Clever e-mail management

One would think that the information overflow by Facebook, Twitter & Co. leads to a decline in the use of e-mail. But far from it: In 2010, more than 100 trillion e-mails were sent worldwide – almost 300 billion a day. About 1.9 billion people used the medium e-mail. This means: On average, every single user sent more than 150 e-mails every day! These amazing figures come from several well-known sources such as MessageLabs or the Radicati Group.


Waste


Much worse than the almost uncontrollable amount of messages is however the fact, that only a fraction of the e-mails is desired. Market researchers from the US company Pingdom estimate the spam content to about 90 percent. Nine out of ten unsolicited messages are English-language, two-thirds concern pharmaceutical products. And even phishing news is still quite common in the past few years, despite intensive information: about every 450th spam message is a phishing mail.


Management strategies


The knowledge of these figures leads to a conclusion: If you want to run clever e-mail management, you must ensure that spam and phishing are not left out. Today, all e-mail providers are working hard to sort out unwanted and dangerous mail before they land at all. Filtering on the mail server is indispensable. But without the right addition tools and settings in the e-mail client still enough spam and phishing e-mails are still in the inbox.


The right e-mail program


Highly recommended is the freeware Spamihilator. The tool works with the most important e-mail clients on Windows, such as Outlook, Outlook Express, Mozilla Thunderbird, Eudora, Pegasus Mail or Opera Mail (Opera Browser). It switches itself between mail program and provider and checks each incoming message. The learning filter calculates a specific spam probability for each e-mail and can be trained by manual intervention by the user in such a way that it reliably identifies over 98 percent of all spam messages after a short time. In addition, Spamihilator has a word filter that searches for spam-typical keywords. Users can add their own terms. Spamihilator can be expanded by means of plug-ins. With SpamSieve, Mac users get a similar powerful tool as Spamihilator, but it costs 30 US dollars. SpamSieve works with Apple Mail, Mozilla Thunderbird, Entourage, Outlook, Eudora, and other email clients running Mac OS X v10.4 or higher.


Archiving Emails


What is Spamihilator in the fight against spam is Delphish against phishing. This is a free extension for the Outlook, Outlook Express and Mozilla Thunderbird e-mail clients under Windows. The tool detects hidden and dangerous links in e-mails and provides information on the origin and operator of the linked websites as well as an analysis of the entire message. If it is a phishing mail, Delphish warns the user. It can decide whether to immediately delete the mail or ignore the warning.


If sufficient measures are taken against spam and phishing, one can think about sorting the desired post. There are two strategies: One is to collect all the messages in one place, archive them there and back them up with backups. This can be on the computer, but also in the cloud. It is also possible to choose two locations - for personal and professional data. The other strategy is to leave the data where they are, namely on the servers of the e-mail providers. For this to work, all devices must be properly networked with e-mail reception - desktop computers, smartphones, tablets, etc. Access to all e-mails is via IMAP. In contrast to the POP3 method, emails are always kept on the mail server when using IMAP, even if they are retrieved from several clients.


Our recommendation for a clever e-mail management: Combine IMAP and archiving. If your e-mail provider does not offer IMAP, use a trick: redirect the e-mails to an IMAP account. This allows you to retrieve them via IMAP, and the mail is automatically stored on the mail server. Alternatively, you can use a POP collection service if your e-mail provider offers IMAP support.


Finally, you should choose a computer where you can archive all important e-mails locally. This has two main advantages.


Advantage 1: You can still access messages after switching the e-mail provider. Advantage 2: You can easily search your mail - even if you do not have an Internet connection.


The right e-mail program


The choice of the e-mail program depends on the technical prerequisites, on the other hand on the personal preferences in terms of operation and functionality. If you access your home PC and mobile devices on both business and private e-mail accounts, you will usually have to use the same software as in the company. Best example: Outlook. Teamwork is provided in many organizations using the Microsoft Exchange software - Microsoft Outlook is almost always used as a client. Shared calendars, meeting requests via e-mail, etc. can only be used correctly, even if home is used at home. Many mobile e-mail clients now support Exchange completely or in part - the IT department should help with setting up. It is easy for users who only need to manage private mail accounts on multiple devices. You are not bound to a specific program. IMAP accounts can be used in all modern e-mail clients for PC, Mac and mobile devices. Especially recommended is the free Mozilla Thunderbird, which is available for different platforms. When configuring IMAPKonten is almost always the input of e-mail address and password -the necessary server data and settings Thunderbird finds automatically.

For archiving the mails, for example, the software MailStore Home is available, which is free for private use. The current version 5 has a completely redesigned user interface, which allows quick access to the most important functions: archiving, browsing and exporting e-mails. When setting up e-mail accounts, the Auto Configurator helps: It is enough to enter the e-mail address and password, and the rest is done by MailStore Home. Webmail mailboxes such as Gmail or GMX can be set up and archived just as easily as mailboxes already configured in e-mail clients such as Outlook or Mozilla Thunderbird. With the current version 5, MailStore Home can be operated for the first time, for example on a USB stick. Thus, the program can be used without any installation on any PC.


An alternative to local archiving is available with Astaro's cloud service. The scalable business solution is aimed at companies that need to archive emails based on legal or sector-specific regulations. At least ten and up to 2000 e-mail mailboxes from Microsoft Outlook can be saved permanently, with unlimited storage space available. There is also a web interface. The cost is ten euros per year for four users.


Search mail


There are special solutions for the search of messages within mail programs, such as the X1 Professional Client. It browses mail in Outlook or Lotus Notes by keywords, while also taking account of e-mail attachments. If, for example, an important piece of information is contained in a PDF document that you have received by e-mail, X1 finds this information. The tool can, however, much more, for example the computer for files of all kinds, pictures, music and videos durchforsten. Under x1.com there is a trial version for download as well as a link to the purchase of the full version for 35.95 euros. The X1 Mobile Search add-on tool allows you to search desktop computers from the iPhone or iPad. Also useful is the free tool Xobni. The Outlook extension provides related messages as conversations. It also provides extensive search capabilities within emails, senders, and file extensions. Unique: Xobni provides relationships between email senders by taking their links into social networks like Facebook or Twitter into account. Xobni is also available for Blackberry and Android devices (beta version), a version for iPhone is in work.


Tip: Unsubscribe from newsletter


Mobile e-mail clients


Order unnecessary newsletters. Typically, these messages contain a link to terminate the subscription. If this is not the case, send a blank e-mail with the subject unsubscribe to the sender address - in many cases it helps.


The number of popular email clients for PC and Mac is manageable: Apart from Microsoft Outlook and Lotus Notes in the business environment, Mozilla Thunderbird, Eudora and Pegasus Mail are certainly the most used programs among private users - besides the operating system clients Outlook Express (Windows XP ), Windows Mail (Windows Vista / 7), and Apple Mail (Mac OS). On the other hand, the range of e-mail clients for mobile platforms is rather confusing. Nearly all current phones have their own e-mail client, and most smartphones allow the installation of alternative e-mail programs. Important when choosing: Look for IMAP functionality and security features. A good mobile client should be able to load messages, for example, only the first two or three lines. Then you can decide individually which e-mails you must retrieve. Loading mail attachments should also be set up to prevent expensive transfer costs and unnecessary load times.


Many webmail providers offer their own clients - either as a real app or as a so-called web app, which runs in the browser of the mobile device. For example, there is a Google Mail client as an app for Android (pre-installed) and iPhone as well as a web app that runs on Android, BlackBerry, iPhone, Nokia S60, Windows Mobile and other mobile operating systems. It synchronizes via IMAP with the standard e-mail clients of the mobile phones. The well-known Webmail providers GMX and Web.de have also developed apps for Android and iPhone. Alternatively, e-mail access is possible via special mobile portals of the providers m.web.de or m.gmx.de.


Unsubscribe from newsletter


More tools on the web


On the Add in World site, you will find numerous extensions for Microsoft Outlook that simplify not only e-mailing, but also contact and appointment management. There are a lot of add-ons under Add-ons for Mozilla Thunderbird.