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Gmail Gives Up, Adds Delete Button

By Nate Mook, BetaNews

January 20, 2006, 1:01 PM

When it first launched in 2004, Google's Gmail was missing a key feature available in competing e-mail services and clients: a prominent delete button. Although Gmail offered deleting through a dropdown, Google felt users should never have to delete messages thanks to expanded storage. But the company has finally given in.

"Now there's an easy-to-find delete button for those messages you really don't want. For everything else, there's Archive," Google wrote on the About Gmail page Archive, which Google previously encouraged instead of delete, simply removes a message from the inbox and leaves it in "All Mail."

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By paulm

posted Jan 23, 2006 - 1:11 AM

Running out of storage are they? I always thought it would be sensible to encourage users to delete their useless email. Commonsense has prevailed at the Google camp.

Score: 0

By PC_Tool

posted Jan 23, 2006 - 11:15 AM

Just a guess, or do you have anything to back that up with?

Considering how much cash they have, and the ever-dropping cost of storage, I seriously doubt they were in any danger of running out.

They'd start removing unused accounts before that happened, and I can still log into my secondary account I haven't used since I got it about 3 months ago.

I'm much more likely to believe they simply got tired of all the whining from the users who couldn't get the concept of 'virtually - unlimited' or 'archive' through thier heads.

Score: 0

By GoodThings2Life

posted Jan 23, 2006 - 9:21 PM

Meh, it's just silly to "hide" the delete button in the first place... I mean, I know it was there and all, but some of us are anal retentive about keeping our inboxes clean and empty except of important things, and sorry to say... not every email is important... certainly not if it's from my boss, lol.

Score: 0

By PC_Tool

posted Jan 24, 2006 - 9:33 AM

Archive, my friend....*use* the archive button.

:P

yeah...I know...

Score: 0

By paulm

edited Jan 23, 2006 - 6:11 PM

Just a guess PC_Tool. Possibly inacurate, false or just plain wrong. But having read a couple of your posts, I guess I have a good mentor. ;-)

Score: 0

By PC_Tool

posted Jan 24, 2006 - 9:33 AM

Ouch.

Score: 0

By rogueworld

posted Jan 23, 2006 - 7:42 AM

There has always been a delete functionality. Was just hard to find!

Score: 0

By fanboy

edited Jan 22, 2006 - 11:52 PM

With all the talk of who is a fanboy (microsoft fanboy, google fanboy, etc.), I just wanted to take a moment and declare myself the official BetaNews universal, all encompassing fanboy of any and all companies.

So there!!!

Score: 0

By PC_Tool

posted Jan 23, 2006 - 11:11 AM

Makes sense...what with the name, and all.

But how will you respond in an Intel vs. AMD article?

Score: 0

By fanboy

edited Jan 23, 2006 - 5:18 PM

I'm a dual fanboy, both core and processor company, of course. Had to give up on the whole cyrix thing, though. Even fanboys have have limits.

Score: 0

By PC_Tool

edited Jan 23, 2006 - 2:50 PM

So you've got MPD? Scream at yourself much?

;P

I can't even imagine the hell daily hygenic practices must be. Brushing your teeth while staring your worst enemy in the face....

Score: 0

By fanboy

posted Jan 23, 2006 - 5:20 PM

LOL! It's tough, but we all have our personal hell to deal with.

;o)

Score: 0

By GoodThings2Life

posted Jan 23, 2006 - 9:18 PM

LMAO

Score: 0

By PC_Tool

posted Jan 23, 2006 - 5:29 PM

Mine's called BetaNews.

;>

Score: 0

By pc.pain

edited Jan 23, 2006 - 2:42 PM

LOL! Great!

Score: 0

By jshurst

posted Jan 23, 2006 - 1:43 PM

Funny ;-)

Score: 0

By aanchal94

edited Jan 22, 2006 - 1:37 AM

The facility was already available as an extension to Firefox users

Score: 0

By DJGM

edited Jan 23, 2006 - 1:40 PM

The "GMail Delete" extension is not available for Mozilla Suite,
which I use at least 80-90% of the time as my main browser.

Score: 0

By wincement

posted Jan 23, 2006 - 12:53 PM

Yeah. I had it, and it stopped working the second Gmail added theirs. I had to uninstall the extension in order to get the delete function to work at all lol.

Score: 0

By PC_Tool

posted Jan 23, 2006 - 2:52 PM

So...now what will they do with their free time?

I vote for a 'Mark as Read' button...

Ya know...to keep that whole, "let's be redundant for the sake of the terminally lazy" theme they got goin'.

;P

Yeah, I used it. But I'm not proud of it. *grin*

Score: 0

By Marticus

posted Jan 24, 2006 - 1:15 AM

If we are putting in a "mark as read" button, why don't we just add folders too? LMAO. sorry, I had to say it.

but really, this whole discussion about a delete button isn't all that important.

Score: 0

By PC_Tool

posted Jan 24, 2006 - 9:34 AM

Yeah, but think of all the time we're wasting.

Isn't it wonderful?

Score: 0

By wincement

edited Jan 24, 2006 - 6:16 PM

It brings a tear to my eye.

Score: 0

By DJGM

edited Jan 23, 2006 - 1:41 PM

And where exactly is this elusive Delete button in Gmail then?
Shouldn't it be near the Archive and Report Spam buttons?

See my screengrab ... this is what's on my Gmail:
http://djgm.co.uk/misc/W...Gmail-Delete-button.png

I've emptied my cache as suggested earlier, to no avail.

I'm using Mozilla Suite v1.7.12 . . .

Score: 0

By aerthling

posted Jan 23, 2006 - 7:19 AM

Try using using US English in Gmail if you're not already.

Score: 0

By StormyWaters

posted Jan 22, 2006 - 1:18 PM

I love Gmail and it is about time they added that delete button.

Now If they will get rid of the Archive thing and star thing for something better it would be even better.

Score: 0

By adamdawg

posted Jan 21, 2006 - 11:28 PM

Finally!! I've wrote them about this issue several times. I'm glad they finally did something about it.

Score: 0

By Steve33062

posted Jan 21, 2006 - 7:05 PM

It's been said G-MAIL has some great things, I'd like to see sending Executables to people you trust & people you know. I would NEVER accept an EXE from somone I don't know, but certain friends, YES!!

Score: 0

By Marticus

posted Jan 24, 2006 - 1:16 AM

I just zip it anyway....

Score: 0

By digitalzen

posted Jan 21, 2006 - 8:17 PM

It's no problem. Change the .exe to .txt, and have your friends change it back at the other end. Works every time.

Score: 0

By outofcoffee

posted Jan 21, 2006 - 10:18 PM

Yes. Another revolutionary simplification from google.

Score: 0

By wincement

edited Jan 22, 2006 - 11:12 AM

ROFL. I'm assuming that was a joke. That was funny.

Just an FYI to anyone who doesn't know: You can do that with any service. You don't even have to use .txt. You could change the extension to ".ex_" or just about anything else.

Score: 0

By naylor83

posted Jan 21, 2006 - 2:07 PM

That's great news!

Score: 0

By asellus

posted Jan 21, 2006 - 10:26 AM

With delete button FINALLY introduced, I now hope GMail to introduce:-

1. Real-time spell-checker for e-mail compose, plus personalized dictionary database just like Windows Live Mail.
2. More formatting options at the e-mail compose screen, just like Yahoo! Mail AJAX and Windows Live Mail.
3. Ability to use my own domain FOR FREE, just like the revolutionary Windows Live Custom Domain. Just when I thought Microsoft can't innovate.....
4. Option to turn off e-mail grouping by conversation.
5. Stop fighting with CustomizeGoogle extension to bypass ads blocking. Not all people wants their e-mails being scanned so that ads can be shoved to their faces.

Score: 0

By wincement

posted Jan 22, 2006 - 11:14 AM

GMAIL's ads are the least intrusive I have ever seen. I don't even notice them anymore. You're just getting greedy hoping that they'll get rid of them altogether.

Afterall, it is a FREE service.

Score: 0

By digitalzen

posted Jan 21, 2006 - 8:19 PM

What, pray tell, would be the point of providing the service without the ads? What do you imagine is paying for those 100,000+ servers, anyway? If you don't like it, use one of the other services and put up with the banner ads.

PS: they scan your mail too.

Score: 0

By asellus

posted Jan 22, 2006 - 12:55 AM

Yahoo doesn't do that personalise ads thingy, and so are Hotmail. They don't scan your e-mail BTW, at least for now.

I don't like ads, and never will. That's why I love AdBlock + CustomizeGoogle. They takes care of 99.9% ads out there. If you like advertising companies putting invasive cookies on your computer, power to you. I don't want them on my computer though.

Score: 0

By PC_Tool

edited Jan 23, 2006 - 9:49 AM

Then don't use GMail. Period. By choosing not to allow the ads to display, you are, in effect, stealing services from them.

From ToS:
"As consideration for using the Service, you agree and understand that Google will display ads and other information adjacent to and related to the content of your email."

If you don't like it....you know the rest.

Score: 0

By JacenSolo

posted Jan 23, 2006 - 10:22 AM

Technicly, google are violating privacy laws. I know they scan my emails. but what do they do with it? They don't say.

Score: 0

By PC_Tool

posted Jan 23, 2006 - 10:48 AM

Another one? Does *anyone* read the ToS anymore?

From ToS:
Gmail serves relevant ads using a completely automated process that enables Google to effectively target dynamically changing content, such as email. No human will read the content of your email in order to target such advertisements or other information without your consent, and no email content or other personally identifiable information will be provided to advertisers as part of the Service."

Yes, they scan your email. And by They, I mean the computers, and by scan, I mean look for keywords. No context, no intelligence, no motive...just gathering keywords.

And...as I asked another poster below who couldn't seem to remove the tinfoil-hat, why use them if you don't trust them so much? Are you *that* indecisive?

Score: 0

By Marticus

posted Jan 23, 2006 - 12:48 PM

Yes well said PC_tool!

Score: 0

By ogman

posted Jan 23, 2006 - 10:59 AM

Well said!!!

Score: 0

By bakura

posted Jan 21, 2006 - 11:29 PM

If you really can't take the ads, just use Ad Muncher. I had forgotten that Gmail ads even existed.

Score: 0

By Metshrine

posted Jan 22, 2006 - 1:25 PM

Amen!

Score: 0

By fewt

posted Jan 21, 2006 - 7:58 AM

WOOHOO

Score: 0

By john84

posted Jan 21, 2006 - 3:08 AM

This is pretty sweet now that I can use GMail in Internet Explorer 7 (you can get it too here: http://www.cybernetnews.com/?p=263) and still have my delete button. Before I was using Firefox with the delete button extension for GMail.

Score: 0

By ZenWarrior

posted Jan 21, 2006 - 7:17 PM

It's awfully difficult to trust a download site where one gets a porn pop-up. I'll pass, thank you.

Score: 0

By Pegusis2

edited Jan 21, 2006 - 12:39 AM

Obviously... you're gonna wanna use a little Smoke and Mirrors... you remember that magic bullet?

Any whooo, take it from there dear buddy. Kind of sux but that's how the political world runs... Put up a stink than have someone sneak out some files and make it look like an inside job or some hacker will be blamed who of course would never be caught because why...? That's because there was no hacker, do you honestly think that nobody is getting access to the information they want? Now-a-days you don't even need to be plugged into a phone jack and a van parked outside your home with the right equipment can read anything on your hard drive. They don't flaunt it cause they want to use Smoke & Mirrors... just like that magic bullet.

Keep on smilin' :o) and turn the other cheek

Score: 0

By digitalzen

posted Jan 21, 2006 - 8:24 PM

"Now-a-days you don't even need to be plugged into a phone jack and a van parked outside your home with the right equipment can read anything on your hard drive."

Please post links to the authoratitive source where you got this information. I'd love to know, since I can think of lots of applications for the ability to read magnetic data at that distance, as--I'm sure--could half the electronics companies on the planet. (Funny how those government scientists are so good, considering the lousy pay.)

BTW, it's "Pegasus."

Score: 0

By PC_Tool

edited Jan 23, 2006 - 10:44 AM

lmao...

Also notice the 2 at the end...like someone had already taken the original. Scary.

Score: 0

By twosheds

posted Jan 21, 2006 - 4:07 AM

Tinfoil hats on...

Score: 0

By JacenSolo

posted Jan 20, 2006 - 11:42 PM

It's about time Google... Thank you :)

Score: 0

By TC17

posted Jan 20, 2006 - 8:25 PM

Obviously there are a lot of Microsoft fanboys posting here trying to trash google. If anyone is evil, its anything and everything written by Microsoft. There is *no way* I would ever have them storing my email.

Gmail on the other hand is even currently fighting the goverment over trying to spy on us.

Score: 0

By Siyavash

posted Jan 22, 2006 - 12:55 PM

You sir, are an idiot.

Score: 0

By Banquo

edited Jan 20, 2006 - 10:07 PM

I didn't see anyone mentioning Microsoft. Talk about a straw man argument. First you call them fanboys and then bring up Microsoft. Maybe they use Yahoo Mail, or Mail2World or one of the many other services. Why bring Microsoft into it?

By that last part I imagine you are talking about Google and the web search results the governemnt wants, which has jack squat to do with GMail.

Score: 0

By JacenSolo

posted Jan 23, 2006 - 10:27 AM

I use Yahoo Mail, does that count?

For most part through, I use my web host's email server, so I use Thunderbird, not webmail :P

Score: 0

By ZenWarrior

posted Jan 20, 2006 - 6:54 PM

Google *is* evil. How long did it take those idiots to place a delete button where it could be used? For all practical purposes, forever! And now I keep looking to delete with that dreaded pull-down menu. I must have done it a hundred times today already!

Now, if only those g-idiots would display message size, get rid of bleep-bleep "conversations," and permit sending/receiving executables.

Score: 0

By PC_Tool

posted Jan 23, 2006 - 10:42 AM

Deleting email? Why would you? Not enough space? (lmao) Or just can't read? There's always been a nifty little archive button there...removes the message from the main window, but keeps it available for search.

Doesn't like conversations? Nice of them to give us the ability to view them normally. Did you just not figure out how to do that, or are you totally against anyone offering features *you* might not use?

Can't rename an exe file? I feel for ya man. Really. I do.

lesse....offer more space than any current provider, free or fee-based (at launch). Research and develop a new method of storing and viewing your messages that not only helps keep them organized and easily searchable, but lessens inbox clutter to an enormous degree. Oh, and limit the amount of viruses and other forms of malware travelling through the system by limiting the types of files that can be sent.

Yeah...that's the very definition of Evil, man. How could they *be* such idiots? Must be the money...makes 'em stupid or something.

Score: 0

By TC17

edited Jan 20, 2006 - 8:21 PM

I don't see how you can call them evil. There has ALWAYS been a delete option. Big deal so you had to use a drop down menu instead of a button.

Gmail is also the only email provideder with no spam and no taglines to their emails, unlike every other free email provider has. They also were the first to give a ton of email space, unlike any other PAY provider.

They also filter out phishing messages that other email providers do not do. They are far more reliable (uptime) than any other email provider I have used. Plus you can use pop3 email if you like and don't care for gmails interface.

Score: 0

By ServerMechanic

posted Jan 21, 2006 - 12:14 PM

LOL. Um.......Gmail has SPAM. Tons of it. The only webmail account I have that has NO SPAM is Yahoo!. I've seen ZERO SPAM with them in the last year.

You're a google fanboy.

Score: 0

By PC_Tool

posted Jan 23, 2006 - 10:08 AM

Whether or not any one person using a service gets spam is a subjective basis for rating anyway.

I have my own domain and get my work and personal email through my host for that domain. I have yet to get a single spam on that account (There are a whopping total of 3 accounts on that domain). I get a boatload in my GMail and MSN accounts.

Is the SPAM protection on my own domain that much better? Hell no. I just don't use those addresseess when signing up for *anything*. I use the other two for that...and it shows.

Yeah, GMail has SPAM, so does Yahoo.... just because you browse intelligently doesn't mean anyone else does. (Yeah, I think there was a compliment in there somewhere...scary.)

Score: 0

By wincement

posted Jan 22, 2006 - 11:19 AM

I just got my first spam message on Gmail last week.

Now I'm getting probably 3-4 a day. Fortunately, every single one has been positively identified and put in my spam folder. I have no complaints.

Score: 0

By PC_Tool

posted Jan 23, 2006 - 10:11 AM

441 in my Spam folder.

I have to tell GMail that 4-8 messages a day are Spam.

It doesn't seem to learn to well. If I don't log in for a week, I have several screens of spam to filter through.

I like Gmail, but if Spam was a major consideration and I could not be bothered to browse intelligently to avoid it, Gmail probably wouldn't be insanely high on the list.

Good thing I don't use Gmail for it's anti-spam abilities. :)

Score: 0

By ServerMechanic

posted Jan 23, 2006 - 2:13 PM

Funny thing is that I've given out my Yahoo address more than my Hotmail address.

This tells me that Yahoo has better spam detection. :)

Score: 0

By PC_Tool

posted Jan 23, 2006 - 2:35 PM

Depends a lot on where it's given, I suppose.

Then again, for anything other than anecdotal support, we'd need results from about 1 million of you. :P

Could be true...no real way we're gonna find out here.

Point is, comments on SPAM detection without a link to a study supporting them are pointless.

Score: 0

By digitalzen

posted Jan 21, 2006 - 8:32 PM

Funny, Gmail seems to dump about 99.9% of my spam-- by actual computation--and one of my addresses is posted on a site that gets hundreds of thousands of hits a day. Where have you been surfing, anyway?

Not only does it do a good job of filtering out spam, it has only caught two "good" messages a month, on average, in the year and a half I've used it. The difference is, Gmail lets you look at it if you want to. The others just dump it, and you don't know if they've taken anything you wanted or not.

Damn right I'm a Google fanboy. For good reason.

Score: 0

By Banquo

posted Jan 21, 2006 - 6:42 PM

I'm getting Gmail spam too, and the funny thing is I've never used the account! I haven't sent a single email from it or given it out anywhere. I signed up and didn't like it, so I let it sit unused. When I checked a while back it was full of spam! My Yahoo and Mail2World accounts get used regularly, the Yahoo account being nearly 5 years old. I hardly get any spam with it and NO spam at all with Mail2world.

Score: 0

By asellus

posted Jan 20, 2006 - 9:19 PM

I think you never use the drop-down Delete function. Deleting hundreds of e-mails with it is tedious and take a lot of work.

I delete e-mails because I don't believe Google will prtect my privacy. That's why I have CustomizeGoogle extension so that Google will not be able to profile my search string with my account.

Yahoo also protect from phishing if you did not know. Yahoo is also reliable like GMail. And yes, you can also use POP with Yahoo with programs like YPop!

Score: 0

By PC_Tool

posted Jan 23, 2006 - 10:04 AM

If you don't trust the service, why do you use it?

Score: 0

By digitalzen

posted Jan 21, 2006 - 8:34 PM

One more click for every 50 emails is a lot of work? You must be a busy man.

Score: 0

By fs2k155

posted Jan 20, 2006 - 11:44 PM

The difference between POP3 Yahoo style and POP3 Gmail style is that Gmail offers encrypted communication while yahoo is content to let anyone sniff your traffic.

I guess the same could be said for the web interface. Yahoo only offers secure signin and then drops to regular unsecured. Gmail offers https for everything so that someone sniffing your traffic would only see what you were doing if you happened to open html email with pictures in it, which Gmail does not proxy.

The pull-down Delete funtion was truly bad design. I noticed the Delete button immediately upon logging in this morning and started using it right away. This should have been there from the start, but adding it now makes Gmail feel like it just had a major usability facelift.

Score: 0

By Don Juan

posted Jan 20, 2006 - 8:07 PM

Or use an email client program like Thunderbird since gmail has full support for retrieving mail with POP3 and sending with SMTP.

Score: 0

By jessica2005

edited Jan 20, 2006 - 7:46 PM

Why don't you just use another email service if Google is so evil and stupid?

Score: 0

By Banquo

edited Jan 20, 2006 - 6:49 PM

Did Google think people were going to want to keep every useless email and piece of spam they ever receieved? Just because I have tons of space doesn't mean I want tons of junk kept in it. I hate GMail anyway though; the way they sort the messages is stupid.

Score: 0

By digitalzen

posted Jan 21, 2006 - 8:35 PM

I'll bet they worry about being stupid every time they go to the bank.

Score: 0

By DigitalSin

posted Jan 20, 2006 - 6:13 PM

I used to complain all the time about Gmail not having a delete button. Now after a year or so, I'm not sure I will even use the delete button.

Deleting is SOOOOO 2002 :)

Score: 0

By digitalzen

posted Jan 21, 2006 - 8:36 PM

Yo! Do I know you?

Score: 0

By DigitalSin

posted Jan 22, 2006 - 1:28 PM

Ha! Semi-copycat!

I'm afraid I'll have to sue.

Score: 0

By EarlyMorningHours

posted Jan 20, 2006 - 4:53 PM

I wish they had done this from the beginning. Days later and I'm still accidentally "starring" emails, rather than deleting them. Old habits are hard to break.

Score: 0

By normangerman

posted Jan 20, 2006 - 4:25 PM

You gotta love Windows Live Mail :P

Score: 0

By tuzzer

posted Jan 20, 2006 - 4:20 PM

I don't know why I still have the old version of Gmail which lack all the new functions, including RSS feed, sending with different addresses, etcs.

Moreover, at the bottom of the page, instead of "©2006 Google", it is "©2005 Google"

Score: 0

By Don Juan

posted Jan 20, 2006 - 8:09 PM

Make sure you're using an up to date browser. If you are, try clearing your cache and refreshing the page.

Score: 0

By prsrinivas

posted Jan 25, 2006 - 2:30 AM

I use two gmail accounts. On one the delete button shows up, while on the other, nada!

Score: 0

By mjm01010101

posted Jan 20, 2006 - 3:48 PM

saving everything is silly.
Google's archive feature isn't practical for many types of e-mail searches. If you have a conversation with 200 threads, and only one pertinant piece of info you want to keep, you'll know better than google how to archive it to be able to find it later.

Hierarchital storage is a better way for you to find something later. I could go on and on with examples, but I won't. I just know!

Score: 0

By digitalzen

posted Jan 21, 2006 - 8:38 PM

Learn to use the search function well, and you'll never worry about it again. I don't even use labels. I can find one word or phrase out of the eighteen thousand emails I have in the archives. Who bothers with files? As someone said, very 2002.

Score: 0

By DigitalSin

posted Jan 22, 2006 - 1:29 PM

Exactly. I keep trying to explain to my wife that typing 1 or 2 words is faster than saying "Hmm..did I put this in the Bills 2002 folder or the Accounting folder..."

Their search is uber fast and pretty damn accurate. One would think they know a little something about searching

Score: 0

By graphiteuk

posted Jan 20, 2006 - 5:26 PM

Question is... does "Delete" really delete the mail? Or is Google just hiding *your* mail from *you*?

(No Gmail account and grateful...)

Score: 0

By digitalzen

posted Jan 21, 2006 - 8:39 PM

It's eventually deleted, but not necessarily right away...same as every other web mail system.

Score: 0

By PC_Tool

edited Jan 23, 2006 - 11:25 AM

Same as every storage system, actually.

Your hard drive does it too. :)

Yes, your hard drive is "hiding" data from "you"! Time to stop using your computer!

Takes longer to delete data than it does to 'mark' it as able to be written over. Your own PC would be much slower if it actually wrote over each byte with a 1 or 0 to delete it.

(More directed at the OP than you, digitalzen.)

Score: 0

By ServerMechanic

posted Jan 20, 2006 - 3:47 PM

Google is the Devil.

Score: 0

By wincement

posted Jan 22, 2006 - 11:21 AM

Nice...

Score: 0

By PC_Tool

posted Jan 20, 2006 - 5:22 PM

Bwaaahahaaahaa!

Thanks, man. After the last few weeks I thought I was losin' ya.

Score: 0

By ServerMechanic

posted Jan 20, 2006 - 11:58 PM

LOL....I knew I would get ya.

Score: 0

By DudeBoyz

posted Jan 20, 2006 - 3:32 PM

The delete feature has been there a long time. It's just been less than easy to find.

Score: 0

By PC_Tool

posted Jan 20, 2006 - 3:15 PM

And here I thought my Greasemonkey script had magically started working again.

Darn those Gmail devs!

Score: 0

By Adrian79

posted Jan 20, 2006 - 2:40 PM

LOL...outlook works fine, gmail flows right in ;-) so does AIM so does hotmail(if ur account is older) ...outlook 12(2006) awesome

Score: 0

By digitalzen

posted Jan 21, 2006 - 8:40 PM

Got all your security patched up to date?

Score: 0

By rijp

posted Jan 20, 2006 - 2:38 PM

Yeah, I noticed this today.. it was annoying, I am glad, how hard is it to simply add a delete button?

I don't care how much space I have, its easier to delete than move/manage email. I have enough to do, just let me delete it.. And make it easy.

Score: 0

By PC_Tool

posted Jan 20, 2006 - 3:21 PM

I admit, the delete button is a good add. I used the greasemonkey extension until it died one update and I got sick of updating it.

Since then, I've been using the "Archive" button to basically the same effect. It removed the message from my main window. As an added benefit, though, it allowed me to continue to be able to access the content of the email via the search.

Don't know if I'll use the delete button much now that it's...back?

Score: 0

By xyzcb1

posted Jan 20, 2006 - 2:15 PM

Use FF and install the Gmail delete buttom extension. It's been out for a long time.

Score: 0

By jonspencerbx

edited Jan 20, 2006 - 2:59 PM

Why on earth would we do that??? Gmail just added the delete button to gmails interface...

Did you even read the article or is this more FF fanboyism?

Score: 0

By GeneralLeoFF

posted Jan 20, 2006 - 1:56 PM

saving email on a system you own is fine.
saving email on a system you do not own is not.

it is a very bad idea to store such a database of personal information like that. atleast if you own it you can turn it off or unplug it if you feal it is coming under attack...

Score: 0

By ZenWarrior

posted Jan 20, 2006 - 7:01 PM

But we already are under personal attack -- from our own President! At least I can thank Google for putting up a bit of a struggle about just handing over search records. And if I'm not mistaken, there is absolutely nothing preventing Prez. Bush-Whacky from attempting the very same "security" disclosures for all Gmail.

Score: 0

By digitalzen

posted Jan 21, 2006 - 8:42 PM

They'll end up ruing the day they started that stuff. Good thing Google brought it all out into the open. MSN, Yahoo and AOL just folded and kept their mouths shut. Best guess is, since they're ISP's, the FCC was held over their heads.

This will cost the administration bigtime in the long run. You read it here first.

Score: 0

By amed

posted Jan 20, 2006 - 1:28 PM

i never deleted anything, iv started using gmail since nov 2004 and im upto 207 mb. kindof nice to know that i can read my old mails. Not that i would :)

Score: 0

By cowgaR

posted Jan 20, 2006 - 2:40 PM

and nicer is that 'they' can read your old mails, and with great searching capabilities, not that they would =)

Score: 0

By hondaman

posted Jan 20, 2006 - 1:25 PM

I wish there was a way to select more than 100 messages at a time so that i can delete them.

Score: 0

By zridling

posted Jan 20, 2006 - 3:42 PM

Hurrah for the Delete button, a UI point that was suggested minutes after Gmail was rolled out. I agree, though, that I wish "All" meant all, and not merely 100 messages.

Score: 0

By ZenWarrior

posted Jan 20, 2006 - 6:56 PM

Again, I concur. Yes, "all" should mean *all*.

Score: 0

By onestar

posted Jan 20, 2006 - 1:12 PM

Actually, I'd just be happy if there were an easy way to delete the attachments.

The text of the message is all I need to keep. If there's an attachment, I usually save that elsewhere on my hard drive, and then archive it later elsewhere.

Score: 0

By ZenWarrior

posted Jan 20, 2006 - 6:55 PM

I concur.

Score: 0

By digitalzen

posted Jan 21, 2006 - 8:44 PM

Amen on the attachments. Who needs 'em?

Score: 0

By kberg31974

posted Jan 20, 2006 - 1:59 PM

You could always forward the message to yourself without the attachment(s) and append something like "From : " to the beginning of the subject line. Then you could delete the original message. It's extra work, yeah, but it does the trick! :)

Score: 0

By rijp

posted Jan 20, 2006 - 2:39 PM

or, use Yahoo.. you can delete attachments in email's, and you don't have to do that...

Score: 0

By Practice

edited Jan 20, 2006 - 3:50 PM

The whole point of gmail is that you don't have to delete anything.

Score: 0

By PC_Tool

posted Jan 20, 2006 - 5:24 PM

....and you still don't have to.

The "Archive" button does, effectively, the same thing, but leaves the email in your account, accessible through the "All Mail" folder, or via search.

At over 2GB, anyone who *has* to delete anything from GMail really needs to get out more.

Score: 0

By mjm01010101

posted Jan 20, 2006 - 3:49 PM

yeah but search in yahoo is abysmally bad. In it's default search it won't find anything relevant.

Score: 0

By noeltruong

edited Jan 20, 2006 - 4:56 PM

having Problem with Outlook downloading everything including your send items...

Score: 0

By fs2k155

posted Jan 21, 2006 - 12:01 AM

Set up an Outlook filter to move messages from yourself to your "Sent Items" folder and mark it as read. Now you have an offline archive that isn't interfering with your Outlook inbox.

Might want to take a look at the header of one of those messages you actually sent so you can add a little more logic in your filter so as to not move spam with your email as the origination.

My feeling on the privacy issue is that I keep an offline storage in an PST file. If at any point I feel Google is not treating me right, I'll click on Settings -> Accounts -> Google Account Settings -> Delete All Account Info.

Last time I checked, Yahoo does not offer a similarly simple method of removing yourself completely from their database. In fact I had to write to customer support and wait several months to get a phone number that I no longer owned removed from their SMS service.

Score: 0

By SomeGuy

posted Jan 20, 2006 - 8:30 PM

And I thought that behavior was intentional...

Score: 0

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