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I put together some time-based filtering I use on my own inbox, it's awesome.

I like letting most of my email land in my inbox, because I don't want to need to check (and purge a bunch of folders). But email of declining value will automatically get moved to folders after a certain amount of time. for example:

* Monitoring alerts go to trash after 4 hours (if it's still broken, I'll get more emails, after all).

* shipping notices from amazon etc go to trash after 3 days (long enough for the item to arrive on time)

* Notices from ups/fedex about "your item is arriving today" go away after 24 hours

* Marketing I don't mind seeing but has a shelf life - I have 2 or 3 time intervals setup for those

* Mailing lists I'd like to read (but often don't get back to) delete after 2 weeks

* Utility bills move to a folder for utility bills after 24 hours

etc. It's awesome - but oddly enough, nobody I ever tell about it gets that excited.



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