Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Cyber Sock Drawer


Deb: Sitting after breakfast cleaning up my email. Delete 40 email and ... oh wait, I didn’t mean to delete the one from my cousin Anne ... I have to rsvp to her 50th birthday party. No problem ... go into deletes and it’s ... gone. Gone and ... gone.

Okay, need your help here, folks.

As I type, this is also happening to my husband. His exact words right now are “I just forwarded an email to myself. I have the date that it was sent, I have the account it was sent to, it’s not in trash ... What the hell?"

Where does it go? And why?

Everyone I talk to says this happens to them but nobody seems to know how to fix it.

And really, can we blame it for fucking with our minds? We have, after all, deleted it. We have sent it a clear message that it is unwanted, redundant, fit for trash. No wonder it hides.

But please, Delete Message, I am looking for you. I was WRONG to delete you. Mea typa! Come back, li’l message, come back.

If there is anyone out there who knows the whereabouts of my messages, starting with my cousin's and ending 6 months ago with the one from the guy at church who supplies the Free Trade Coffee, could you email me? I PROMISE NOT TO DELETE IT!

Barbara: Deb is not kidding. This has happened to me repeatedly. I can’t tell you how often I have looked for an email in any one of my files (not just delete, btw), and have NOT BEEN ABLE TO FIND IT!!

It’s not just frustrating, it’s weird. Why do I have thousands of inconsequential email piling up in my folders and when I need to find one specific one, it’s not there? Like Deb, this is a serious (well, pseudo-serious) plea for answers, not just a rhetorical question!!!  

17 comments:

  1. That happens in all aspects of life. That one thing that sits and sits and sits. You know where it is, but you don't need it. But the minute you need it, it's gone. I don't know how many times I've made myself crazy looking for things like that.

    With email, I've learned to empty all my boxes periodically and use my search. I once lost all the changes I'd made to a novel, but luckily I had already sent them by email to my agent. I just had to search and search until I found them all and piece them together.

    I guess sometimes things are where they're supposed to be.

    Good luck finding your email, Deb. :)

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  2. I hate when this happen,this is why I just really use Twitter,or Facebook. I barly use my E-mail and when I do it's only for like school or something.

    Again not a computar expert,but a suggestion,check all your folders and makes sure there is not an undo button,if it was in the trash for some strange reason and it's not there now then as much as I hate to say it,it's probably gone. Cause usually when something is in the trash then POOF it means that your trash was deleated from your computar or that it so much stuff in it and it kind of just dissappeared it's self.

    Not sure if that will work,or even helpful but it's worth a shot. Hope you both find your e-mails.

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  3. Ugh! So annoying! I don't have that trouble so much with emails, but I DO have that problem with files on my computer. Documents and music and such that I know were just there! In that folder! Where I saved them! Where'd they go? I also don't understand how I can do a hard drive search for a file and have it not turn up. But, 2 days later, I stumble across the file. *bangs head on desk*

    Of course, my keys and eyeglasses frequently either a) sprout tiny little legs and scurry away in a sadistic game of hide and seek or b) are abducted by garden gnomes. I have a spot on a shelf of the bookcase by the front door where I always drop my keys when I get home. I have decided that spot is a wormhole that transports my keys to the corona of Alpha Centauri B. How are my keys not consistently in that same spot? The glasses thing is my fault. I'll claim that one. My glasses land wherever they land when I take them off when I'm sleepy and crunchy eyed. Good luck finding them in the morning. *sigh* If I'm lousy at keeping track of tangible items like keys and glasses, I don't stand a chance with things that are just electric impulses, ethereal 1's and 0's.

    Does anyone else have computer issues with downloading something, it's supposed to go in the temp folder or the downloads folder, download shows complete, but POOF! where's the file? Hard drive search doesn't turn it up. Oh, yes, of course, it's taken the keys, cranked up the wormhole, and is currently basking in the glow of Alpha Centauri B.

    Oh, and, here's a wicked little koan for you: How am I supposed to see to find my glasses when I can't see well to look for them because I don't have them on?

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  4. Megan you're right. I guess sometimes they are where they are meant to be. My next question would be "where's that???":-) Lyndsie the weird thing is that even when I delete by mistake, I will rush to the trash and it's not there. Sometimes it is and sometimes it's not. That's the frustrating thing. It's random. And yes Rigel-FILES! I have recently lost some files and have no idea where they are gone. I have searched and searched. And I TOTALLY have that issue with download. Okay, the download went okay...so where the heck is it. Love technology until I don't.

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  5. I thought some email servers delete things that they deem too old to save.

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  6. LOL! this never happens to me. I can be pretty organised when I want to, so I have labels for all my email as I use gmail. They never get lost :o)

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  7. Only know that I spent ONE ENTIRE DAY unsubcribing to whatever/whomever
    and they are still coming!!!!

    now I have a email for just junk like stores,etc.

    Sometimes they get deleted when the server is tweaking. FB is a great example of that~it is always tweaking something.

    Happy Files

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  8. They may well do that Madge but many of mine have been deleted seconds, hours or days ago and still disappear. Oy. You are lucky Jessica. The frustrating thing is I am not losing them, the computer is. Arggghhh. Kathleen I never thought of the tweaking. Maybe it's tweaking. It should stop the tweaking. Oh well, I guess the key is, never delete!!!!!!! AS IF!!!!!!!

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  9. This seems to be a ubiquitous problem. I lost ALL my work emails a while ago through NO FAULT OF MY OWN. They just DISAPPEARED. Fortunately there is a Mail Download folder on the hard drive and they were all there, but unnamed so I had to open every one to find those I needed. Time-consuming, much?

    And worse yet, I was at my sister's one day and doing something on her computer and later that day they found a bunch of their mail, which had been in the Delete folder, gone. Guess who they think must have caused it? Apparently they use their Delete folder to save email they "might" want later.

    I just want to know how the hell it happens. Frickin' frustrating. Farta.
    But I'm glad to discover it's not just me. What a relief.

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  10. Deb: I have Outlook and it has an automatic archiving system that archives messages after 14 days and deletes messages after 6 months. This is found in Tools / options / others/archiving / automatic archiving then you need to untick the options you don't want, it will also show you were the archive folder is on your computer. That could explain things... as for the deleted messages. I think that if you delete a message and that you empty the deleted folder, than the message is gone for ever. At work our Outlook version allows us to retrieve deleted messages even if our deleted folder is empty but unfortunately the home edition does not. However, if you do not have outlook, your system may have that... the other thing you may want to look at is the anti-spam protection that your e-mail program has. The protection allows you to say to the computer that if it considers a message as spam, it can delete it automatically. In outlook that is also found under tools/option/anti-spam.

    Rigel: Temp files are often saved in a "hidden file" or in a "download or items downloaded file" you need to configure your computer to say that you want to see the "hidden files" but the way to do that depends on your computer. If you have Windows 7 for example, this is found in the control panel and file options...

    Hope this helps and good luck.

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  11. Oooh, Aline, now those look like some good suggestions. Thank you!!

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  12. Katie May I feel your pain! And Farta made me laugh. Good suggestions Aline but ironically I don't delete the deletes, I just press delete and they randomly disappear. Some go into delete files and some just go on vacation. But good suggestions everyone. Thanks Rigel I am taking everyone's ideas and looking into it. xo

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  13. I've not had this happen Deb, except for emails from the same source: after a specific number, the earlier ones seem to get deleted (by what or whom?) even when I have placed them in folders. In actual life mode, the same thing happened with $40 for the paper carriers and a bunch of receipts this Christmas.

    I have Thunderbird mail now and I find it way more reliable than outlook Express.

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  14. Rosina, we bought our son a great t-shirt that I saw in my office every day until the day I decided to wrap it. After Christmas we looked through every garbage, wrapping paper area in the house. We never found it. But we did find your $40 in paper carriers!!! Huh?

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  15. Wormhole. Alpha Centauri B. I'm telling y'all! ;)

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  16. No worries Deb - there was no Fair trade coffee order 6 months ago (Bob takes the summer off). I've forwarded you the one from 5 months ago and a link where you can see from which farm the order came from: www.fairtradeproof.org
    (btw - orders are due by this weekend for February). I hope you find all the other e-mails!

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  17. My Mum would be so happy to hear that. She keeps claiming her mails disappear, and I keep telling here they cannot just disappear- she doesn't know how to find them.
    I have another problem with mails- when I type in an address, the mail often doesn't reach- it si fine if I reply or forward!

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