What do I need to know to keep my mailbox folders under control?

In this new Internet-connected world we live in, we all spend a great deal of our time reading and responding to our e-mail. When we get online, we go straight to Kabissa, Yahoo or Gmail. Those lucky enough to have regular access to the same computer open their Outlook Express, Thunderbird or other program installed directly on their computer. However we access our e-mail, the time we have to spend online is limited, and we know that there is just about always something waiting to be handled in our inbox, be it colleagues reaching out in solidarity, deadlines for submitting grant proposals, opportunities for attending training workshops and conferences, or a range of other topics dear to us.

In this environment, there are five essential skills that Mimi strongly recommends you become as acquainted with as the five fingers you were born with on each hand. You may know some of these skills very well already, but when used together, like your fingers, you will be able to nimbly manipulate the messages in your Inbox. Mimi feels strongly enough about this to depart from her usual style to give some hands-on explanations and even exercises to make sure you know them all. Read on to learn about how to: 1) Create Folders, 2) Change message sort order, 3) Browse through multiple pages of messages, 4) Search folders by keyword, 5) Select multiple messages to handle them all at once.

Skill #1: Create folders

There is no reason to go through life with 5000 messages in your Inbox! But you can still keep your essential correspondence in a safe place for future reference. As Mimi has discussed in a previous column, you automatically are provided with folders for handling your outbound messages, for example "Sent" and "Draft", but the only folder most of us have for incoming messages is the Inbox for new mail and a "Junk/Spam" folder.

Mimi recommends that you create at least one new folder - perhaps called "Done" - to dispense with messages you have responded to or otherwise dealt with. They will be separated from your new mail but available for future reference. You can create as many folders as you like, for example to separate your personal and professional correspondence, or for the various activities you are involved in.

Skill #2: Change the sort order

By default, messages are usually sorted by date in your mailbox listings, with the newest messages displayed at the top. This is very helpful for quickly accessing new messages, but there may be times when you want to look at your messages in a different way. The sort order is indicated in the headings. In the example below, messages are sorted by date, with the newest messages at the top.

You can change the sort order by clicking on the heading you want to sort by. For example, you can click on "Size" to see which messages in your Inbox are taking up the most disk space. You will then see your messages ordered from smallest to largest. You can then click "Size" a second time to change the order from largest to smallest. You can do the same for any of the column headings, which usually include at least the name of the sender, message subject, date and time the message was received, and of course size.

When you are done, don't forget to change the sort order back to "Date" - some e-mail systems will remember your sort order preference and you might be scratching your head a week later and wondering why you are always looking at the same messages and not receiving any new ones!

Skill #3: Browse through multiple pages of messages

When using any Webmail systen, you will find that only some of your messages are displayed at a time in your Web browser, usually about 20 messages. This is helpful, especially when you are working on a slow connection, but it does mean that you have to know how to get to the messages further down in your mailbox. The skill involved here is known as "pagination" and you will recognize it on Websites that display search results such as Google and the Kabissa member directory.

If you have more than 20 messages in your folder, look for some links above and below the list of messages that you can click on to move between the pages displaying the messages in your folder. In Kabissa Webmail (see image) the pagination menu is represented by left and right arrows that look like tape recorder fast forward and rewind buttons. There are a few ways to use this nifty menu:

Click on the inner arrow facing right and you move from page 1 (the first page) to page 2.
Click on the inner arrow facing left and you move from page 2 to page 1. (when on page 1 it is greyed out because you can't move any further left)
Click on the outer arrows to jump to the first page or to the last page.
Jump directly to another page by typing in the page number and press the RETURN/ENTER key on your keyboard.

Skill #4: Search folders by keyword

Internet search sites like Google have revolutionized the Internet by making information easier to find - just type in a name or search terms, click "Search" and a list of relevant web pages pops up on the screen. You can do the same in your e-mail! Look for the search function, which usually provides options to quickly search for keywords across all mailbox folders as well as more sophisticated searches including limiting results by date or folder.

Skill #5: Select multiple messages to handle them all at once

If the five skills described here are fingers on a hand, then this skill is the thumb - together with the other skills you will be able to use it to manipulate many messages at the same time, revolutionizing your ability to organize and trim down the messages in your mailbox.

An example from Kabissa Webmail is depicted on the right (click on it to view it bigger). Nearly all Webmail systems use the same method for selecting multiple messages, though it may look a little different. Look for square "tickboxes" which you can click on one at a time to select individual messages on the page to then handle them all at once. You can also click on a tickbox in the column heading to automatically select all messages on the page. If you click it again, all the messages will be deselected.

Once you have selected all the messages you want to handle, you can then carry out exciting mass actions on all of them at once. For example, you can click on "Delete" to delete all the messages you selected, or "Forward" to forward them to someone else. More powerfully, you can click on the pulldown menu next to "Move/Copy", select a folder, then click on "Move" to move the messages into the selected folder. Note that on the pulldown menu you can select "New Folder" - when you then click on "Move" you will be prompted for the name of a new folder to create and move the messages into.

Exercises

Try out your newfound skills! Here are some examples of scenarios that might be relevant to you.

Create a folder called 2004, then search for all messages created in 2004 and move them all into the 2004 folder
Create a folder called Newsletter and search by keyword for all newsletters you receive (for example Pambazuka and Gong Gong) and move them into the Newsletter folder
Sort by "Subject" and paginate to the page containing a conversation that you wish to follow in chronological order. When you're finished, move all messages in the conversation all at once to your "Done" folder
Sort by "From" and paginate to the page containing all messages from a specific person, then handle those messages one by one before moving the messages to your "Done" folder
Do you get alot of mailing list messages that you don't need to read every day? Click on the tickbox in the message listing heading to select all messages in the first page of your inbox, and then deselect the messages one by one that you want to keep. Then delete all the selected messages.