I went through the same process recently. I had mixed emotions about it, because I found a lot of correspondence that I'd have rather forgotten. I'm a different person than when I was in high school or college. I remember what I was like back then, but having a direct paper trail for the last 16 years was weird. From minute things like how bad my grammar was to silly things like stuff I said to sound cool. Of course, there was a lot of good in there too.
I retained some and purged most. I decided even if flawed, I'd rather just keep my memory as it is than relive every event from my past. It's sort of the mentality of just watching the concert while you're there rather than watch it through your phone so you have a video of it later. I'm sure I'm losing something in the process, but it's a gamble I'm willing to take.
On a side note, it was interesting to see just how much of the Web has changed since then. A lot of emails were just links being passing around and the vast majority of those links were dead.
> A lot of emails were just links being passing around and the vast majority of those links were dead.
True. I find it rather depressing.
I save a permanent copy (with full text search, content, and styling) of every article that's sufficiently interesting that I may want to read it later.
I retained some and purged most. I decided even if flawed, I'd rather just keep my memory as it is than relive every event from my past. It's sort of the mentality of just watching the concert while you're there rather than watch it through your phone so you have a video of it later. I'm sure I'm losing something in the process, but it's a gamble I'm willing to take.
On a side note, it was interesting to see just how much of the Web has changed since then. A lot of emails were just links being passing around and the vast majority of those links were dead.