23
May
The Email Cleaner – Clean up Your Forwards, Please!
I had nearly forgotten about The Email Cleaner. This morning I received an email from someone thanking me for it. Things like that just totally make my day.
When I receive an email from a friend and the email’s subject line begins with “FW:” I usually open it just long enough to see if it begins with a personal introduction. If it doesn’t then I usually trash it. Most of my closer friends learned this a long time ago and now take the time to at least start them off with, “Ricky – I read this and thought of you” or somehting like that. Even some of those are so cluttered with line breaks and “>> > >” that they are just too much trouble to try to read.
Back in June of 2000 I had gotten fed up with friends forwarding messy emails to me so I decided to do something about it. I wrote a short little JavaScript, called The Email Cleaner, that they could use to clean up those emails. I even included a little piece of ‘viral marketing’ at the end of each cleaned up message — Check out the Email Cleaner at http://www.rickyspears.com/cleanmail/
I’ve never done anything else to market this little tool. It has the 9th position in a Google search for “email cleaner”—much higher than some programs that you can buy and install to do the same thing. (I will admit that those programs have many more features and do a more thorough job though. There should be some Google ads on this very page to help you find one if you’re interested.) Once every month or so someone emails me a nice little “thank you” for the program. Looking at my logs it appears that it cleaned up at least 600 emails last month.
Do you forward emails? If so, give The Email Cleaner a try and let me know what you think. Although my instructions are quite wordy and are written for the total computer newbie, after you have used the program a time or two, you will see that it is quite simple and if you really do like the people that you are forwarding e-mail to, it is worth the effort. Basically it is just Copy, Paste, Click, Click, Copy, Paste. What could be easier?.
I love you! The email cleaner rocks. I love that it is online, I don’t have to download anything and it simply WORKS. I have forwarded your link to all my family.
I refuse to read emails that are littered with forwards and >>. I have offended a couple of aunts and distant cousins that are less that computer literate, but as I explained to them, life is too short for me to click though all their nonsense just to read a chain letter! haah
Thanks again for creating this,
Very grateful in Kentucky!
August 4th, 2006 at 1:16 pmKim – Thanks for letting meknow that you find The Email Cleaner useful and for forwarding it on to the rest of your family. If it’s worth forwarding, it’s worth cleaning up first!
August 5th, 2006 at 4:27 pmRicky, I can see it’s two years since someone said thanks. Sorry you’ve had to wait so long. This is very useful, thanks very much.
December 7th, 2008 at 1:22 pmNB
Neil – Thanks for the encouragement! It’s always good to hear that something I created has made a difference in people’s lives.
December 10th, 2008 at 8:39 amYour program “Cleanmail” dont work for me. http://www.rickyspears.com/cleanmail/
June 18th, 2009 at 7:14 pmHow much it costs.
Gonzalo – The Email Cleaner is totally free to use. If you will let me know what operating system and version you are using, what browser and version you are using, and what you are trying to do that isn’t working, I may be able to help you resolve the problem.
June 19th, 2009 at 8:52 am