Tech Tip of the Week--E-mail Inbox Mail Management: Trim the Fat
E-mail comes from so many sources: Campus and departmental announcements, students and teacher exchanges, timesheet notifications to supervisors, discussion list subscriptions, document attachments from colleagues, and the seemingly endless junk mail (or spam). Each type can be handled in a way that will alleviate the overwhelm to you and reduce the burden on the server. The instructions below are intentionally brief. If you need additional assistance to understand and follow these tips, call or e-mail the Help Desk (x5418 or helpdesk@hampshire.edu) to request assistance or schedule an appointment with a Computer Support Specialist.
Spam--We’ll begin with the easiest to tackle. Hampshire maintains a server wide spam filter. See this link for details about setting it up. If the filter doesn’t catch everything, one of Thunderbird’s handy features is “Junk Mail Controls”. This e-mail client can be taught to know what you consider to be junk, if it gets through the spam filter. Here’s a document about using Thunderbird. (Link) Page 3 contains information about Junk Mail Controls.
Using Folders--Mail can be manually moved out of the Inbox and into its own folder, either on the server (so you can see it from multiple computers) or on your own computer if you always use the same one.
Thunderbird: Instructions for creating local folders in Thunderbird are on Page 1 of the Using Thunderbird handout. (Link)
Webmail: Click on the “Folders” link to create a new folder. Then, check the box next to a message you want to move and choose the folder you created from the “Messages to” dropdown box. Click “Move”.
Message Rules or Filters--For that mail that you receive in volume from the same sources on a regular basis (e.g. discussion lists, faculty/staff announcements, timesheet notifications, etc.) you can create rules to automatically move messages to folders either on the server or on your computer.
Thunderbird: Select “Message Filters” from the Tools menu. Click on the “New…” button. Give the filter a name (e.g. Faculty Digest). Fill in the Match criteria in the middle section, and tell Thunderbird what to do with the message if it matches in the “Perform these actions” section. Click OK to save the filter. You can test whether you got it just right by selecting the filter from the list and click on the “Run Now” button. Messages in your mailbox should move to the folder you specified.
Webmail: Click on the Options link. In the Mail Management section, select “Filters”. Click on the “Edit your filter rules” link on the page that includes options for when the rules will apply, and whether you will by notified. In the “Rule Definition” section on the next page, fill in the rules you want to apply to messages and click the “Create” button. Lastly, click “Apply All Rules”.