Keeping Your Email Box Organized & Ready for Business
by 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 online 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.

About the author:
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Stone Evans owns the Home Business Resource Directory where
you can find everything you'll ever need to start, run and grow a
home based business at: http://www.Home-Business.com
-----------------------------------------------------------------