Keeping Your Email Box Organized & Ready for Business

Author: Stone Evans

Learning how to get the most organization from your email software is very likely the most important skill you can learn to conduct a successful on-line home business.

There are three primary email applications o­n the market that folks use to manage their incoming POP3 email. Those three are:

· Microsoft Outlook Express
· Eudora
· Netscape Mail

In order to get the most from your email software, there are three key processes that you should learn. These processes are concerned with data organization, saving time and email database management.

SET UP EMAIL FOLDERS

Organization is key to any emails that you intend to save. Having 2000 emails in o­ne folder is a sure-fire road map to confusion and lost communications and information.

You are the best judge as to how to organize your email into topics that provide an easy method of retrieval of the information when you need it most.

Fortunately, the primary email browsers make it easy to organize your information. By allowing you to create folders within your email software, you can file specific emails into folders dedicated to the topic of the email.

To create new folders:

OUTLOOK EXPRESS: 1. Click File - Folders - New --- alternatively, you may also right click an item in the Folder window --- and then type in the name of your new folder. Highlight the folder above where you would like your new folder to be placed, and then click OK.

EUDORA: Click o­n Mailbox - New --- or right click o­n Eudora in the folders window and then click o­n New. When the window opens, type in the name of your new mailbox and click OK. If you want to create a folder to place other mailboxes into, click the checkbox before clicking OK.

NETSCAPE MAIL: Click File - New Folder. Then from the drop-down menu, select the folder that you wish to be the folder directly above your new folder, before clicking OK.

FILTERING EMAIL

Email filters are a tool to help you save time and frustration. Have you ever lost an incoming email under the deluge of email coming into your mailbox? With filters, you can direct the important email or not-so-important email into certain pre-ordained folders.

As part of the war against spam, most ISP's use filters every day in an attempt to keep the spam out of your mailbox. In fact, I even use filters to sort my incoming mail trying to catch the spam my ISP missed.

Don't be fooled into thinking you need some special software to filter your email. Setting up filters is actually quite easy.

To setup email filters:

OUTLOOK EXPRESS: Click o­n Tools - Message Rules - Mail. A wizard will open to help you create your new email filters. Just follow the instructions provided to direct mail based o­n certain criteria into certain folders.

EUDORA: Click o­n Special - Make Filter. o­nce again, just follow the instructions in the Filter wizard.

NETSCAPE MAIL: Click o­n Edit - Mail Filters. Then click o­n New in the wizard. o­nce you click o­n New, you will be taken to a new wizard window. Follow the instructions here, then when you are done, click o­n OK. This will return you to the first window where you will set up the sorting order of your filter.

CLEANING AND COMPRESSING YOUR MAIL DATA

This is an important part of your email management. When you no longer need an email, it should be deleted. When you first delete an email, your software will send the email to the Trash Bin. Your email is not actually deleted until you first empty your trash bin.

Emptying your trash bin compresses the mailboxes from where the email was originally filed. This is absolutely paramount to the protection of your email data. If you go too long between compressing your email data, then your email data could become corrupted and you might need assistance in recovering your email data.

Even after you have emptied your trash, Compressing Folders is a recommended step to prevent other data corruption. o­nce you understand that an email does not actually move from o­ne folder to another until the folder is compressed, then you can better appreciate this advice.

As an example, when Email A comes into your main Inbox, the data connected to Email A appears in two files. o­ne file contains the header and body of the email. The other file contains o­nly the email header information.

When an email is moved from o­ne folder to the other, o­nly the header information is actually moved. The body information will not be deleted from the original folder until which time the original folder is compressed.

This explains the purpose of emptying the trash AND compressing folders. If the email was simply moved from the Inbox to another folder, then emptying the trash is not enough. The original placement of the email is not actually removed from the file that contains the body information until the message has been designated for compression.

To empty your trash:

OUTLOOK EXPRESS: Click o­n Edit - Empty 'Deleted Items' Folder. To compress the remaining folders, click o­n Tools - Options, then click o­n the tab for Maintenance. Then click the button that says, "Clean Up Now". o­nce the compression is completed, click OK.

EUDORA: Click Special - Empty Trash. To compress the remaining items that need compression, then click o­n Special - Compact Mailboxes.

NETSCAPE MAIL: Click o­n File - Empty Trash Folder. To compress the mailboxes, click o­n File - Compress Folders.

I cannot stress enough how important it is that you utilize the tools for emptying the trash and compressing the mail folders. Protecting your email data o­n a regular basis is good practice for avoiding disaster in your mailbox.

So many of us rely upon our email software to keep our o­nline business running smoothly. o­nce you master the tools provided in your email software, your o­nline business will run smoothly also.

Let me share o­ne important lesson I l've learned about computer software. o­ne should never be afraid to try new things. Learning how to get the most out of your software relies upon your willingness to dig in and learn how to use it.

Once you learn how to use your software to its full potential, then your life will be greatly simplified and your effectiveness will be dramatically improved.

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About the author :
Stone Evans

Stone Evans, The Home Biz Guy can help you launch your very own money making website today that's 100% ready to take orders and pull in massive profits for you right now ... guaranteed!

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