Boring post alert, but any advice appreciated.
I use Mac’s Mail program, the one bundled in with OSX. It has never wowed me with its ease of use and filing, but in recent weeks, with several projects simultaneously on the go, I was wondering what on earth I have done to screw up assigning rules to messages.
I need a message from Joe Bloggs to go into the ‘Bloggs’ folder, ‘On My Mac’. Or I might need a message from Josephine Bloggs to go into the “Jo Bloggs’ folder.
I’ve set up the rules that should allow this to happen. Either one of two things will actually happen.
I will get a notification that mail from Joe Bloggs can’t be transferred to the ‘Bloggs’ folder, because that folder doesn’t exist (although it does, I have to then waste precious milliseconds of my life manually dragging Joe Blogg’s latest missive into it)
Or it will file some of Josephine Blogg’s messages into the allocated mailbox, and not others. This seems to defeat the purpose of organising things neatly so Zoom meetings are not unduly delayed whilst I scrabble around my inbox looking for the message Josephine or Joe Bloggs sent me.
Of course, other Mail clients are available and if any of you have love for another client which can manage rules and behave sympathetically, please do let me know!
Not really what you’re looking for, but I gave up on email rules quite some time ago, and just rely on the search function in the email programme. If I need to find an email from Joe Bloggs, I’ll just search that name and they’ll all come up. It’s very freeing.
I’m similar but I have a few smart folders set up via email addresses that make it easy to delete things like Amazon where I get a lot of emails, or specific daily update emails so it’s easier to see if I’ve had them. I generally think filing emails is similar to peeling grapes. A lot of effort for no gain.
I do exactly that too! Kind of tedious but I got stuffed around with folders and rules some years ago and just can’t be bothered. OOAA
Think yourself lucky, you could be using Outlook.
Gmail?
Thunderbird
(s) are GO!
Thunderbird looks good!
If you want a “proper” email client then Thunderbird is the one. It’s been around since 2004 and stood the test of time. Rock solid.
Available for nothing from here: tracyisland.com
If you want the Penelope add-in, you’ll also need to go to: homeparker.com
Fastmail. I’ve been using it for maybe fifteen years now. You can try it (or some of it) for free, and there’s a range of options/capacities. Last year they lowered my sub, as a reward for using it for so long! The look of it has changed hardly at all – beautifully clear and simple. If you can remember the original Hotmail, before Bill Gates screwed it up, it has something of that appeal. They’re not constantly adding features or upgrades – it’s fine as it is. It’ll do everything you need, fast and cheap and simple.
(You’ll probably dismiss this recommendation because, well, it’s me making it … but you might have a look at it anyway. The two friends I pestered into giving it a try haven’t used anything else since. It’s brilliant, and my only on-line sub.)
Not dismissed at all, thank you HPS. Software that is fast, clear and simple is exactly what I need.
Is this Fast thingy in any way related to (i.e. descended from) the thing that used to be just called email.com? That was fine, fast, cheap (free in fact) and simple too.
I used that for quite a while for web email, then I used Hotmail. And we know what happened to that.
But I wanted to have a ‘proper’ email client (POP3/SMTP) on my mchines, not in the effing cloud, something that didn’t sync everything up with everything else on my bloody phone and probably the car as well, demand two-factor authentification every time I fired it up and needed a log-on before I could use it, etc. etc. etc. blah blah.
I started using Thunderbird because Outlook – the dull corporate default – on my own machine long ago started to behave like the mad bint in the attic. I still find myself having to use a Microsoft account (i.e. the account that ‘owns’ my Hotmail address) from time to time for convenience reasons, but I try not to open my Hotmail email directly – I have Thunderbird do it for me. Everything is in one locally held user interface, and I can have as many different email addresses (with different underlying protocols) as I like, all presented in one navigational hierarchy. Seemples. Oh, sorry, I can’t say that can I? I’ll be labelled pariah.
I use Thunderbird, and very good it is too. I store everything on local folders, and don’t use a web front end for my various emails.
Thunderbird is also extremely easy to move from one machine to another – you just copy one folder and move that to another machine.