Outlook Express offers a number of methods for organizing your mail, including a handy little feature known as the Inbox Assistant, which can automatically sort incoming mail according to rules that you set. Don’t forget that the most basic way to organize your e-mail is to sort the messages in the Inbox. To sort all the messages in the Inbox (or any of the other Outlook Express folders, for that matter), click a column heading. For example, if you want to sort the e-mail in your Inbox by subject, click the Subject column heading at the top of the list. And if you want to sort the messages by the date and time received (from most recent to oldest), click the Received column heading at the top of that column. Clicking the Received column heading once sorts the messages in ascending or descending order according to date. If you click the column heading again, the messages appear in the opposite order.

Creating a new folder

Creating a new folder is easy. Just right-click in the Folders list and choose New Folder from the shortcut menu that appears. Type a name for the folder in the Folder Name text box and click OK. Then click the Inbox icon before clicking the name of the newly created subfolder.

Moving e-mail into a folder

Outlook Express makes easy work of arranging your e-mail messages in folders.

Internet host computers can run many programs at one time, and they can To send a bunch of related e-mail messages into a new or existing folder, follow these steps: 1. Open the Inbox in Outlook Express either by clicking the Mail button in Internet Explorer and then choosing Read Mail on the drop-down list or, if you already have Outlook Express running, by clicking the Inbox icon in the Folders pane.

2. Select all the messages that you want to put in the same folder. To select a single message, click it. To select a continuous series of messages, click the first one and hold down the Shift key as you click the last one. To click multiple messages that aren’t in a series, hold down Ctrl as you click the description of each one.

3. After you finish selecting the messages to be moved, choose Edit -> Move to Folder on the Outlook Express menu bar.

4. Click the plus sign next to the Local Folders icon; then click the name of the subfolder into which you want to move the selected messages.

5. Click the OK button in the Move dialog box to move the messages into the selected folder. To verify that the items are in the correct folder, click the big Inbox button with the downward-pointing arrow on the bar at the top of the pane with the messages and then select the subfolder on the pop-up outline.

Organizing your e-mail with the Rule Editor

The Rule Editor can automate the organization of your e-mail by using rules that you create in its Rule Editor dialog box. Outlook Express uses the rules that you create to route e-mail from particular correspondents to particular folders that you’ve set up. To create a new rule for systematizing your e-mail, follow these steps:

1. Launch Outlook Express.

2. On the menu bar, choose Tools -> Message Rules -> Mail.

3. If you have previously set up mail rules in your copy of Outlook Express, the Message Rules dialog box opens on your screen; click the New button to open the New Mail Rule dialog box. If this is the first time you’ve opened the Rule Editor to create a mail rule, the New Mail Rule dialog box opens automatically at this point.

4. In section 1 of the New Mail Rule dialog box, select a check box or boxes for the conditions that must be met by the incoming e-mail.

5. In section 2, select a check box or boxes for the action or actions that you want to occur when a message meets the condition(s) you selected in section 1.

6. In section 3, click each underlined hyperlink until you have provided all the necessary information that the rule requires. The subsequent dialog boxes that open and the information you are prompted for depend on the options you selected in the New Mail Rule dialog box. As an example, assume that you select Where the From Line Contains People in section 1 and Copy It to the Specified Folder in section 2. So in section 3, you click the underlined hyperlink in the Where the From Line Contains People option to open the Select People dialog box. Here, you specify the sender for whom you are establishing the rule. After you type the sender’s name, you click the Add button and then OK. The Select People dialog box closes, and you return to the New Mail Rule dialog box. At this point, you click the hyperlink in the Move It to the Specified Folder option in section 3, which opens the Move dialog box. After choosing a folder or clicking the New Folder button to create a new folder, you click OK to exit the Move dialog box. You return to the New Mail Rule dialog box.

7. (Optional) Type a descriptive name in the Name of the Rule text box to replace the generic name and click OK. The New Mail Rule dialog box closes, and you return to the Message Rules dialog box.

8. Click the Apply Now button to open the Apply Mail Rules Now dialog box where you choose the folder (most often the Inbox) to which the new rule should be applied.

9. Click Close to exit the Apply Rules Now dialog box; then click OK to close the Message Rules dialog box. You can set up multiple rules to apply to e-mail messages in the Inbox folder. Just be aware that Outlook Express applies the rules in the order in which they appear on the Mail Rules tab in the Message Rules dialog box. You can use the Move Up and Move Down buttons to rearrange their order.

Deleting and compacting your e-mail

As you get more and more e-mail in your Inbox, you may want to use the File -> Folder -> Compact command to compress the messages, thus freeing up valuable disk space. When you have e-mail in all sorts of different folders, you can compact all the messages by choosing File -> Folder -> Compact All Folders instead. To remove messages from the Inbox without permanently deleting them, select the messages and then press the Delete key. The messages instantly disappear from the Inbox window. However, if you ever need any of these messages again, you can display them by clicking the Deleted Items icon in the pane on the left side of the Outlook Express window. When you have messages (especially those from blocked senders) that you no longer need to store on your computer’s hard drive, you can remove them from the Deleted Items folder permanently by selecting them and choosing Edit -> Delete. Click Yes in the alert dialog box that tells you that you are about to delete the selected messages forever. (Alternatively, you can simply press the Delete key.) Normally, Outlook Express deletes all messages from your mail server as soon as they are downloaded to your computer. To keep the original messages on the mail server, giving you not only a backup, but also the means to retrieve the mail from somebody else’s computer, follow these steps:

1. Launch Outlook Express.

2. Choose Tools -> Accounts; then click the “friendly” name for your mail account and click the Properties button.

3. Click the Advanced tab; then, in the Delivery section, select the Leave a Copy of the Messages on Server check box. The next time you download messages, these copies will be downloaded to your computer again. Their filenames will be appended with a number to differentiate them from the original copy if it still exists in the same folder.

4. (Optional) To have the mail left for a set period of time, select the Remove from Server After xx Day(s) check box and enter the number of days in the associated text box or use the spinner buttons to select this time period.

5. (Optional) To have the messages deleted from the server when you permanently (Ctrl+D) delete them, select the Remove from Server When Deleted from the Deleted Items check box.

6. Click OK to close the Properties dialog box; and then click Close to make the Internet Accounts dialog box go away.

Deleting and renaming folders

If you decide that a folder is no longer useful in your organization scheme, deleting the folder is no problem. Simply highlight the folder, press the Delete key, and the folder is gone. Or you may opt to rename the folder, using a more useful moniker. Click the folder to highlight it, wait a second, and then click again. A rectangular box appears around the folder. Position your cursor inside the box and type your folder’s new and improved name.

Adding Entries to Your Address Book

Good news! If you’re switching from some other e-mail program, like the one that comes with Netscape Navigator, and you’ve already created an address book, you can import all those addresses into the Address Book in Outlook

Express. So no retyping required all you have to do is follow the steps in “Importing addresses from somewhere else.”

Creating a new address

You’ll want to add all your frequent e-mailees to your Address Book. To add a new recipient, follow these steps:

1. Open Outlook Express and choose Tools -> Address Book or click the Addresses button to open the Address Book. Alternatively, you can choose FileÍNewÍContact from the Internet Explorer menu bar.

2. Click the New Contact button.

3. Fill out the Name section with information about the new contact. Then, in the E-Mail Addresses text box, type the recipient’s e-mail address and click the Add button. When you click the Add button, Outlook Express adds the address to the list box and designates it as the default e-mail address for the individual you named. If the person you’re adding to the Address Book has more than one e-mail address (for example, if he maintains an e-mail account with one address at home and an e-mail account with another address at work), you can add the additional e-mail address by repeating this step.

4. (Optional) Repeat Step 3 to add an additional e-mail address for the same recipient. If you want to make the second e-mail address the default one (that is, the one that Outlook Express automatically uses when you compose a new message to this person), you need to select it in the list box and then click the Set As Default button.

5. (Optional) If you want, click the other tabs to add more information about your contact. The Home tab enables you to add your contact’s street address and phone number(s). The Business tab allows you to add information about your contact’s work, and the Personal tab lets you add your contact’s birthday, as well as his or her spouse’s and children’s names (if applicable).

6. Click OK to close the Properties dialog box and return to the Address Book. Your new contact’s Display name appears in the Address Book, followed by the default e-mail address.

7. Click OK to close the Address Book.