6 Ways To Organize Your Mail Application

Dealing with emails can be a nightmare, especially when you have hundreds of unread emails which keep growing by the hour, and dozens of flagged messages which need following-up on. Here’s a few simple actions you can take to clear your inbox.

6. Mail Checking

Change your mail checking preference to 15 or 30 minute intervals. Do not stop work to answer emails as they arrive, instead set aside time each hour to briefly deal with your incoming emails.

5. Actionable Folders

Create 3 folders and name them Follow-Up, Interesting & To Do. Then, as you check your emails file them straight into the applicable folder.

Later, when you have time you can go straight to these folders folder and work through them. It will be much quicker to see what needs attending to and you are more likely to might be motivated to spare a few minutes clearing your to-do folder.

4. Sub Folders

Organization is the key to accessing any saved emails. Having 2000 emails in one folder is a sure-fire road map to confusion and lost information.

Create folders, then subfolders residing inside these. For example for this blog I have this folder structure set up in Mail:

Mailfolders
Do this for each different project you are working on, and as you get a related email file it right away. If it needs to be followed up move it into that folder, then to it’s normal resting place once it’s been actioned.

3. Inbox Clearing

Keep your inbox clear, do not be tempted to use it as a storage box. Each evening before you log off the computer make sure there is nothing left in your inbox. Go through each and every email and file it. Place it in its respective folder, or if it requires action put it in your Follow-Up, Interesting or To Do folders.

This allows you to start the next day fresh and organized.

2. Delete Old Messages

Get that delete button working. Sit down for an hour (or however long it takes) and sort through every single email in Mail. Press Delete on anything you will never need again. After this long deleting session it should be a lot easier to keep on top of the size of your Mail database.

Searching will be faster, and finding files will be more efficient.

1. Smart Folders

Receiving hundreds of emails each day? Filters, otherwise known as “Smart Folders�, are your answer.

Let’s say you run three blogs, create three smart folders with the rules:

Mailrules2
This way you can keep different type of email in different places, and will have no confusion on what the email is related to.

Want more Apple Mail tips? Checkout any one of these articles for more tips and tricks.

Comments

  1. #1

    Racketboy

    “Create 3 folders and name them Follow-Up, Interesting & To Do. Then, as you check your emails file them straight into the applicable folder.”

    Simple, but a very good idea. Thanks!

  2. #2

    Brajeshwar

    6. Well, I’d still keep it to 5 but changed my habit to check it only after my work is done. This may be useful initially to break your habit though. 5. I have “Smart Folder” for these which are like “Flagged” for the ones that I flagged and these are ones that I will follow up and interesting, then I have “Unread” for all unread mails that comes in so I can check all unread mails (for all my mail account) at one go. 4. Mine is a mixed blend of Smart Folders and Normal Folder with appropriate Filters. Some filters even “Mark them Read” and shoved off in the folder – for the likes of the SVN and Trac notifications of our deve team are just there so I can scan them when I like. Btw, MailActOn would be a good tool to have here for this one (it is free and is availabel at http://www.indev.ca/MailActOn.html). 3. I use to have my Outlook to do automatic Archives every 7 days and use to separate archives every 6 months when I was on Windows but have been looking every since I converted to Mac that can do an archive for my Mail but still keeps it for me to look for whenever I want. Any idea? 2. I would rather NEVER delete mails save for Spams but I have talked to people who even loves to collect spams mails and just keep it. What about using Gmail as your Mail Archiver. Read a relevant Article I wrote today – http://www.brajeshwar.com/archives/2006/08/is-gmail-the-best-spam-filter-for-your-domain/ 1. As mentioned above, the answer is the usage of both “Smart Folders” and Normal Folder with Filters appropriately.

  3. #3

    Caitlyn Imburgo

    think this could have been done in “3 Ways to Organize” but interesting ideas. :)

  4. #4

    Gavin

    Thanks for the tips. I’ll try a few out and see if it helps me get organized. I’ve got to seriously take some time and tweak my Thunderbird settings but I never seem to get around to it. Maybe now is as good a time as any.

  5. #5

    Brandon Wood

    Thanks for the tips Glenn. #6 is my worst offense, especially at work. I tend to stop whatever it is I’m doing when an email arrives so that I can tend to it. What I should really do is turn off the notification that pops up on my desktop every time a new email arrives. If I’m not instantly notified when a new email arrives, I won’t feel bad about neglecting it for 15 or 20 minutes until I finish what I’m working on.

  6. #6

    eh

    e-mail=documentation

  7. #7

    Michael Madrinan

    Nice tips. I do something similar but not exactly like that. I actually group my mails into separate sub-folders per project instead of the aforementioned Todo, Interesting, and Follow-up groupings. To actually track what I need to do and what I need to follow-up, I flag them using different coloured flags in outlook (say Red Flag for To do, Blue Flag for Important Info, Green for Follow-up, and so on). I then setup search folders pertaining to each of the flags…

    Then when I’m done with the task, I just mark the flag as complete.

    This way, I can keep track of all the info for specific project, but then be able to track my To Dos.

    Note that I also assign myself tasks by sending blank e-mails to myself either from my Office PC or via my phone if something comes up while I’m away from my desk.

  8. #8

    Richard

    I was about to add such labels to Gmail, and I realized that I largely use the “starred” feature for all three. I try to keep my inbox to one page (50, for me) of conversations so a smallish list of stars is fine. Also, I have 2 gmail accounts – standard, and list/public, that I use for list discussions etc. This keeps my private one quiet – I don’t even see the other account until I make a specific effort to look at that account – and I use IE for that (Firefox on the standard one) so I can auto-login to both.

    I also find that using Gmail exclusively means I don’t keep my email open – I only open it every 30 minutes or so – which is much better than my old Thunderbird/Outlook behaviour!

  9. #9

    PKTM

    Nope. Why spend all that time sorting out e-mail? Sure, for some things, it’s worthwhile. But for most, my advice is LEAVE it in the inbox, and use quality search tools when you need to find something. And “set time aside each hour”??! I don’t live in a world like that.

  10. #10

    Web Design UK

    Thanks for the great tips!

  11. #11

    Jumper

    in my experience, sorting/viewing your mail by “conversation” instead of date/sender helps tremendously! it “lessens” the number of items in your inbox and makes it easy to look for related/relevant emails.

    Gmail, which i use, sorts emails automatically by conversation. and i agree with some of the people here, that the “Starred” function is very useful. i use it as my “to do” list. whenever i see an important email, i “star” it. whenever i wanna see my “to do list”, i just click on my “Starred” emails.

  12. #12

    Paul L

    Some good points but you failed to deal with the most insideously ignored folder of all – Sent Items. As an admin, it is inevitable the one that fills a mailbox as noone sorts it.

  13. #13

    Paul L

    With Thunderbird I use the Inbox as the Sent folder and view it threaded. That way when a discussion is complete, I can file or delete the whole list of emails. I can even pare the thread down to the 1 or 2 most important, as all of the replies inevitably have a copy of the originals.

    I also tend to apply labels to emails to set as todo and followup instead of seperate folders.

  14. #14

    Z

    one more tip (i use it on my gmail account, but it should apply to other email systems as well).

    i send all my news subscriptions as well as any perishable emails directly to trash. whenever i have time, thats where i read them. and if i never do, they get quietly deleted.

  15. #15

    Mikey

    There is some really good advice here, I will have to try it out and see how it goes. Thanks Glenn!

  16. #16

    Juan de Dios Santander Vela

    What I can foresee is a great deal of people making the system-wide Leopard To-Do service “the feature” the makes them jump ship… specially if, as promised, lots of applications appear that can tap into that service, so that you can follow-up an e-mail from within iWork, for instance…

  17. #17

    Mike Evans

    Great tips all around. Managing a lot fo websites I do this:

    Separate by domains and use rules to file new mail for each domain into its proper folder straight away.

    I like the perishable emails into the trash idea. Im doing that now ;)

  18. #18

    Tom Field

    I agree with another poster that using a good search tool (for example, Google Desktop on my Windows box) is an enormous time saver

  19. #19

    Trannex

    get NEOFree, its awesome.

  20. #20

    Bill Wilson

    Glenn—A great set of simple yet immensely useful tips. I must also compliment you on your writing. If you’re really 14 years old, you are well ahead of your peers in writing skills. Heck, you’re way ahead of many people three times your age!

  21. #21

    Maya Payne

    Glenn: Thanks for the pointers. I had planned to post my own list of e-mail organization tips to my blog, but you did all the work for me!

  22. #22

    Marc

    Nice tip – especially #5. I do something similar with @Wait and @Today folders, but I think I like your convention (esp. “Interesting”) and might try it.

    Thanks!

  23. #23

    Zachary

    What’s the difference between “follow-up” and “to do”? They both seem to suggest action required

  24. #24

    Codie Westphall

    great tips will definatly use them

  25. #25

    Des Paroz

    Good points indeed. Being a GTD fan, I certainly following a variation on item 5.

    Regarding item 4, I disagree. I have found that having multiple layes of folders and sub-folders has built up internal resistance towards proper filing.

    Instead, I have reverted to a one-tier structure, and blogged about it just yesterday.

    http://www.desparoz.com/index.php/2006/09/01/the-value-of-a-one-tiered-folder-structure/

    I believe that a one tier structure is far better, but of course this relies on semi-regular management and purging of unrequired folders and messages.

  26. #26

    Thebizofknowledge

    You know, I really don’t think it’s necessary to create folders to stay organized. Sure, your Inbox might *look* prettier, but nothing really has changed. Most email applications have sophisticated search functions that allow you to find exactly what you’re looking for regardless of where the message is. You can usually search by keyword, subject, or sender.

    Granted, I don’t get hundreds of emails per day, but I do get a fair amout. I don’t use folders and have never “lost” anything in my Inbox.

  27. #27

    Sam

    Interesting post – thanks Glenn.

    What’s the difference between Follow-Up and To Do?

  28. #28

    Dana Hanna

    I’d be fired if I set my email client to receive so infrequently. Maybe this is good advice for small business and home users. But in my enterprise and job position – I need realtime…

    Not applicable.

  29. #29

    Robert

    agree with most. i’m an Inbox Zero fan. Definitie productivity boost noticed when I turned off all mail notification. Now I check mail hourly and process everything into action items or delete, then I spend the hour working thru the actions one by one in priority order. The thing I disagree with most is separating mail into many different folders. That’s what google search is for. I separate things into a WIP and To-Do, and Someday Maybe (how GTD of me) folder. Everything else goes into Deleted Items which auto purges items older than 3 months. Let your favorite search tool manage searching for items when you need them rather than waste brain cycles figuring out where you stored things. Of course, that’s what works for me. ymmv.

  30. #30

    Summiter

    THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU! You have just saved me days of work, the embarassment of lost projects, and money, as well.

  31. #31

    Fidel Mercado

    Just finished applying your tips. Excellent work. Thank you!

  32. #32

    Swissfondue

    I keep all emails in my inbox. Spotlight search and smart folders help me find and sort any I need. This way all my email is synced to my .Mac account and I can access all my email from anywhere.

  33. #33

    Swissfondue

    But the at work, when using windows, I’m forced to keep a clean inbox, because search in Lotus Notes is abysmal.

  34. #34

    CMJohn

    hi sir . tell me wont you have in stock now do you have t.shirt and mp3 play i will like to here from you soon thanks

  35. #35

    Mouse

    I think this just needed one tip: BE ORGANISED! I find people with messy mail boxes are usually

  36. #36

    Seth Rubin

    Sometimes I want to delete things, but not right away. E.g. an offer that expires next month. One of my folders is “del_endof200611″. When November is over, I delete all the messages in that folder.

  37. #37

    DWY

    I’m not sure I agree, even though I find your comments useful…

    How many times have I gone through and created a gazillion folders to get organized, then forget what folder I copied the email into? Then, what if I have an email that could apply to two seperate folders?

    e.g. from this person, but part of that project? (depending on how you make your folders)

    I know this varies by person, but I find myself using the search option in Outlook (at work) and Google search (personal) way more often than one would think, even if I have a bunch of folders…

  38. #38

    Dinis

    folders in Apple Mail should’t work like file folders, ie: like a file folder, you can add emails to the folder *and* the sub-folders.

    when you choose the folder you see only the messages on *that* folder; when you choose the sub-folder you see the messages on the sub-folder.

    most of the times I feel that it would be more useful if, when the folder is selected, you could see all the messages form the folder and *all* the sub-folders.

  39. #39

    Glenn Wolsey: 6 email tips | 43 Folders → www.43folders.com/2006/09/01/wolsey-email

    [...] Glenn Wolsey—6 Ways To Organize - Your Mail Application [...]

  40. #40

    Tom

    A few people have asked about the difference between follow-up and to do. I have a similar system for my email. I’m using follow-up for things you subsequently need to check on, like an email to someone to make some change. To do is for things that I need to take action on.

  41. #41

    Glenn Wolsey → www.glennwolsey.com

    Nice tip Tom.

  42. #42

    The Daily Routine. at Michael Yurechko → michaelyurechko.com/index.php/2006/11/30/the-daily-routine

    [...] So everyone has a routine for what they do, some may not know it, but they do. Some get online and immediately check their email, some save the dreaded inbox for last. Well I decided to put my routine up in an order everyone can enjoy. A list. Music. The first thing I always do after I hit the power button and hear the ever so lovely apple chime on startup, I fire up iTunes. I don’t know what it is, but I need music to accomplish anything. Mail. I immediately start sorting out my email and reply to messages in order of importance. Once I have a clear inbox I feel a lot better, almost relieved, so I can deal with new mail as it comes in. Feeds. I am a big fan of RSS feeds, I am subscribed to multiple feeds and go through them usually twice a day. I mark things of interest and come back to them later. I use NewsFire as it is the #1 feed reader, I love the easy 1 handed surfing through all my feeds. [...]

  43. #43

    findin.gs/johnb / Glenn Wolsey | 6 Ways To Organize Your Mail Application → www.borthwick.com/findings/?p=300

    [...] Glenn Wolsey | 6 Ways To Organize Your Mail Application [...]

  44. #44

    Glenn Wolsey | Reader Project: Clear Your Mail Inbox → www.glennwolsey.com/2006/12/05/reader-project-clear-your-mail-inbox

    [...] The before you get started, read this extremely popular article I write a few months back on “6 Ways To Organize Your Mail Application” [...]

  45. #45

    Clear Your Mail Inbox at goSammy → www.gosammy.com/2006/12/04/clear-your-mail-inbox

    [...] Clear Your Mail Inbox Want to get your Mail inbox sorted and organized before the holiday season? Then head over to GlennWolsey.com where he is running a Reader Project to clean out your Mail inbox and get organized. He will be posting tips and tricks over the course of the next week to help you on your way. To get started, hit up this introduction blog post, and then read this initial post full of tips and tricks. [...]

  46. #46

    GlennWolsey.com Reader Project at DeathAxe’s blog → deathaxe.sparknom.com/blog/?p=31

    [...] I read Glenn Wolsey’s blog since its beginning last July. It soon became one of my favorite Mac blog. Everyday, Glenn posts a new tip or review on almost anything concerning Mac softwares or photography. He started a new project today called “Clear your Mail Inbox” and he wants readers to spread the world about this project. Want to get your Mail inbox sorted and organized before the holiday season? Then head over to GlennWolsey.com where he is running a Reader Project to clean out your Mail inbox and get organized. He will be posting tips and tricks over the course of the next week to help you on your way. To get started, hit up this introduction blog post, and then read this initial post full of tips and tricks. [...]

  47. #47

    Glenn Wolsey | New Years Checklist: Digital Clean Up → www.glennwolsey.com/2006/12/30/new-years-checklist-digital-clean-up

    [...] You can use some of my tips to get organized with your Mail application in this post. This will help reduce stress and the only Mail in your inbox will be from the New Year. [...]

  48. #48

    Tucker MacDonald → www.tuckermacdonald.com

    I usually read and reply right as the email comes in. I think now I will use some of the tips. Just I like to keep all of my emails, just to be safe.

  49. #49

    Shreedhan → appleication.com

    I used these to ‘loosely’ organize my Mail, it’s worked a charm!

  50. #50

    Glenn Wolsey → www.glennwolsey.com

    Update: Article polished and cleaned up a little.

  51. #51

    Shawn Blanc → thefightspot.com

    Although I have several smart folders and rules set-up I still use my inbox as a storage bin and keep messages that require action as un-read. But I like the way you do it better.

  52. #52

    How To: Clean Up and Organize Your Inbox | The Fight Spot → thefightspot.com/2007/04/how-to-clean-and-organize-your-inbox

    [...] organized: I had some folders set up but they were really just taking up space. After reading a post on Glenn’s site I got some motivation and a few hours later had a clean inbox, and a system [...]

  53. #53

    shawnblanc.net » Email → shawnblanc.net/2007/email

    [...] 6 Ways To Organize Your Mail Application - [Glenn Wolsey] [...]

  54. #54

    Chris Thomson → christhomsonblog.com

    And Now, there is Bacn - Email you want, just not right now.

    Basically its for all those “Someone is now following you on Twitter”, or “You’ve been poked by Someone on Facebook” emails. They aren’t spam, they are information you want, just not now.

  55. #55

    Cleaning up your computer for the new year « The Car Family → carfamily.wordpress.com/2007/11/23/cleaning-up-your-computer-for-the-new-year

    [...] http://www.glennwolsey.com/2006/08/30/6-ways-to-organize-your-mail-application/ [...]

  56. #56

    Travis Reynolds → TravisReynolds.com

    I like the clearing your inbox every night. I’m going to have to try that tonight

  57. #57

    Have your mail organized | Travis Reynolds → travisreynolds.com/apple/have-your-mail-organized

    [...] got this idea from Glenn Wolsey. Ever sense this I have been using it, and it works a lot. It’s real simple, everynight [...]

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