This is just a little gripe that bugs me from time to time but I fancied getting it off my chest.

The organisation I work for, along with many others, operates a e-mail mailbox quota. I’m Ok with that, as a service provider I think it’s a great idea.

My gripe is that I get warned about the size of my mailbox based on the percentage of the quota I have used. I have a large quota (one of the privileged) I get told when my mailbox is 80% full, the same as I did when I had a 100MB mailbox. This doesn’t make sense to me, the issue is how much space I have left to work in, and 20% doesn’t seem like a sensible way to measure that especially as mailboxes get larger:

• 20% of 100MB is 20MB – which might cause me a problem during a particularly busy day. So I might like to see a warning.
• 20% of 200MB is 40MB – I suppose it’s interesting
• 20% of 300MB is 60MB – that would be an exceptionally busy day.
• 20% of 400MB is 80MB- I’m not sure how busy I would have to be, it’s more likely that someone has sent me the same 10MB file a few times.
• 20% of 500MB is 100MB – right is as much as I had when I had 100MB.

Warning me that I have 100MB left isn’t really telling me anything, I’m highly unlikely to do anything about it.

I’d much rather have a quota warning that told me how many days I had until I needed to do something about it. Even one that warned me at 20MB free would be better.

Time to stop the grumpy posts now.