After spending significant time today upgrading the handling of my email, I would like to share some of the techniques I use to manage my email over many separate email addresses. My focus here is on getting emails automatically sorted so that certain categories can be ignored and others seen immediately as circumstances require. Ignoring things that are ignorable is difficult when all of your email is jumbled together. And missing emails that demand attention is not acceptable.

As the post goes on it will become more and more specific to the mail reader I use, Apple Mail 4.0. I do not address spam filtering in this post.

TIP 1: Use separate email addresses for different kinds of emails

For example, I use the address consult@crotown.com for emails that are sent by the contact form on this web site and for subscriptions to various web services that I use for Cronen-Townsend Consulting. And the address steve@templeisraelgreenfield.org is for emails relating to my volunteer work for the local synagogue. In my mail reader, emails are pre-sorted, and I never need to open the steve@templeisraelgreenfield.org mailbox during consulting work, for example. The number of unread emails there may increment, but since I know that a new email there can wait by virtue of the email address it was sent to, it will wait appropriately for my attention until after the paying work ends for the day.

TIP 2: Use Smart Mailboxes for cross-mailbox categories

Smart Mailboxes are a term Apple uses to denote mailboxes which are full of pointers to email messages in regular mailboxes, and are filled according to a definable set of rules.

Smart mailboxes are useful since they allow one to create something that appears with the list of mailboxes, but goes from no icon next to it to a one, as soon as you receive an email fitting its criteria.

I have one smart mailbox for each client and one for my wife. I don't want to miss an email about dinner arrangements for tonight, because it was mixed in with all my other emails and I didn't notice when a mailbox count went from 101 to 102. When I find an email that was not included in a smart mailbox that I think it should be in, I add to or edit the existing rules defining that smart mailbox until it is included. Your own individual experimentation will be required, but you get the idea.

TIP 3: Use Rules to move emails from each mailing list to its own mailbox

Rules are a term Apple uses to denote filtering criteria that trigger certain actions on email, when they are received (or later).

Even after applying the first two tips in this post, you may find yourself missing mail in a certain mailbox because it is overwhelmed by mail from a certain mailing list.

For example, I subscribe to the groups.drupal.org OpenPublish group, which has bursts of traffic. So, in order not miss other emails during burst, I have a Rule that automatically moves any email whose subject contains "groups.drupal.org OpenPublish" to mailbox called "OpenPublish" that lives on my Mac. Then I can read it an appropriate time, when I have time to read it, and more pressing email that comes to the same mailbox will still be seen during a burst of traffic from that group.

As our use of email grows, the need for techniques to manage it so it remains an effective tool for us increases. Hopefully these three tips contribute in a small way to that ongoing discussion.