email sorting
Posted by Michael Dale on Thu, 24 Mar 2005 5:55 PMI've just been looking at my inbox and it is the biggest mess. I have about 24,000 emails dating back to early 2002 sorted into about 20-30 folders, but it’s just a nightmare! I don't properly sort my email. Most of it goes straight into my inbox and doesn't leave.
I have a few folders for certain people depending on how much email I get from them; I have a few for mailing lists and some folders for daily server reports. But it still isn't good enough. It not the easiest place to find things.
The only program that has a half decent search function (like I can search the body of emails) is Mail.app on the Mac. But I don't use that program because of the lack of Exchange support. So finding stuff isn't always easy.
I don't know, anyone have some ideas? How do you sort your emails?
I do exactly what Steve does, only without the customised Outlook Today page.
I do all my email through Thunderbird which, imho, works alot better than Outlook.
I use Gmail, and I have yet to regret the switch. It offers amazing search capabilities, and "tags," which are keywords that you apply to messages.
Tags are similar to folders - except you can apply as many tags as you want to a single message, such as:
Billing, Confirmations, Apple
It's a much better way to organize messages, than regular, physical folders.
Your old messages are then much easier to find.
Plus... Gmail accounts are free, and are 1GB of storage... you can't beat that.
Agrees with Matthom.
I'm sure you would love GmailFS with your *nix box. ;)
I use a bunch of folders and sub-folders for various things, and then add rules (which, by the way, you can apply to EXISTING messages as well as any new ones as they arrive) - I have a rule for each of my subscribed mailing lists or newsletters that sends those direct to its own, or a common, folder, plus some other rules for addresses of which I can be certain of the content...
Then I have customised Outlook Today to show me the current unread items in not just the default Inbox, Outbox, and Drafts, but for all of the folders to which I direct my mail.
I'm often adding rules as I begin to get more and more subscriptions or frequent mail from certain people in particular, which significantly reduces e-mail in my inbox. However I do regularly use either rules or a simple e-mail "headers and body" search to locate e-mails from a particular person or about a particular subject that are lurking in my inbox, so i can file them in a folder all at once, rather than dragging each email individually to a folder.