Didn’t know how to help this client

[TheTominator]

Nuke the entire site from orbit--it's the only way to be sure.

[ka jowct]

He forwards his mail through Gmail to cut down on the spam. He has lots of rules set up, but as we know, rules in Mail do not always work. I don’t think that spam is the biggest issue, but I could be wrong. The level of detail is staggering, at least to me. I have a folder On my Mac for transactions (for Amazon orders, software purchases, etc.), with one sub folder for donations. He would have a separate subfolder for every vendor, even if there were hundreds of them. That level of particularity exists throughout his Mail setup.

I suspect that most of the stuff marked unread has been read, but I don’t think I can persuade him to make that assumption. My client (his wife) says his concern about it is costing him time and frustration almost daily. I don’t know if he will ask for help again, but I know I can’t help with that email.

I suggested an archiver: he didn’t seem interested. And he would still, I think, be reluctant to delete the archived material from Mail.

[Numo]

Is he aware of the search function? Maybe that would help him to be more comfortable with fewer folders/subfolders.

[ka jowct]

He uses the search function. He just seems to feel that he needs an extremely detailed organizational structure. He said several times that this use of Mail has worked for him for years, so now it's hard to get him to rethink everything. No matter what he decides to do, I think it will be a painful process.

[Robert M]

Ka,

The first thing I'd do is log into the webmail system of his email account to make sure what you're seeing in the email client reflects what is actually in the email system. It seems rather odd that someone who is somewhat proficient on a Mac would create so many mailboxes and folders and subfolders. Maybe something is just royally wonky in Apple Mail.

If the webmail doesn't reflect the same mailbox/folder/subfolder hierarchy as shown in Apple Mail, then maybe download an alternative email client like Postbox and see what shows up.

This all assumes your client is using IMAP for email.

Robert

[Filliam H. Muffman]

Be firm. Sometimes you need to end a friendship and make it business only. There is NOTHING he can do that won't take a hundred plus hours of work by someone. He is either going to need to do it by himself or pay someone $8k to straighten it out. Make sure he clearly understand that he is one of THOSE people.

If it's all on one main hard drive, he needs to make a clone of it and do a thorough inspection to make sure it's complete and accurate. Now clone it again and put one copy off site. Now do a clean OS install on a 4th hard drive and migrate it (could take several days with that much cruft to sort). This will allow him to keep the old stuff on a different boot drive with network and mail disabled, and then delete all the filth and start fresh with no more than 200 sub folders total.

[ka jowct]

Robert M wrote:
Ka,

The first thing I'd do is log into the webmail system of his email account to make sure what you're seeing in the email client reflects what is actually in the email system. It seems rather odd that someone who is somewhat proficient on a Mac would create so many mailboxes and folders and subfolders. Maybe something is just royally wonky in Apple Mail.

If the webmail doesn't reflect the same mailbox/folder/subfolder hierarchy as shown in Apple Mail, then maybe download an alternative email client like Postbox and see what shows up.

This all assumes your client is using IMAP for email.

Robert

Well, he can certainly check gmail in his browser, but his storage on EarthLink is limited to 100 MB per account, so there can’t be that much stored on the server. The bulk of this is his massive, highly specific local storage scheme. He’s been able to do this for years so has had no reason to rethink it. I don’t think he or anyone else has the energy to tackle this. Sometimes you just have to admit defeat as far as helping someone. I think a similar situation exists with paper records. There was mention (not by him) of 12 filing cabinets of documents. He’s in his mid-80s and it’s a shame that he is worrying about this.

[hal]

I'm with muffman - this guy can't be helped. He needs to understand that his scheme is unworkable even if it has worked all of this time. Walk away...

[MacArtist]

The client is convinced his system works even when the evidence shows it doesn’t.

A person trying to help this guy is in for a world of frustration that is going to take more time and more money than the client would be willing to spend.

How do you help someone who doesn’t think they need help (or to change their process)?