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I send e-mail messages to myself from the office.
My home software automatically moves them
into the Notes folder in my e-mail program.
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Al Fasoldt's reviews and commentaries, continuously available online since 1983
T e c h n o f i l e
How to use message rules or filters to keep track of things
Dec. 6, 2000
By Al Fasoldt
Copyright © 2000, Al Fasoldt
Copyright © 2000, The Post-Standard
I've made one part of my life easier with a couple of simple techniques.
I'll show you how you can do the same thing.
I've written previously about how your e-mail software can be used to
store notes you've written to yourself. I do that a lot, and it's become
such an essential part of my daily computing that I've turned it into an art.
I'll tell you my secret today. Next week I'll explain how I've come to
stop relying on bookmarks and favorites in favor of something else.
Ready to roll? Here goes.
I write notes to myself all the time. I created a "Notes" folder in my
mail software and keep my notes there. I write them as messages.
This sounds simple so far, and it is -- except for two little twists.
First, I simply write these messages in the ordinary way and save them
as "drafts." My mail software, like many others, has a folder where it
keeps draft messages (messages you have started but not finished). So
when I save my message from the File menu in the message window, I choose
to save it as a draft.
(I renamed the "Drafts" folder to "Notes," so saving as a draft
automatically stores my drafts, which actually are notes anyway, in the
"Notes" folder.)
I like to use keyboard shortcuts as much as possible. When I have my
mail software open, all I have to do is press Ctrl-M to create a new
message. I can then type myself a note and save the message as a draft.
It immediately appears in the Notes folder.
Is that neat or what?
But there's more. The next part is an act of pure e-mail artistry.
The idea of saving messages to myself as notes is fine when I'm sitting
in front of my computer. But what can I do when I'm at the office? The
computer I use at the office isn't the same -- it even runs a different
operating system -- and there seems to be no easy way to keep the same
kind of notes on my office computer.
But there is. It's absurdly simple.
I send e-mail messages to myself from the office to my home. I mark them
a special way so that my home e-mail software automatically moves them
into the Notes folder in my e-mail program.
Doing that wasn't hard at all.
My home e-mail program, Netscape Messenger, has a marvelous feature
called Message Filters. (If you use Microsoft Outlook Express, you have
the same thing, but they're called Rules. Eudora, another popular e-mail
program, also has the same sort of thing. Many other programs do, too.)
I created a message filter that looks for an unusual string of
characters in the "Subject" line of incoming mail. The characters are
":NOTE:" -- the word "note" with a colon on each end. When it finds an
incoming message with those characters in the subject, it moves the
message into the Notes folder.
All I have to do at the office is write myself a message with ":NOTE:"
in the subject and mail it home. To keep my Notes folder honest, I added
one more condition. The message has to come from my office mail address.
Otherwise, the message filter passes it along to the Inbox.
That makes sure I won't divert mail that comes from someone asking how
my ":note:" method works. (You're smart to put that kind of double-check
into all your important message filters or rules. Otherwise you could
inadvertently toss out all those letters from your Aunt Martha.)
A final word of explanation: When you create a filter or rule that as
this one, you're not limiting what can be written in the "Subject" line.
The subject can be anything at all, as long as it contains :NOTE:
somewhere in the subject line.
Next: Saving your favorite Web pages the easy way.
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