In business writing, how much of an email thread should one preserve as replies go back and forth?

Some people say you should trim down messages because a long email thread adds too much to file size. Other people say you should maintain the entire thread so a reader can retrace the content. What do you think? How do you decide?
In business writing, how much of an email thread should one preserve as replies go back and forth?
You should keep none of it. This will prevent liability for the replied portion. Keep the same subject, that is all. The person you're replying to will know what its about. I assure you. This will also help if someone else some how gets a hold of it.
Reply:In my company, a person could easily send and receive 50+ emails a day - we never talk to each other! So removing all of the prior message text leads to confusion. When someone does that, I usually have to go back in to my Sent Items folder to see what I asked them about to make sure they answered all my questions. People don't always carry on an email conversation as a true back-and-forth like a personal conversation; there could be days between replies, so leaving the message thread intact is helpful. Our standards recommend that you remove attachments, and I'm careful about who is CC'd on the message to avoid cluttering up people's inboxes.
Reply:[not from a legal standpoint]





Use common sense. Does the person receiving your email need to know where that started? If you trim some emails out, would the recipient understand what's going on and be able to correctly interpret your message?





P.S.: Sometimes, where possible, giving a call is much more efficient.