Usually I’ll reply to the sender and tell them they have the wrong email address, some don’t believe me, sometimes they ask me if I know the person (out of a billion gmail users), some complain that I took to long to tell them about the wrong address, and sometimes a lawyer will direct me to delete all copies of the errant email…
I always reply back to tell them that the email lands on multiple devices and is downloaded and backed up automatically and to see if they want to pay me on a time and materials basis or if they want a project based fee. None have been willing to pay me to cleanup their mistake.
Way back when I signed up with gmail, I was happy to get a [email protected] address, now I wish I’d gone with something more obscure.
I’ve received people’s tax returns (including their SSN), airline tickets and hotel reservations, matrimonial proposals, photographs, etc.
I often used to email back and let people know about the mistake, but rarely do it now unless there is sensitive/urgent information.
To deal with some of the repeated unwanted emails, I have rules created to label those emails with a specific label. I use Google scripts to auto-delete all emails from that label which are older than 365 days. It cleans up repeated transaction emails from Indian banks/credit cards, newsletters, etc. but also gives me a year to retrieve the email if it was actually meant for me.
Misplaced periods give me all sorts of other people's emails - new cars, new mortgages, new bank accounts, new home purchases that are not in my name or identity (based on the names I understand the confusion) - all sorts of things that I'm not doing IRL. Sometimes I try to reach out to the sender and get them to correct the email address, sometimes I just unsubscribe
Sometimes from the same person, there starbucks card seems to be linked to it for example. Annoying.