This will help you stay connected to all the people in all the sectors of your life without having to drop one of them because your email inbox looks like the "before" picture.

You can customize your mail life - automatically!

Here is all you have to do to your email program, in a few simple steps. Using your mail program : 1 - Create a mail folder 2 - Create a mail filter 3 - Tell the mail filter what to do

That's it! That's all you have to do
You say you want details?

 

1 - Create a mail folder - In your email program, create a mail folder for each category in your online life - family, social groups, work, etc. For example, let us pretend you belong to an online social group called wash80. Therefore, using your mail program, create a mail folder called "wash80".

2 - Create a mail filter - In your email program, create a "mail filter". This is also known as a "mail rule", or just "filter" or just "rule". Each mail program calls it a different thing but any real mail program should do this.

Find out how your program creates these mail filters, either by reading the "help" feature of your email, or by asking other users of your email program, or by asking your ISP.

This happens before you even see the email. This means by the time you do look, your email has already been organized into folders and you can sort, or delete, or follow threads at your leisure.

You'll wonder how you lived without it

It's that simple, really. Repeat this for each of your mail categories.

For example, let's say you have 20 relatives online, and one Family mail folder. You would create one mail rule for each relative. One rule would say that if the email is from uncle Bob then the email should be moved into your Family folder. Another rule for mother Mary would also move the incoming email from her into the Family folder. Then another rule for sister Sue also moves the emails she sends into the Family folder. Three rules for three relatives all lead to the same Family folder.

Many rules can route mail into one folder

Work mail is much easier, because it all comes from yourcompany.com. Therefore one rule would probably cover all of your mail from all your colleagues at work since they all would have yourcompany.com in their "From" header.

That's it, really.

You are happy because your mail folder now looks like the "after" picture.

Note: What if my mail programs doesn't have filters?. This means you don't have a real email program. But you can get one! If you are certain your current email program does not have this feature then follow these steps: Make sure your ISP supports POP3. This is the standard internet way of distributing mail. POP stands for "Post Office Protocol", and 3 is just the official number. If your ISP or web mail provider supports POP3, (or you will switch to one that does) then download the free Windows mail program Pegasus from their web site. Pegaus fully supports mail filters and many other great features. If your ISP is AOL and / or does not support POP3, then take this as yet one more sign that you are using a substandard ISP and you should inform yourself if other ISPs would serve you better. This is one more reason why an real email program is better than web mail.

Note: You almost certainly already have a POP3 email account AOL and web-based mail typically don't support POP3, but don't give up without checking. It is almost absolutely certain that your ISP (the people you pay monthly for dial-up access) already provide you with a POP3 email account. If so, then you are in good shape to do mail filters. Use your ISP-given mail account instead of web-based mail.

Note: So you want to read mail from work *and* home. If you want to read mail from various locations, then simply install the Pegasus mail program both at work and at home and connect them both to your POP3 mail account. You can maintain an "official" archive of your mail at home by telling your work copy of the mail program: a) not to delete the email off your ISP's server. Only your home computer should do that, after downloading your mail from your ISP's POP3 server. That way, your mail is where it belongs - at home. You also tell your work computer to : b) download only unread mail. This way you won't be downloading the same copy of the same email 50 times a day. Only the new mail will arrive. This achieves exactly the same thing as using web mail, except with more power and flexibility.