Creating Categories: On paper, list the main categories for your folders. You can create a main folder for clients and then provide separate individual folders for each. Or you might want to classify your messages by the products or services your business is involved with. Here are some examples of how your filing system can be arranged:

• Customers (This is an example of a main folder)
  • Hope Enterprises (This is an example of one of the subfolders under "Customers")
    
  • J.M. Brown
    
  • Martin & Associates
    
  • The Stephenson Group

• Drafts

• Email to Me

• Newsletters

• Personal Correspondence (this could be subdivided if you wish)

• Products
  • Product #1
    
  • Product #2
    
  • Product #3
  
  
• Reply ASAP

• Resources

• Sales & Marketing

• Advertising

• Distributors/Resellers

• Marketing Ideas

• Suppliers

*Don't expect to complete your filing system at this point – you'll find yourself continuing to create new folders and subfolders as the need arises.

Sorting Messages: To sort the messages currently sitting in your inbox, click on "Inbox". To transfer a message to its appropriate folder or subfolder, highlight the message, then click on your right mouse button and click on "Move to". A box containing all of your folders will appear on the screen – click on the appropriate folder. If you wish to transfer a message to a subfolder, click first on its main folder (folders containing subfolders will have a "+" beside their name) and then highlight the subfolder you want it moved to. As you complete this process, you may think of some additional folders that will be useful for you.

Automatic Mail Sorting: Some of your incoming messages can be set up so they'll be automatically delivered to the appropriate subfolder. This is suitable for rerouting messages from a particular source or which have a specific subject. To arrange this, click on "Tools" at the top of your screen in the mailbox and select "Inbox Assistant". A box will appear on the screen. Click on "Add" below the box and another box will appear where you will insert the criteria to be used for rerouting the messages. You can specify your particular email address, the sender's email address or the subject line of the message.

*This can be useful when you're using a different email address for a particular promotion and want to determine the effectiveness of the campaign.

Automatic Forwarding: Using this same procedure, you can program your Inbox Assistant to automatically forward a copy of specific email messages to another party.

Click on "Add", then insert the criteria for the particular messages you wish to forward, then click on "Forward To" and type in the email address.

Automatic Reply: You can also use your Inbox Assistant to send a predetermined reply to specific email messages you receive.

• First create a folder in your File Manager where you can store your email responses. Go to "Explore", click on "File", then "Folder" and "New" – type in "Email" and hit "Enter".

• Now open your WordPad program and type in the message you wish to send as an automatic reply. Save this file as "reply1.eml" in your new "Email" folder.

• Open your mail program and click on "Tools", then "Inbox Assistant". Click on "Add", insert the criteria for the particular messages you want to receive your autoreply, then click on "Reply with" and type in the file name and extension (reply1.eml).

*Using filters to block unwanted mail is not very effective as the subject lines for most unsolicited email are constantly being changed.

Locating Email Messages in a Mail Folder: There are two different procedures you can use to locate a message in a mail folder and its subfolders.

In your mailbox program, click on "Edit" and "Find Message". Type in the name and any additional criteria that will help with the search. You can seek messages sent during a particular period of time by using the arrows to adjust the dates. A search for all messages from one sender will only require their name. Now click on "Find Now". A list of associated messages will appear in the lower area of the dialogue box. You can double click a selection to view the message.

Another method of locating a particular message is to simply open the folder you wish to search and click on any of the following:

• From: Click to create an alphabetical list of all senders' email addresses.

• Subject: Click to create an alphabetical list of the Subject line in all messages.

• Date: Click to create a list of all incoming messages sorted by date.