I was laid up this past week with a sore throat and hacking cough. Didn't feel like doing much but I had my phone and something like 350 unread messages. Not truly unread - I knew about them but was keeping them as reminders. I have no idea of the number of messages - maybe 5,000. Some folders. Usually I find things by searching. So I decluttered!

Somewhat routinely, I search and delete mail that arrives daily and needs routine housekeeping. This time I not only searched, I decided if I really wanted it and if not, I unsubscribed.
Some of it was difficult, like concert venues we had frequented, i.e. the jazz club in Paris. This was not really for event planning but only a pleasant memory. Sigh. Unsubscribed. Messages from places in my city which are reminders of events to go to and make me feel connected, but since we will be gone for 5 months: Unsubscribed.
The recent trend to have receipts emailed? Unsubscribed.
I bought baseball tickets online the other day and now mlb.com sends interesting stuff but no. Thank you. It's gone!
That annoying real estate person I can't figure out how to unsubscribe? Tagged as junk.
I also searched for big chunks - like email from home exchangers that come from the Internet site. All  moved to a folder. (Another sorting project to tackle at another time).
For e-mails I was saving because of contact info, I updated contacts.
I do have a folder called "don't forget", sort of a junk drawer; dumped appropriate stuff in there.

As I was getting down to mail that needed to be resolved piece by piece, I had something recent from a friend, we'll called her Good Friend, about her upcoming health issue that I wanted to save. So I created what I thought was a folder and moved it. What I really did was move my entire inbox to a new mailbox named Good Friend. S**t! But on the other hand, I had zero in my in box and if anyone wants to know if I have an email, I will have to say, "Just a minute, I'll check with Good Friend." I left it that way and then bit by bit over the next few days, I took care of Good Friend. Meanwhile In Box was once again filling up but because it was so empty it was easy to decide for each piece whether to keep (and where) or whether to unsubscribe or whether to flag as junk.

And the new joy? The little red dot that says new mail actually means it.

Don't forget to empty your trash.