Record Keeping and Client Emails

[WebMachine]

I’m looking for ideas / current practices regarding the storage of communications between freelancer and clients.

I have been in the habit of keeping in folders on my email client all email communications between me and my clients, but my email account space is starting to max out.

I would love to purge these emails, and maybe just store a summary of the important ones. But I am concerned that might come back to haunt me if I get into a “freelancer said vs client said” situation.

I had one situation a few years ago where a client lost a lot of current registration info because they forgot to clear their inbox of old info. But I was able to look back in my emails to reassure myself and inform the client that 1. I had warned them to watch that their inbox did not get full before the next year’s event and 2. I had suggested a database backup of the registration info instead of just emails, and they had refused.

So I would really love to hear what other web developers do with their old client emails, or what, in their opinion, is a good practice.

[Gandalf]

I installed Thunderbird and downloaded copies (still leaving messages on the server) of all emails from one of my accounts. I was then able to prune emails on the server as necessary.

[Newsody]

I was about to give you the same advice as @Gandalf , install Thunderbird, so you can merge all your existing accounts, save your mails, use a regular template and storee everything on a your computer !

@Newsody Cheers

[WebMachine]

Thanks. That sounds exactly like what I am looking for. I’m going to try it out today.