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| User | Thread poster: ProZ.com Staff Poll: Do you ever delete your work-related emails? |
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Tim Drayton 
Cyprus
Local time: 01:39
Turkish to English
| | e-mails v. translation | Feb 9 |
Leena vom Hofe wrote:
I can't believe that there are people who delete emails after the project has been finished...
What if some client gets back to you with recourse claims after a while? Ok, it has never happened to me, but one should be prepared...
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I keep a copy of the translation itself, but see no need to save all of the e-mail correspondence concerning the project once payment has been made.
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patriciacharnet
United Kingdom
Local time: 23:39
English to French
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After 2/3 years it gets deleted, I used to keep it much longer but now I delete it.
In my opinion, as far as taxation is concerned, receipts are more important and are duly kept. I don't think during an audit that the agent would question the income but more likely to be the expenses and what has been offset against the income. I only keep records of invoices.
Although it is interesting to keep the emails and translations, I must admit that the issue of confidentiality exists too.
Some of my clients actually ask me to delete the translation once it's done, and I reply only once payment is done.
If my PC get stolen or my webmail get hijacked, my clients' confidentiality is respected in my opinion.
Just thinking aloud, not criticizing anybody maybe I'm more aware of confidentiality issues as my main work is legal and pharmaceuticals, and I often get sensitive information.
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Stanislaw Czech
United Kingdom
Local time: 23:39
  Member (2006)
English to Polish
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I was surprised by how many of us delete emails.
I am wondering why would anyone do it? After all keeping these emails costs practically nothing and one never knows when they may come helpful. At the very worse they are rather harmless.
Cheers
S
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Jeff Whittaker
United States
Local time: 18:39
Member (2002)
Spanish to English
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There is absolutely no need to keep them. I try to keep only 50 e-mails at any given time.
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Thayenga
Germany
Local time: 00:39
Member (2009)
English to German
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After 1 year (more or less) the actual emails are deleted from my email account's folders. However, I keep copies of them with all information such as date, sender, subject, body etc. on CD-R, a memory stick or on an external hard drive.
The only exception are emails with attachments.
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Vneditor
Vietnam
Local time: 05:39
Member (2011)
English to Vietnamese
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I archive them instead on my mail server instead. So when I set up a new computer, it won't die from having to download all 15000+ mails at once (last I checked).
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Derrio
Spain
Local time: 00:39
Member
Spanish to English
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Slightly off topic, I agree with what Patricia (and others) say about confidentiality, however the mere fact of deleting something doesn't make it go away. Once a document (or anything else for that matter) is on the hard drive, it could be there for years. Deleting it only makes it less easy to access. Anyone with the right knowledge and equipment can, in theory, find it. (I neither have the knowledge nor the equipment, but I have been reliably informed!!).
This doesn't necessarily apply to emails, but certainly to attachments of a confidential nature.
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DianeGM
Greece
Local time: 01:39
Member (2006)
Dutch to English
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I have never deleted any work-related emails since setting up shop as a freelancer.
Though I do archive the entire year when I have finalised the accounts for that year.
Probably worth mentioning: a few client's confidentiality conditions require that I delete the source and target files after completion of the project, but I still keep the emails without attachments.
[Edited at 2012-02-09 15:52 GMT]
[Edited at 2012-02-09 15:53 GMT]
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Samantha Payn
United Kingdom
Local time: 23:39
Member (2008)
Russian to English
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| | NO, but the email programme archives them ... | Feb 9 |
... somewhere on my computer. I don't know where, but I expect I['d be able to find them if I really had to.
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José Henrique Lamensdorf
Brazil
Local time: 19:39
Member (2007)
English to Portuguese
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| | My e-mail service deletes them for me after one year | Feb 9 |
I use a premium IMAP e-mail service, so my messages are on their servers, not on my computer. No space limit, they just assign me 10 GB at a time, as needed. I chose to let them automatically delete all messages after one year. I could pay more, and they'd keep everything forever, however this would force me to delete unnecessary messages myself, in order to prevent any search from taking ages.
I never missed any older-than-one-year message they had deleted. I happen to know the owner, and he is such a zealot for redundancy that I never lost nor got any messages bounced from there. For the past 12 years or more, they have been down for 6 hours total, or less.
Regarding clients' files, unless they request otherwise, about (I mean at least) one month after a job has been delivered, accepted, and paid for, I delete them. If they were sent as e-mail attachments, I can still download them again from my e-mail service, unless their anniversary is past. This last feature, I have used it now and then for some klutzy clients who tend to "lose files".
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Maciek Pastuszka
Poland
Local time: 00:39
Member (2007)
English to Polish
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But considering the increase in the available server space nowadays, I might consider keeping all the e-mails (archived).
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| Pages in topic: < [1 2] |
The translation workplace 
