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The system of 'minuting' papers submitted to the Postmaster General by the Secretary to the Post Office for a decision (i.e. numbering the papers, and separately copying a note of the paper as a 'minute' into volumes indexed by subject) was introduced in 1793. It remained in use by the Post Office Headquarters registry until 1973.

Until 1921, several different major minute series were in use: that concerned with the Packet Service and overseas mail (Pkt reference files held in POST 29), those concerned with England and Wales (E or Eng reference files held in POST 30), Ireland (Ire or I reference files held in POST 31) and Scotland (Scot or S reference files held in POST 32). From 1790 until 1841, parallel 'Report' series were in use by the Secretary (POST 39 & POST 40).

In 1921, the several different minute series were replaced by a single all-embracing series referenced M or Min (held in POST 33). This was suspended in 1941 as a wartime measure when a Decimal Filing (DF) system came into use (POST 102), but was resurrected in 1949.

In 1955 the registration of Headquarters files began to be decentralised under several local registries serving particular departments, although the 'minuting' of cases considered worthy of preservation, and the assimilation of later cases with earlier existing minuted bundles, continued until 1973. Files from this period either have a 'P' reference or an alphanumeric reference to indicate which department created them, i.e. MD (Mails Division).