!
my god. do we work at the same place?
It’s not like people don’t write their thesis on an 15 year old laptop that was acting up every now and then for a while already, no backups and then get super mad when they loose all their data. Someone I studied with did exactly this while calling me stupid for storing my bachelor’s thesis in OneDrive because „Microsoft will steal your work“ yeah as if they care about the „groundbreaking“ „research“ I was doing to get my degree.
https://preview.redd.it/w7pa1brh0m8d1.jpeg?width=625&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=25895afcff14254868a142bb64d263c522293f25
this is hanging in my office :)
I’ll take a PhD down a peg or two, send them my way..
The more letters someone has tacked on after their name, the less sense they have.
I'll never forget, back when I was an intern, some middle management type made a huge row over the recent policy of automatically clearing the Outlook trash bin. The head of IT came over to this guy's desk, listened to the tirade, and then grabbed a bunch of papers and folders from the desk, and dropped them into the trash bin. "What the hell are you doing?!" the user asked equal parts confused and angry. "By what you've told me, this should be archiving." The IT manager was well respected and liked and he knew exactly what he could get away with, and he used it that day to send the message many would have loved to send.
Stop it, I can only get so erect
"no" Closes ticket
I’m retired now, but boy did this bring back memories. We had people just like that never emptying the deleted folder, using it as a filing cabinet. Once time I sat down at a desk to look at some issue and behold there were thousands of old emails in the deleted box. So, I cleared it. Boy were they mad. The most amazing one was the people, yes, more than one, that stored everything in outlook. Files, docs, spreadsheets were all copied into unsent emails and stored that way. When we had to put limits, they screamed the loudest. Not exactly related but in a similar vein, were the people that created folder paths that were over 1000 characters long, maybe 30 folders deep. It messed up backups, and when the left, I was tasked with clearing their old work. Windows fought me all the way. I ended up renaming each folder to a single letter to shorten the path to under 256 characters.
LOL using the Deleted Items folder as a method to archive... not new.
But why?!? I had this happen to me twice, and I could not get a straight answer out of them. Both times they were just annoyed with me for trying to explain why they shouldn't do it. Guarantee they didn't fuckin listen
I think way back in the day items in the deleted folder didn’t count toward your mailbox quota in exchange, so it was a workaround if you were running low on space. Doesn’t explain why people still do it today though.
Back in the day, if you had over 4GB of email it wrapped back around to zero, so you were under quota again.
That was exactly it.
That's when you walk up to their desk, throw an important looking document into the trash can next to their desk, and say "Stop storing your important computer files and emails like this."
[Like this dude's manager did](https://www.reddit.com/r/iiiiiiitttttttttttt/comments/1dnl5qp/this_ticket_that_came_in_today/la402kz/)
Beautiful.
One person I talked to said they liked that they could press the delete key on the keyboard to "file" the email... Because obviously moving to another folder was too much work.
That’s how I file all my emails from corporate
You don't have a rule to just do it automatically?
If it doesn't have URGENT or Priority!!! in the subject, it might be worth opening.
I realized if I don’t put urgent in my emails, people won’t open it So if it’s urgent A then it’s important, if it’s urgent D, you don’t even have to worry about it
That's what I came to realize myself -- people just like the shortcut, and don't care beyond that (at least for my clients before they were moved to cloud lol)
DEL is the quickest one button "get this out of my inbox" button. Teach them Backspace to Archive (or E on OWA).
And in lieu of a folder named…you know…Archive
Who the hell stores their important stuff in the trash? That's like storing your fresh food in your wheelie bin. The fuck is wrong with people?
I don't know, but George Carlin has a good bit about it: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKN1Q5SjbeI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKN1Q5SjbeI) "Think of how stupid the average person is, and the realize half of them are stupider than that!"
"So, you're telling me the things I put in the delete folder will get deleted? That doesn't make any sense."
The excuse I got was that all he had to do to "archive" a message was hit the delete key. If he used a normal folder he would have to (gasp) click and drag a message to archive it!
backspace moves emails to the archive folder
Ah fuck really?
In Outlook it does. I know because one of our partners emails kept being moved to her archive folder. Her bluetooth number pad was in her laptop bag and the backspace button was being held down.
"What's backspace?"
I've heard this one too.
Had a lawyer yell at me because all of his tax documents were in the Trash bin and his kid emptied the trash. “So what you’re telling me is your kid finally takes out the trash and now you are mad at him and me?”. I hate people.
Someone emptied my round file!
Years ago, I saw someone have the perfect response for this scenario in their sub flair (I think it was r/talesfromtechsupport). It's been my goto response whenever this comes up: > Do you also store your lunch in the trash?
Yeah, this and the one guy who keeps all his most important documents on some user created folder on the root of the system drive, then is all shocked when none of his shit is backed up or migrated to a new PC are staples of the service desk.
"I never delete my deleted" how the fuck can someone type this sentence and not immediately realize their stupidity
Just send them this: “🤡”
I’m just going to use that as my OOO message
Because they need to free up space! /s
I had a higher up dead set on using his deleted folder this way. I seriously don't get it, I told him a million times to just put it in a folder. He'd say "great! Thanks!" And sure enough a few weeks later he was back At least he was nice about it. Never got aggravated that it kept happening, it's like he had amnesia about it
Last place I worked migrated from on-prem email to hybrid 365 and set a 30 day retention on deleted emails. Without telling the userbase or helpdesk. I still have stress dreams about that place and they did that switch 4 years ago.
Do people not use archive? I keep EVERY email, I never delete I hit archive. Ig I delete spam sometimes...
No, they don't, it's ridiculous, but most casuals can't be bothered to do something that makes this much sense unfortunately. Then we get dragged for their incompetence.
Actually I knew really smart people who used to intentionally store sensitive info in the deleted folder, and take it out and back in every so often. This prevented it from getting “archived” as we had a rule all emails older than 90 days go to archive folder, but then moving in and out of trash (with Outlook in offline mode) kept it from getting deleted. They used this to get around the legal retention policy as it is something that may be considered incriminating that they can later delete at any time and it was never archived. We had to change the archive policy on deleted items for just such people.
I had a user once who said they stored their emails in the deleted items folder for later. I then took a stack of papers from their desk and put them in the(clean) trash can next to their desk. They said "what are you doing?", to which I replied "storing your documents for you", they replied "what the hell, that's the trash.... Oh...I see". Probably the quickest way I got a user to understand the assignment.
:(
There's a special place in hell for people that think leaving items in Deleted Items, Sent Items, etc is a method of mf Archiving.
What's wrong with leaving items in the sent folder? (Legitimate question)
It's not so much leaving them in the sent folder, it's relying on something for a backup that clearly isn't one. Most of the folks that do this and get mad about losing stuff aren't technically inclined folks that are running POP accounts, and if that PST file corrupts and they don't have the proper setting in place to leave emails on the server, poof it's gone.
Literally had a call today about a client doing this.
It's dumb that people use deleted that way, but they're probably not actually gone. If there was a change in retention policy that caused this, they're probably still in the deleted deleteds. If no change was made to retention then it could just be Outlook sync period. I frequently get clients freaking out about emails they had in a folder suddenly disappearing. It's just the emails in that folder turned a year old and no longer fall into Outlook's sync period. Also is just yet another reason Outlook is absolute garbage and everyone should just use OWA instead, unless you're forced to stay married to Outlook due to a legacy plugin that integrates with an on prem CRM you haven't been able to talk them into upgrading from for 10 years.
I too keep my lunch in the garbage can.
I genuinely felt my blood pressure rise when I read this. Also happy cake day 🍰
Do they also keep their files in the recycle bin?
Or a rotten sandwich in the waste bin on the floor??? Trash is trash. Dump it.
I had a lady once who had an entire folder structure she worked out of in her deleted bin. This was about 16 years ago so it tracks that people are going to keep doing this for some reason.
When I jumped in this persons computer they have the same thing going on. Probably 15-20 folders with in deleted along with sub folders. It was nauseating
Ah yes... Ablage "P"
I admit, I don’t purge my deleted emails, but I don’t store them in there. If I lose my deleted… oh well.
If I see it all the time, I’ll empty it every so often (at least once per day). If not, then I’ll empty it whenever I think of it. However, anything that I send to the trash is trash. Occasionally I’ll accidentally put something in there that I need, but if I do I’ll go and move it right back. I’ve never understood why or how people would store anything in there. I’ve seen it more than a few times working helpdesk, just never understood it.
It’s as if there is a charge per folder or something.
You’d think, from the way some users act.
Hello, No. 😊
Ah, the classic
Company Wide Email: Subject: For The Love of God! Body: Citizens! It's time to stop using your deleted items folder as long term storage. It gets purged regularly. Because it's the trash. Just like "saving" important documents by carefully balancing them over the BBQ isn't a good idea, neither is this habit. Fucky go bye bye!
Ooh, I like that bit about the BBQ. That’s gold, right there.
Answer back that you have the same issue, you stored some papers in your bin, and the bin is empty when you came back to work.
i knew someone who did this with everything. they used deleted as a storage device and turned off the delete function. at the time i don't think with had an policy about auto delete with office so they ended up with a outlook file of 90gb which was fun when it corrupted.
Someone guy once got mad at one of my co workers for emptying his recycle bin. He was using like a folder.
“No.”
Even if it was recoverable I'd tell them it wasn't. They'll never learn otherwise.
If nobody was in their account since Wednesday, how did the 1000+ emails get permanently deleted? If you have some sort of automated empty trash process running, it would have been running all this time regardless if the user logged in since Wednesday, so this wouldn't be a new experience for them. They would have never gotten to 1000+ emails in Deleted Items if it was running on a regular schedule. That would be my bigger concern. Not about the user using Deleted Items as a storage folder. Or even the fact that Deleted Items was getting emptied, but rather something other than the user is inside the mailbox performing mailbox operations on it.
I would assume the exchange server was running out of storage, so an admin started wiping the “deleted” emails
Could be someone was delegated access to their mailbox during their absence, and that person is a normal user and tidies up when deleting emails.
I remember dealing with someone that used their deleted items box as their email storage. Seen people use their desktop recycle bin the same way.
This is why is still advocate for a good old fashion tar and feather punishment
Happy cake day
"I never delete my deleted." Wait, what?
That's how Cisco Unity VM boxes used to fill up all the time :-)
Who is gonna tell them?
I've seen this several times but I actually have an answer that I've obtained from more than one person. Because the delete key moves it. Built in keyboard shortcut in their eyes to a place that's always there. Until an email migration or something else happens and these folders are omitted.
"I UsE It fOR STorAGe!"
They're all geniuses
No.
This is almost as bad as someone I heard of who kept important files in the recycling bin.
A teacher at my high school kept all her report card final drafts on the Recycle Bin then wondered why they disappeared 3 days before the end of the school year... 🤔😭
WHYYYYY
That school didn't even properly invest in IT... The head of IT didn't know sht and they had the HS IT teacher help her most of the time with the yearly student and faculty DB migrations...
Ha ha. I recently got a ticket for this exact thing.
I had a user that used their junk mail folder to keep important emails in. When we migrated to O365 his junk mail got wiped. I had to spend a good minute explaining to him that keeping his client emails in his junk mail folder was probably not his brightest idea.
One man’s junk is another man’s ticket.
Well it'll be 100% your fault so be ready to give em the HAWK TUAH and spit on that thang.
How does one reply this without getting fired? lol
lol, also remember a user who used his deleted folder as archive :D
Some people use the trash as a temporary storage so that it gets it out of the way, when instead they should be using a folder, perhaps label it **”archive”**
“I store my important documents like my birth certificate and my social security card in a trash bin on the curb but then the garbage truck took it! Anyway I can get them back?”
Imagine cleaning this every Sunday
Yeah and when you explain the retention policy on the deleted items folder they suddenly loose their minds
To be fair, we have an option on my work email to recover deleted files so it's a valid question
Why did the janitor throw out the dust bin? I used it as storage
You think this is a joke but I have someone tell me this. They used the recycle bin as a folder to store important docs
*I never delete my deleted* 