Another (sceptical) dinosaur
I also download to my local device, and then back up to an external HD. This is unreadable until it is powered up. My family know where it is, and how to read it if necessary. Then I delete everything on the provider's server. Nothing is stored in the cloudscape, ever. Job done!
EXCEPT THAT..... What do I actually know about what happens when I delete emails on the server? Deleting files on most systems merely deletes the address, not the data. And that is easily enough recovered. And what about backups? I'd like to think (hope?) that my provider backs up my data until I tell it to stop doing so, but how thorough is that deletion process?
What with software revisions, corporate takeovers and defunct companies, there are probably hundreds of copies of all my old emails lying around somewhere. Somewhere........
Biting the hand that feeds IT
