Again, happy New Year to all.
There were many emails on my Thunderbird this morning, most from friends and family, and some from a millionaire in strife-torn Kenya that wants me to hold his money in my bank account for a while.
Not too many of these any more with the layers of SPAM protection, both at the provider level, GMail and Yahoo as well as ICQ and our own servers.
The problem with SPAM protection, much like spell checkers, is they are not perfect. A person most dear to me changed her email address for the New Year. I knew she sent a message, but it wasn't showing up. So, I went to the SPAM volume in Thunderbird, and there it was.
I de-SPAMed it by clicking on the NOT SPAM box, creating a filter so that all mail from this address will now go to a friendlier volume and be starred. I gave it the additional layer of protection by adding the e-mail address to the address book.
Now Thunderbird will welcome this email with open arms, treat it kindly and give it a welcome home until I can open it.
Though I have an add-on icon that deletes all SPAM without having to open it, I scan the list by sorting it by sender, scrolling down the list and then hitting the destructo icon.
As added protection, the SPAM doesn't disappear with that. It goes into the trash folder. Then, at the end of the day, when I scan the trash folder, if I missed something, here is my last "Are You Sure" opportunity. If all is clear then I hit the SPAM icon once more and it is gone forever.
I have the Thunderbird default set to delete Trash when I close the program. It doesn't close it that often, but this seems to work for me. I have recovered more emails from the Trash folder than from the SPAM.
To manage the multitude of emails the blogs can produce, I use the Unread Folders, combined with the Threads with Unread settings.
Doing this only brings up only new mail with only their folders when I open Thunderbird. If there is an ongoing conversation, where I may need to refer back, the thread with unread View option allows that.
If I need to find an email, I use the search option which narrows down the selection. If you are like me and don't delete any email from certain sources, don't forget to set the compression option to start automatically at certain times. This will save a lot of disk space without hampering your ability to retrieve old emails.
Most of the old emails I retrieve are in the RECEIPTS folder. I find it a good idea to at least copy messages that you may need somewhere along the line to prove a point. Doing this has saved me hundreds of dollars with PayPal this year.
What started out as a simple happy New Year message has turned into a tutorial. Blame VideoJug for that.
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