How I set up my mail folders

[mouser]

Thought it might be interesting if we shared our techniques for managing our mail.
Here's what I do, I use thebat but i'm guessing you could use similar approach to most email clients.

In addition to my normal accounts I have 2 addition global folders, and each of these as a child folder):

+Incoming Spam
--Confirmed Spam
+Incoming Mailing Lists
--Read Mailing Lists

Then i have all my various email accounts (about 5 different email accounts)

I use "common" filters which are shared between all acounts to detect spam and mailing lists.
These filters always mark the mail read and move in tinto either Incoming MailingLists, Incoming Spam or Confirmed Spam (if i'm 100% confident that the filter is never going to false positive spam).  All of these filters mark the mail read, since i don't need to be alerted to these emails.

Then i ocassional check those two top level incoming folders, to make read mailing lists or check that everything identified as spam is really spam, and i move to those emails to the confirmed/read sections.  Occassionally i delete the confirmed spam.  You can see my basic approach is better safe than sorry, keep everything until you are sure you'll never need it.

Then in each email account, in addition to the default Inbox,
I create folders for "Inbox - Known", "Inbox - To Be Files", and "Inbox - To Reply".

I have a filters in each account that say all mail from known users in my address book, goes to the account "Inbox - Known" folder, so that my address book acts basically as what they call a 'white list'.  I use right-click on messages from new people to add them to my address book.

A default filter sends all other mail to the "Inbox - To Be Filed" folder.

I manually drag+drop messages that I need to reply to later into the "Inbox - To Reply" folder so i don't forget to reply.

Oh, and I also use different sounds for different folders so that I can tell audibly when messages to different accounts/folders arrive.
The sounds I use are downloadable from the email review page, mainly chimes and similar things.

If anyone else has tips and tricks to share, please post.

[superboyac]

Very interesting, mouser.  I guess I didn't have to start a whole new thread for this...

I have a question about the Bat...I've used Pegasus all my life, but I do like the Bat also.  Pegasus has this "new mail" feature where all new mail comes into a temporary "new mail" folder (mailbox, whatever).  You can apply filters to be run either before it gets into the new mail folder, or after the new mail folder is closed.  You see, the new mail folder pops up after you hit the check mail button, and they all collect there until you close it.  If you don't apply any filters, the new mail stays in that folder.  I apply a filter that acts as soon as the new mail folder is closed, so that once I've read the new mail, the messages automatically get filtered to where they are supposed to go.

My question is, is it possible to do this in the Bat?  Can all my new mail come into one location (whether it's virtual or physical doesn't matter) where I can read it, and then have a filter automatically be applied once I'm done reviewing all of my new mail so that the emails get properly filed away?  What I don't like about most email programs with filters is that the filters get applied as soon as you check your mail, so that you have to navigate through multiple directories to read all of the new mail.

[brotherS]

If anyone else has tips and tricks to share, please post.

My advice: use Google Mail http://mail.google.com/

No more sorting of emails into different folders, you just appy labels (or use filters to automatically apply labels). Benefit: you could apply more than one label to one email and do much more. Really the best way to handle private emails right now IMHO.

[jgpaiva]

My advice: use Google Mail http://mail.google.com/

IMO,there's no better advice when it comes to e-mail.I support your opinion,brotherS!
I don't even know how didn't anyone had google's idea before!
Perfect for handling e-mail,gmail allows you to create filters giving you no work at all when it comes to organize e-mail..And if you can't find any of it,just it!
You can even be too lazy,and just "archive" everything and later,search for it...
And,as mentioned in another post,you also get the bonus of having a great spam filter 

[mouser]

...then have a filter automatically be applied once I'm done reviewing all of my new mail so that the emails get properly filed away?

that's an interesting idea.  i dont think you can strictly do this in thebat, because there's no real notion of "closing a mailbox" which would trigger the filter.

however, i think you could do what you are saying by making a virtual folder and having it display all UNREAD mail.
now all new mail would get filtered right away to the different folders, but your virtual folder would always contain all unread mail from all accounts.  i think you can do that.

[superboyac]

Ah!  Thanks mouser, that sounds like it might do the trick quite well.

Others...I doubt I will use google mail anytime soon, at least not using their web interface.  I already use it as a regular pop account.  I hate webmail with a passion.  I need to have the mail on my computer.

[Mark0]

I too wasn't happy with any webmail service; they weren't simply non-comparable to a good email client and local message storage. But, for me, Gmail changed that.

Bye!

[brotherS]

Others...I doubt I will use google mail anytime soon, at least not using their web interface. [...] I hate webmail with a passion. I need to have the mail on my computer.

Believe me, I used to think exactly the same

Read the comments in this thread once more - then try it for a week or two. It's completely different, but REALLY great. I love to read and archive mails now by using keyboard shortcuts: NOONE came up with that idea before (at least I never saw it anywhere), now I saw other sites using something similar.

I admit: One needs to get used to Google Mail, because it's so much better than regular email clients. But after I got used to it, I don't want to miss it anymore!

[jgpaiva]

(honestly,brotherS,I'm starting to feel bad,people will start to think we're hired by google or something like that,but no,we're just happy costumers )
Superboyac: IMO,storing e-mail in your own computer doesn't bring you much good..It's not only a waste of space,by needing outlook (or something else) and then a spam blocker,and an antivirus,and that big paraphernalia,just to see a few lines of text!
But it is also a waste of time, since you have to wait for the mails to be downloaded.
Plus,it's only a limitation: imagine you want to check your mail when not in your computer..You can allways go to the site and check it, but then, you need to have copies both in the computer and on the e-mail server..Seems like a waste,but that is not the only problem.
You cant see the mails you already sent.. (at least,i think so,i don't use mail in outlook or something like that for few years) And you don't have access to your contacts,unless you have them in both places (gee..setting them all up in both places? and then updating them? it seems like too much effort)
How about when you can't find that e-mail that has the password to a forum you haven't used for a few million years now? Well google it! Or just have a tag for logins,and search for it in there..
And there is one thing that has been forgotten (don't know if you use it brotherS,but i think you must),that is gmail's unique way of grouping mails..If you send a mail to someone and that person answers you,the received e-mail gets grouped with the one you sent,creating the unique concept of "conversations",so as you don't have the mails all spread though sent e-mails,archived e-mails,inbox,and whatever more folders you have created..
Honestly,what i'm trying to say is that gmail could revolutionize the way you e-mail.

[Hirudin]

My biggest advice for e-mail: automatically delete mail that isn't sent to your address(es). I don't know how I get mail that doesn't have my e-mail address in the "recipients" field, but I do, and it's pretty much all spam.
There is one problem: you may loose mail sent to you because you're signed up to a mailing list. (The donationcoder mail comes through just fine though.)

I'm finially testing out The Bat, so far I like it. The filter possiblilties look good...


My 2¢ on the whole use Webmail or a Mail Client topic, here's my biggest gripe wit' webmail:
I don't like the idea of having my mail on a website, sorry. Google freely admits it scans YOUR mail in some kind of twisted, world dominating, marketing strategy.

I don't send a whole lot of personal e-mail (maybe because it's so impersonal...?), so that may make me an abnormal e-mail user, but here's a couple reasons why I think mail clients are better (or at least not worse) than webmail.

Sure, mail clients do use space on your hard drive, but it's very little. My entire mail backup uses <100mb (the oldest e-mail is from May 2002). 100mb is nothing; my proof? It's hard to even buy a flash drive that's less than 256mb! I don't know how much space spam blockers need, but I'd be willing to bet it's less than 0.1% of an 80gb hard drive (again, just about as small as you can buy these days). Also, hopefully you already have an antivirus. Again, it's true you have to wait for the mail to be downloaded. But you have to wait for the web page to be downloaded as well, seems like an even swap to me. And again, e-mails are small, they don't need much time to download, even if you're using dialup.
Every e-mail client that I can remember using does have a dedicated folder for "Sent mail." I know Pocomail has a "find" feature, I'd hope the rest do too.
I'm pretty sure most e-mail clients will group message threads together as well.

Sure, using an e-mail client does cut you off from your old e-mail and your contact list, but pretty much every email service has webmail too, so at least your new mail (arguably your most important mail) would be available. Then again, the only time I check my e-mail when I'm not home is when I'm dying to find out if something I just bought has been shipped or not.

One thing that's majorly restrictive with webmail is that you can only check one account at a time. If you have multiple accounts (from multiple services) webmail becomes infinitely less convienient.

And perhaps the biggest reason mail clients are better: competition! Don't like Outlook because everything Microsoft touches turns to shit*? Get pocomail! Don't like pocomail because they want to charge practically as much to upgrade as they charge NEW customers? Try The Bat! Find out The Bat is pulling a google and selling information from your personal email**? Get something else.
Almost all e-mail clients will let you import and export your mail and contact list, so you don't have to loose your old e-mail while changing clients. Show me webmail that will let you import mail, much less export it into something another website can use.

Rant over...

I have to say: the "tag" feature of g-mail does sound cool. I hope e-mail clients start copying it.

* - until about generation 7, when it becomes pretty good, but still not great
** - of course, this wouldn't fly in the software world

[mouser]

hirudin made some fantastic points.
as someone who has 10 or so different email accounts support for multiple accounts is a big deal to me as well.

(thebat offers a nice threaded conversation view as well).

[m_s]

Hirudin, thanks for your post - some good stuff there: I'm very interested to hear how you get along with The Bat!  BTW, is that last thing about Ritlabs selling info true - can you post a link to a story?

Here's a thing that was mentioned on Lifehacker last week, allowing you to upload email to gmail: http://www.marklyon.org/gmail/default.htm ; Seems your wish has been granted.  I'm a gmail believer, though I am a little uncomfortable with all their world dominance... 

I'm surprised so few people ever mention 30gigs.com webmail - now that's real storage...  But then I have an account, and I've not got around to setting it up yet, so maybe that's what happens for others too.

[brotherS]

I'm a gmail believer, though I am a little uncomfortable with all their world dominance... 

I'm surprised so few people ever mention 30gigs.com webmail - now that's real storage...  But then I have an account, and I've not got around to setting it up yet, so maybe that's what happens for others too.

When it comes to email I want to use only companies where I can be sure they are still around next year

Sure, Google Mail scans your emails and displays ads every now and then - but it's a free service! I don't mind.

[jgpaiva]

Whoa Hirudin, you are even more committed to mail clients than I'm to gmail! (who's paying you? )
I can see your point about the privacy thing with google,but there, i can tell you that if you're using gmail's pop,you've got the same result,even though the mail gets sent by pop,it still gets stored in gmail and even if you say you want it to be deleted in gmail, they still have access to it (it happened to a friend of mine's friend, that deleted a very important mail, and asked google if there was a way to get it back. next day,there it was.. *spooky!*). Anyways, I'm not really afraid of those privacy issues of google, since all all in all, what they give me is much better than what i give them.But if you're against google, what i can say to you is: do not use gmail, no way!
I see your point about the space. And that's true if you only receive text e-mails and not much spam,but imagine if you receive 10 e-mails with 10MB attachments that in the end you find out you really didn't want to have and you end up deleting. Wouldn't it be better to delete them at the source? And spam, you still download it, if you've got much spam, it could create a real loss (i had an account in a Portuguese mailer that i had to cancel because of too much spam,it would fill the inbox in about 1 week :S).
I don't really know this for sure, but i have the idea that downloading an e-mail with attachments though email client also takes more time than checking it in webmail (it happened to me in the time i used e-mail clients, maybe it doesn't work like that)
What i was referring about the sent mail is if the sent mail through the email client gets stored in the webmail. You wouldn't have access to it online. I thought it didn't, my fault (it seems that my former webmail client was really bad, too :S)

Actually, the last two things you mentioned are two of the most interesting capabilities about gmail:
1) you have the possibility to import and export contacts
2) you can re-direct your email to another email
Which means that when you're tired of gmail,you can redirect it somewhere else, and export your contacts list...

@mouser: I know what you mean about having many e-mail accounts, but if they all had this feature of having re-direction,you could re-direct the all to only one account, and have them all centered

@m_s: gml is an interesting app, maybe it will be usefull to Hirudin when i can  finally have him turn to gmail, right Hirudin?

(ps: that thing about mentioning the space of the antivirus...Until last week, I didn't have one, but anyways, i just got a bit carried away )

[m_s]

re Gmail adverts, there are Greasemonkey scripts that very effectively clear away distractions from your inbox - I think the main one is the Google Butler, which not only cleans Gmail inboxes, but also any web searches.  It's a bit cheeky, because of course you're not playing your part of the deal, which is to bear with advertising - and after all, their part of the deal is very well delivered: an excellent email service.  Here's an excellent list of Greasemonkey scripts: http://dunck.us/collab/GreaseMonkeyUserScripts

[cranky]

My advice: use Google Mail http://mail.google.com/

first:  there's no IMAP so that's just out
second:  http://www.gmail-is-too-creepy.com/

[superboyac]

Thanks, Hirudin. for the great post.  I do agree with what you say.  I guess a lot of us have different ways of using email.  I'm not the kind of person where I have to check mail all the time either.  I'll just check it once a night when I come home from work.  My life is busy enough where I don't have to add constantly checking email to complicate things.  The same goes for contacts for me.  I'm not big on the whole cell phone thing.  Even though I have one, unless it's an emergency, I'll wait until I get home before I make my casual calls.  I have a phone at work if I need to make calls there, and I have my separate work email there also.  They make us use Groupwise, so I can't check my home mail there anyway.  And Groupwise is so restrictive, I don't even have the opportunity to act like a poweruser...I just take what they give.  It's horrible, just so you know.

I hate webmail, I hate the way it feels, it's restrictiveness.  I hate applications that have web-like interfaces.  It is always slower than something written in C++ for a computer.  I like having files and folder and options and all that stuff.  And I have never had a problem with spam because of the way I use my multiple email accounts. 

Anyway, that's what I have to say.  I'm with you Hirudin!

[brotherS]

My advice: use Google Mail http://mail.google.com/

first:  there's no IMAP so that's just out

When you *really* use webmail you don't need IMAP!
Your other URL is just paranoia

[brotherS]

I hate webmail, I hate the way it feels, it's restrictiveness.  I hate applications that have web-like interfaces.  It is always slower than something written in C++ for a computer.

That's exactly my point: Google Mail is NOT slower! It's faster compared to when you handle your emails on your PC. Been there, done that...

I like having files and folder and options and all that stuff.

I *used* to like folders too Then I had the pleasure to get to know Google Mail

[jgpaiva]

second:  http://www.gmail-is-too-creepy.com/

Cranky: do you really believe what they say?
I mean...The firstline they say "Google offers more storage for your email than other Internet service providers that we know about".. LOL
Just check walla.They have been offering bigger mail boxes than gmail even before gmail appeared!!
Honestly,I don't think it's a good idea to go that way, that aready is very well discussed all over.

[jgpaiva]

With all this thing about webmail vs mail client, i just went off-topic and didn't get to say how i set up my mail folders.So, here goes:
<OnTopic>
As everyone with gmail, primarily, i separate my e-mail between the inbox, the archive, the sent e-mail and spam.
The spam gets filtered to spam's folder,and the rest of the received mail goes to inbox.
In the inbox, sent mail and archive, i tag (actually, gmail does it for me) my e-mail using the folowing markers:
- Pedro (all the e-mail received from a friend of mine that i usually mail to)
- ist (all the incoming mail from my university, which also includes mails from Pedro, since he's my colleague)
- logins (where i keep all the e-mails i receive concerning logins to sites and stuff like that, since i keep forgetting my logins, and in my last e-mail box,i couldn't find anything)
- family (all the e-mails from my family)
I keep the most recent, important, or simply unsolved mails in my inbox, and everything else goes to archive

@ brotherS: since you also use gmail, how do you organize your mail? Do you simply put everything to archive, or you use something similar to how i do it?

</OnTopic>

[brotherS]

@ brotherS: since you also use gmail, how do you organize your mail? Do you simply put everything to archive, or you use something similar to how i do it?

I also use labels a lot, these are my most used ones:
- BetaNews (mails from http://fileforum.betanews.com/ about new versions of programs that I use)
- forums (mails from various forums about new replys/new topics)
- friends (should be obvious)
- Newsletters (the various newsletters I subscribed to)

Google Mail auto-labels all those for me.

[m_s]

I have just posted this question over at the Davidco forums, but I'll ask here too: Does anyone know of any tips for using The Bat! for a GTD setup?

[Hirudin]

is that last thing about Ritlabs selling info true

No. I knew it looked bad when I wrote that... Everything up to that comment is true for me. I only just started using The Bat, I'm on ~day 4 of my trial.

a friend of mine's friend, that deleted a very important mail, and asked google if there was a way to get it back. next day,there it was.. *spooky!*).

That's crazy... It does show a commitment to customer service though.
Also, nobody's paying me. Just don't let the good people at Sony/BMG know I said that (just kidding).
I see what you (jgpaiva) mean now about not having to download the messages. Yeah, they can get huge if they have attachments (I don't get very many attachments, so it's easy for me to forget them). But when my neighbor decides to send me 6mb of BMPs it is quite annoying. Yeah, I think downloads are slower using e-mail servers too (instead of html servers).
Also about sent mail, I don't think I understood you the first time. In my experience, sent mail is only stored in the webmail interface or by the e-mail client. I hate sending mail with webmail for this very reason, it's stuck there forever.

I'm pretty surprised/chagrined that you can import/export mail/contacts to/from g-mail... well actually, with the "ad scanning" stuff it makes sense... It does sound like g-mail is the way to go if you're going to use any webmail!

Honestly, the ads don't bother me that much. They're everywhere except in dreams (check Futurama season 1 episode 6 for more details). It just seems stupid to let google scan your e-mail when most people would activly try to stop an application from doing the same.

[OnTopic]
Here's what I do, it's not that fancy, but it works...

I have a "From Contacts" folder, where all the mail that is from someone in my address book is stored. (These messages don't have any other filters run on them).
Then for everything else (that doesn't get automatically deleted) I have the "Inbox" folder.
Since starting with The Bat! I've started using a dedicated folder for a mailing list I'm on. The mailing list has 4 types of messages; each type has it's own subfolder.

My e-mail organization is more based on filtering out spam. I have a couple main filters that take care of ~90% of the 50 - 100 spam messages I get daily.
I don't keep my spam, if a message meets any of my filter's criteria, it gets deleted from the server, I never see it.

Filter 1: delete anything that isn't sent to my addresses.
Filter 2: delete anything that doesn't have a vowel in the subject. This takes care of the international spam for the most part.
Filter 3: delete anything that has an attachment (remember, people in my address book bypass these filters, so friends can send me infected files, but strangers can't).
Filter 4: delete mail with the following words/phrases (the list will grow with time): pharmacy, stock, love life, voyeur, as low as, echannelline

I'm thinking of filtering out anything from a foreign domain.
[/OnTopic]