Unused e-mail accounts

[EssexRogueTrader]

In our organisation we have some e-mail accounts of past employees still open.

These e-mail accounts are still receiving mail (mostly junk).

I have access to some of these just in case I need to look back over past issues or correspondence.

By keeping these accounts open and us still receiving e-mails, are we putting extra pressure on the e-mail facility?

Is it wrong to keep an e-mail account that potentially only receives junk?

 

[Logged_In]

Personally, I'd archive the accounts and delete them. Archiving them lets you keep a record of everything (you never know if litigation is around the corner). And deleting them saves ex-employees from marauding around as a current employee (even if the password is changed, it's not hard to crack a password - if there is great intent). Cover your bases as they say in America.

 

[serverhouse]

I doubt it's a significant load for the server / isp having another few e-mail accounts (a typical server can handle many hundreds)

The majority of the load is reading the e-mail to.

We zip all ours up and re-direct any new messages to their successor for a few years.

Many bigger companies will just drop the accounts and bounce the messages which I don't think looks very good to a customer. I'd much rather get a personal, self explanatory "I'm your contact now and this is the answer to your question" than a "user unknown bounce" which could mean anything from someone has left to the company has gone bust.

 

[astutiumRob]

I have access to some of these just in case I need to look back over past issues or correspondence.

Just move those over to an archive in your mail account, set an auto-responder to "this address no longer exists, if you're looking for *blah* use *blah@blah*" then 3 months later set it to reject all emails to that address.

Accepting junk just means they'll send you more of it.

 

[Northampton Janitorial]

You could consider setting up an automatic redirect from the dead accounts to yours, that way the dead ones don't fill up with junk, and any read email can be handled in a timely manner by yourself.

This is a simple procedure to set up, and your hosting company should be able to action this in a matter of minutes.

 

[andygambles]

Reject mail for them otherwise they will keep receiving emails (obviously!)

 

[Dark-Kni]

Hi, I agree with the suggestion of having a automatic redirect and an auto responder on those dead accounts.

regards

 

[andygambles]

Hi, I agree with the suggestion of having a automatic redirect and an auto responder on those dead accounts.

regards

Auto-responder will not get rid of the incoming spam. Probably make it worse. Just start hard rejecting the mail. I assume everything important should now be coming in via live email accounts.

 

[Dark-Kni]

But for some reason using auto responder to respond to "not junk" emails is important. maybe you could have it for about 2weeks just to let them know. that's my thoughts though .


regards!