Author:

Jaanika Tork

Digital Cleanup Month: clean your inbox this week

20.01.2025

#sustainability

Further information:

Joonas Masing

Information Technology Office

IT Support Service

Content Manager

Uppsala 10-142

joonas.masing@ut.ee

+372 5681 8250 (6818)

In January, University of Tartu members are, for the first time, cleaning up digital waste during the entire month. The university invites everyone to dedicate at least 30 minutes every week to get rid of digital waste and tidy up their personal or their unit’s digital space. The third week of the Digital Cleanup Month focuses on cleaning your inbox.

Winners of the second draw were employee Jaanika Sarapuu and student Karolin Holz. We will contact the winners.

The following principles may be helpful when cleaning and organising your mailbox.

When you filter and click the Sort by button, it is possible to arrange all emails by size and delete useless, large-size emails. This will help you reduce your mailbox size and make it easier to find important items in the future.
Use the search function to find and delete unnecessary emails, such as old invoices or notifications.
Sort emails by subjects or projects into folders.
Check and empty the Junk email and Promotions folder regularly to avoid accumulating unnecessary emails there. If you receive many newsletters that you do not read, consider unsubscribing.
If there are emails that you do not need every day but want to preserve, you may archive them. In the future, you can access them in the Archive folder.

It is important to remember that the purpose of organising your mailbox is not to delete the emails and files that you need but to review the accumulated emails critically and delete anything unnecessary.

See also IT helpdesk guides on How to free up space in Microsoft 365 and How to get more space in Google services.

You can register your participation in the Digital Cleanup Month via the web form. Every Monday, there will be a draw to win great prizes from the university's gift shop.

The university invites staff and students to clean up different types of digital waste every week:

6–10 January – organise your computer and documents;
13–17 January – clean up your smart device;
20–24 January – check and clean your email inbox;
27–31 January – check and clean your cloud services and other environments (OneDrive, Moodle, Panopto, BBB, Mahara, Sisu@UT, LimeSurvey).

General principles for reducing digital waste

Before buying a new device, consider whether you really need it.
If a device does not work properly or is out of date, don’t buy a new one immediately but have it repaired.
If you no longer need your old device, don’t leave it in a drawer, but consider donating, selling or recycling it.
Choose an energy-efficient product that has a long lifespan and is made from sustainable materials.
Use cloud services, as storing data in the cloud reduces the need for physical storage space.
Reduce unnecessary data storage.

Bins for unnecessary external data carriers

In cooperation with the Estates Office, the IT Office has placed special digital waste bins in the university’s academic buildings (Nooruse 1, Ravila 14a, Ravila 19, W. Ostwaldi 1, Riia 23, Jakobi 2, Jakobi 5, Lossi 36, Ülikooli 18, Narva mnt 18, Uppsala 10, Vanemuise 46, J. Liivi 2, Lossi 3, Näituse 2, Näituse 20, W. Struve 1, Ujula 4 and Ülikooli 17) The bins are meant for unnecessary external data carriers: flash drives, floppy disks, CDs and DVDs, smart cards, cassettes, and old video and audio tapes.

Please do not put hard drives, phones and other electronic devices in the digital waste bins.

The labelled bins will be available in the study buildings from 6 January to 3 February.

Until 31 Jan