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I think the 'delete everything you haven't touched in a year' advice is wrong for some of us
My buddy Mike kept telling me to nuke my entire downloads folder from 2018 because he said it was just clutter taking up space. I finally ran a script that cleaned it out and three days later I needed an old tax worksheet from that folder for a client audit. Has anyone else had a cleanup backfire when you actually needed something you deleted?
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wendy_lee482mo ago
Yeah but "knowing exactly where it is" doesn't mean you'll ever actually need it... I used to think like that until I ended up with three hard drives full of old pdfs I hadn't opened since 2014. @the_claire found a refund check which is great, but that's a lucky exception. Most of us aren't finding money, we're just hoarding files we're too scared to let go of. The real risk is that clutter actually makes it HARDER to find the important stuff when you DO need it, because you're digging through years of worthless junk...
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corah752mo ago
The thing is, "haven't touched" doesn't mean "don't need"... sometimes you just don't open a file for years because you know exactly where it is and what it does. I keep a folder of old insurance forms from 2016 that I've never opened but if I ever need them, they're right there.
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the_claire2mo ago
Started doing that with tax stuff a few years back. Ended up cleaning it out last month and found a refund check from 2019 I'd completely forgotten about, still valid too.
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