I admit that I am powerless over my email, Thunderbird has become unmanageable.
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If you can relate to this do not despair but spend some time, to save some time in the long run. Although most of the following applies to my email program of choice, Thunderbird, some can be adapted to other programs. If you use online email applications consider importing and reading them from Thunderbird to take advantage of its more extensive features.
I recently had to take more steps to organize my own emails so as not to miss those that I need to read straight away. It took a little time but has been worthwhile. I am keeping up with and actioning the more important messages, the rest are tucked away for reading if and when I have the time. Here are the steps I took.
- If your inboxes are full now, click on the top of the "Organize by Subject" or "Organize by Sender" columns and concentrate on senders that send multiple emails. The others can be done bit by bit as they come in. It is not worth spending time searching for or trying to remember them at this stage.
- Unsubscribe from emails that you do not read and have no need to refer to in the future. Then delete those that already exist.
- Create a number of Inbox folders for mail you do not need to read or action straight away. A two tier system of of folders works well. One tier is for emails you do need to action, but not immediately, the other for those that can be left until you have some spare time to read them. If you are bringing in mail from more than one email account do not create separate inbox folders for each but in only the one you use more regularly. Some emails could be filtered directly into Local Folders rather than Inbox subfolders, although I recommend you only do this for less important ones, if you think they may get forgotten.
- Create filters to automatically file relevant incoming mail from all email accounts into the folders you have just created . I filter my gmail accounts and my ISP email into subfolders of my ISP account inbox.
- Make sure that emails you mark as junk are removed from the inbox – Go to Options/Privacy tick "When I mark messages as junk" and choose to send them to the junk folder or delete them. Make a habit of marking spam as junk rather than just deleting them so that Thunderbird’s spam filter can learn what you consider to be spam.
- You could also create filters for spam that slips through the net, such as those containing the word Viagra, to send them straight to junk (unless they are emails you have subscribed to of course) .
- Create folders within your Local Folders for filing away emails you have read but need to keep. Base your folder structure to suit yourself but I advise creating folders just for registrations and subscription confirmation emails, for important emails that you may need to find again quickly and those that have ongoing threads.
- Use Thunderbird’s default tags and/or create your own to mark inbox emails that you need to do something about in the future. They are much easier to find again.
- Take advantage of Thunderbird extensions to further automate the process.
Next I will talk about the Thunderbird extensions that are useful for organizing your mail and saving you time.
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Wow you are just the woman I needed to read today. I am going to take your list and follow it because I think my email is out of control and I need to take charge. I really like your writing style and its so easy to read. Thank you. The design of your blog is really user friendly too. Thanks for the great tips!
Thanks Lilly – I appreciate your feedback. I am writing the follow up post now with some handy extensions to help us keep up to date easier.
Excellent post! Thanks for sharing, I will be back again soon.
I am a person bombarded with a lot of emails everyday. I usually open my email every now and then. I need to organize my list, I have lots of clutter especially in my email. I have learned a lot from this article, I am going to try to use this, so as to avoid future problems in my email, thus be more organize in terms of my workload.
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My new system is going well so far and for once I am keeping up on a daily basis – keeping up with what I really need to read that is, not the less urgent stuff. At least that is tucked away not cluttering my inbox now though.
I really enjoyed reading how your emails have become unmanageable and how Thunderbird can be conquered, Sue. Matter of fact, I got a good giggle out of how you implemented the 12 Step program with the 1st Step. [The first step is always the hardest.]
Did you notice that there were only 9 steps rather than 12. This was to indicate how simple a 12 step program this is. Nah – I could not think of any more than 9
I am so far ahead of the game and do not get too many unwanted emails. I keep regularly unsubscribing from RSS feeds as well as other bulk mailers who for some reason or the other, I might have used for a while. In any case, this is a good tool to have around. Thank you.
I tend to subscribe to more things than I unsubscribe to – one step forward two steps back all the time.
Since I switched to dofollow, I am constantly getting spammed. It’s hard to tell which ones are legit and which ones arent.
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The e-mail thing is definitely something that can get out of control fast, even if you don’t have a spam problem. I had never heard of this program until you mentioned it. I’ll take a look at it, and see if that eases the mail load. Thanks!
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The tags feature is one of Thunderbird’s strengths. It makes categorizing and sorting extremely easy.
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it’s a very helpful article, i enjoy it. and i am working in illawarra web design. Come take a look.http://www.jsws.com.au/
Great tips. Nearly all of these tips can be applied to Outlook.
By the way, Outlook doesn’t allow tagging but an Outlook plugin (http://www.taglocity.com/), which I haven’t used, does create the feature. It looks very nice.
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I always sort my mails by sender and then delete bigger bulks. Like 100-200 emails from youtube every month, or messages from facebook. It usualy makes you inbox a lot less cluttered.
Web Design Miami….sadly, I’ve never thought of sorting by sender… I’ve always done by date. However, you just made me realize how much time I was wasting… thanks for the tip!
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Nice tip, but I still prefer to use Outlook
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I use thunderbird as well, and I currently have believe it or not, about 50-60 email accounts on the thunderbird, it takes about 10 seconds for thunderbird to load up, but thunderbird is still going fine and processing my emails.
The more I read about Thunderbird, the more inciting it is. Do you consider Thunderbird to be better than Outlook or merely a good free alternative?
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Aaron, as a Software Engineer, I do consider Thunderbird to be better than Outlook. Thunderbird really gets the job done
I hope that helps.
Thank you, Used Tires. Would you care to share the specific reasons for your opinion?
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No sign yet of the Thunderbird extensions. I am eagerly waiting for them to see if something else will persuade me to go in for a management system.
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I’ve tried Thunderbird but later decided to use Windows Live Mail instead to manage every single web-based and POP email account I have. Have you tried it? What can you say about it?
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Good tips. I also use Thunderbird and it really do better that outlook, and what is more, it makes me manage my emails in a short time. That is a good tool.
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I really enjoyed reading how your emails have become unmanageable,Nice tip,Thanks for sharing.
Found this all very helpful
great! the amount of information which I was looking for ends here. It has helped me a lot, Excellent job.
This is some great info. I have been trying to download videos from Youtube and other sites that are like it with little luck. This helped me a lot, thank you.
Sue, do you ever plan on doing a post about how to download flash games off websites? As always, Take care.
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For the first time I hear about this program. I have multiple mailboxes, so I can not cope with the flow of letters. I hope this program will help solve the problem. Thank you.
I recently started using Thrunderbird. I confess that using new software always gives me the butterflies. But having good tutorials and step by step instructions like these really help make us acquainted without getting stressed out. So thank you. I’m definitely tagging this and stumbling it.
All the best,
Eren Mckay
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Lots of folders is the only way I’ve been able to manage, oh that and custom filters ie. filtering out emails that contain my ‘banned’ keywords.
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I just want to get rid of these junk mails in my inbox. Very helpful.. Want to try this once.
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Creating rule is the only way to better management of emails and data whether we use outlook, yahoo or gmail!
I wish that Microsoft Outlook weren’t so established in the business world. Unfortunately, it is difficult for a business to use anything but Outlook.
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Good suggestion of email managing. I’ll create organize by subject and organize by sender. It’s really good method of email managing. Thanks.
Great Post…I use outlook and I am not geting it together…my e-mail needs work..also the junk mail..to much..so I will look into Thrunderbird…
with christmas..round the corner..I have made it priority to clean up my e-mail…for the new year…My other work is organized..I run out of time..OPS….Thanks…
Good suggestion of email managing.
I have more than 2000 emails in my outlook inbox, which is really difficult to manage, so after seeing this screenshot about this feature, I have decided to use Thunderbird rather than using outlook!
I like the way Google offers to manage e-mail correspondence – it is the most convenient as well as preferrable mail service for me:)
I spent the best part of 6 hours one day last month trying to get my Hotmail email account to work with Thunderbird.
It wouldn’t.
That is the only reason I am still using Live Mail and not Thunderbird.