Doug, > ... I made a decision a long time ago after losing a bunch of > e-mails that I had saved NEVER to save e-mails again. ... > you don't have to be online to check your info that you have > ... I never have more that 50 or so e-mails in box at any one > time and I subscribe to anumber of rootsweb list. I've been using e-mail since 1998 - at least that's the earliest e-mail I have. I delete most of that which I receive - keeping only ones from family (fond memories). I backup up every month or so - never archiving since I keep all on the computer. I only keep Rootsweb e-mails for a month or two since I can always look in their archives for the data I need. So - I have less than 1GB of e-mails - certianly small enough to easily backup. One benefit of keeping all family e-mails is that I have a large number from people who have since died. Fond memories are brought to the fore when reading their newsy contents. That all said - I believe that people use the system they find best for them. So - Doug - "good on you". Chris