Email forwarding - How To clean up email and clip private information and excess

Email forwarding -
How To clean up email and clip private information and excess content.

You have received email that has been forwarded to you and you wish to share it with some friends and family. There are addresses of people you do not know, quite a few comments by people you may or may not know, there are odd characters and junk in the email and you have to scroll to the very bottom to see the actual content of the email.

You have heard from some friends that it is poor netiquette to include other people's addresses and other content when you forward email. You have also heard that email from you is difficult to read due to all the junk in the email. What can you do at this point in time?

The best thing to do is to remove all of the other email addresses and all content that is not the original portion you want to share. The subject needs to be cleaned up and, if you are sending the email to more than one person, you will want to place their names in the bcc part of your email application (such as Outlook or Outlook Express).

		Click to enlarge image
1.	You receive email that is extremely long yet the majority of the length is junk plus other people's personal information and email addresses. First, take a moment and look at the personal information (telephone numbers, street addresses, email addresses, etc) that is going to complete strangers. Next, Click on the forward button at the top. You must click the forward or you will not be able to edit the content in the email. We can not edit the originals from a sender, we can only edit that which we send, reply to or forward.
2.	Highlight and delete the text: a) Place the cursor to the left of the very first letter of the email. b) Hold the [Shift] key down c) Scroll down to the last letter/space just before the part of the email you wish to forward d) Press the [Delete] key. This will remove the non-relevant part of the email.
3.	The email should look more like the picture to the right only with the content that is contained in the email you wish to share rather than the pictured content. (Please click the smaller image and a larger, more readable image will appear.)
4.	Now you have the email almost where you want it - it is cleaned up. Or... Is it?
5.	What is that at the very bottom of the email? Is it part of what you wish to forward or is it left over automatically added junk from someone who was in the set of people who saw the email?
6.	Highlight and delete the text: a) Place the cursor to the left of the very first letter of the text at the bottom. b) Hold the [Shift] key down c) Scroll down to the last letter/space of the email you wish to forward d) Press the [Delete] key.
7.	Now - you must be done, right? Not quite yet! We have just a couple of more steps and you will be there! Look at the subject. It needs to be cleaned up as well. Do you see the FW? Place the cursor just to the left of the F hold the [Shift] key down then move the cursor to the colon : and press the [Delete] key.
8.	Now that is better. The subject is cleaned up. Just one more step.
9.	The next to the last step is to add the email addresses to the Bcc: line rather than the To: or Cc: lines.
10.	Last step is to double check the email, make sure you have everyone you wish to send it to and then click send. Voila! A fun email to share that is not only clean and readable, it safeguards your family, friends and others along the email forward chain.