Mail Tips: Take Control With Smart Folders

mailiconWhen you are sorting through thousands, if not tens of thousands of email messages, finding the exact one you want gets a little difficult. Sure, you have Apple’s amazing Spotlight technology waiting on hand to help you out, but if you want to compile large lists of messages with a certain similarity, Smart Folders is the best option.

The image to the right of this paragraph is the list of the current Smart Folders I have set up, I plan to ad more after this very post is finished, but this is my basic setup. The “Today” folder is very handy so I can see all the messages I have received today, and I have many other folders like “WordPress” which shows all the comments posted on my blog.

Here are a few ideas for smart, Smart Folders.

  • All Flagged Messages
  • Unread Mail
  • Today’s Messages
  • Current Year
  • Current Week

What smart folders do you have set up?

Comments

  1. #1

    Josh → maconlyreview.wordpress.com

    I think Smart Folders/Playlists/Searches are one of the best introductions to Mac OS X that I’ve ever seen. Just set up a smart folder with notifications from forums right now. I also have eBay/Paypal, School (school work), Flagged, Today, This Week.

  2. #2

    yannic → yannicwalter.de

    As you said they are useful for archiving your blogposts, though I don’t use it.
    My blog is pretty new, so there aren’t loads of comments yet.

  3. #3

    Robert → www.sphereboy.com

    My Smart Folders:

    -Today
    -Yesterday
    -This Week
    -2 Weeks
    -Flagged
    -[Current Client]
    -Friends
    -AIGA Board
    -AIGA Related

    Love smart folders. Especially the “Today” Smart Folder is the best thing next to sliced bread.

  4. #4

    Christian Kuttruff → www.jungfreudlich.de

    Can you explain how you create such smartfolders like “today” or “wordpress”. Where do the emails from the “today” folder go the next day?

  5. #5

    Smaran → smarandayal.com

    The only smart folder I have set up is one for all my flagged messages.

    I don’t get enough e-mails to actually be bothered and need to organise them.

    I agree with Josh when I say that the whole Smart Folder concept that Apple has implemented in iTunes, Mail etc. is very useful and extremely powerful.

  6. #6

    Brajeshwar → www.brajeshwar.com

    Cool, I think I have most of them already done that way. For instance, I have the following Smart Folders besides the Clients, Developers and many other names

    * Flagged
    * Unread

    I don’t really need earlier year or month’s mail because if I have not done something with the mail that old, then it is definitely not important. However, I have a rule that a mail over 30+ days are archived to a Normal Folder called Archives and sub-folders with the mail accounts that I have.

    I also have normal folders where mails like Bank Statements come in through the rules and already marked READ as I do not need to read them everyday.

    I love Google Mail for Domains as it is one of the best spam filters for my mails.

    For first contacts and mailing list, forums, blog comments, et al and anything else that is not yet important, I use the Gmail Account.

  7. #7

    Cameron

    “Flagged” is all I need. The rest are regular folders under my dotMac account so they get synced to the server… it’s pretty sweet.

  8. #8

    Glenn Wolsey | 6 Ways To Organize Your Mail Application → www.glennwolsey.com/2006/08/30/6-ways-to-organize-your-mail-application

    [...] Want more Apple Mail tips? Checkout any one of these articles for more tips and tricks. Possibly RelatedReader Project: Clear Your Mail InboxNew Years Checklist: Digital Clean UpMockup Of “iMail”iChatter? Organize Your Contacts By FrequencyClose Mail To Keep Focused [...]

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