In one aspect, a method for managing documents or partial documents in an electronic document folder is provided. A validity indication, which is individual to the document or partial document and specifies a validity expiry time is assigned to a respective document, e.g. an e-mail, or a partial document, e.g. an e-mail attachment and is stored, the indication being assigned to an executable validity program. Once the validity expiry time has been reached, the executable validity program, assigned to the validity indication, is executed for the document or partial document with an assigned validity indication. The executable validity program comprises a deletion routine for deleting the document or partial document with the assigned validity indication in the electronic document folder.