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A few folks have asked me how I handle my email. I am no expert, but I will share with you how I keep my Inbox under control (well -- at least it gives me the illusion that it is under control ;-) These methods work for me, and with modifications for your own personal and unique situation, can work for you. In most instances I will just use my own setup as an example. You will most certainly have different needs, and a different idea about what your email management folders should be. Feel free to create your own folder structure to suit your requirements. Before we dive into the main discussion, I'd like to address briefly (because it demands it's own topic, and much more thorough coverage) the topic of Spam -- the scourge of the Internet. It is conservatively estimated that 80% of all email traffic is Spam! This is an astounding figure. Spam costs all of us -- not only in actual dollars, but also in lost time, inefficiencies of the email system, clogged bandwidth, and on and on. Your ISP should be your first line of defense against Spam arriving in your Inbox. Many, if not most, ISPs nowadays have in self-defense installed Anti-Spam filters on their email servers. Who can blame them? If you think you hate Spam -- how do you think the ISPs like handling mail where 8 out of 10 pieces is junk that nobody wants, and does not appreciate getting. It's a Lose-Lose situation for them. The problem comes when you examine more closely the details of how your mail is filtered. There is a wide variance in the performance of Anti-Spam measures that any individual ISP might employ. Some of them are so broad and heavy-handed that there is a likelihood that you are NOT receiving some mail that you wish you were. This is a common problem with email newsletters that you may subscribe to. Still, with vigilance (and often after a few emails to support and perhaps configuration setting changes) you can have a large amount of Spam stopped in it's tracks by your ISP. You'll never see it. But even the best Spam filters are going to miss some. Spam will still show up in your Inbox. Many of the modern email clients have their own Spam filters, or you can install any of a large number of 3rd.-party Spam filters. I use a freeware Spam filter called K9 which I find very effective. It is what is known as a Bayesian filter, and uses advanced logic to determine what is Spam and what is not. You train it, continually improving it's results. After using it for awhile and indicating to it what is Spam, it gets smarter and smarter and makes fewer mistakes. With your ISP filtering the majority of your Spam, and your own Spam filtering catching most of what gets through -- you will have very little actual Spam messages arriving in your Inbox to deal with. And it will be a quick and easy matter to delete those. As we will see in a moment -- deletion is one of the only 4 things you will do with every piece of mail -- and for me, the first and easiest and most satisfying! We're almost ready to talk about handling your email -- but we need to make one more short diversion.

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