I, cbott: Massive Time Suck

This happened Monday:

Look at that poor, taped-together power cord on my old laptop!

My old laptop hasn't been playing nicely for years, crashing frequently and taking 5-7 attempts to reboot successfully each time. I've frequently been denied access to websites (or their features) because my favorite browser was no longer supported by my Operating System (or some variation thereof). So I plugged these two into an outlet for the long haul, introduced them to each other via our wifi, then left for a chorus performance that evening.

Tuesday morning, with a fresh cup of coffee at hand, I sat down in my comfy recliner to begin my journey into this decade. The first thing I did (as is my wont) was to check email.

Forty-fucKin'-THOUSAND messages were 'immediately' downloaded onto my virgin laptop! Where...? Wha...? How...? HUH?????

Everything I had thought I had deleted in the past 7-8 years showed up again! EVERYTHING!!!

For the past 4 days I've been immersed in really and truly deleting those messages (while getting a chance to change my mind about the first deletion, which is slowing down the process considerably), and I think I've learned how the Mac's Mail app works 'with' Google. Let me enlighten you in case you too are reading your gmail account on an Apple device.

This was my view of things from the Mac's Mail app on my laptop:

I'm a huge fan of filtering incoming messages into appropriate folders.

Messages I was done with (incoming and Sent) were deleted with a touch of the keyboard delete button, and periodically I'd clear out the Trash folder as well to have them all the way gone. I thought all was Right With The World.

Turns out, not so. All that culling and deleting on my laptop was having absolutely no effect on what was happening in Google. While my Inbox and Sent folder on the Google site mirrored exactly what I was seeing in the Mail app (contents not shown for privacy reasons, but this is the default you see when you access your Gmail account online) . . .

. . . all the real action is hidden under that "More" option.

That "All Mail" folder holds everything that came into or left (via replies) your email account. Everything I'd been blithely "deleting" over the years hadn't budged from this folder at all. As I've said, I've spent the past 4 days going through and deleting, truly deleting there in Google, tens of thousands of messages. I'm seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, with only 5K left to go through:

The usage bar in the lower third of the screen indicated 7.34 GB used when I first started this project.

From this point going forward I know I have to drag unwanted messages to the Google Trash folder now visible on my New! Improved! (2023 version!) Mail app instead of just hitting the delete key, or visit my mail account online occasionally and do some housekeeping. New era, new tricks. Still an old dog, though.

Speaking of...my new laptop uses itty-bitty USB male connections (Thunderbolt 3), instead of every single USB connection (standard/large) I have in the house. I guess a trip to MegaLoMart, or Office Despot, or WorstBuy is in order tomorrow (followed, possibly, by virtual shopping).

It's been an interesting review of the past 7-8 years, containing good memories and bad. I'm teetering on the brink of 2020 at the moment (currently reviewing messages from 12/2019), knowing what's coming. As I go through each page of 50 messages, I can pick out the standard categories of messages-to-review-and-possibly-save and mass delete the rest. In the process, I've come across a few gems that tugged my heart or gave me a chuckle then, and again these past days:

From an email thread in which established members of the Austin Harmony Chorus were sharing their hobbies with the glut of new members, one responded: "I write short stories. The End"