Test Driving Linux

Organizing Your Email

Many people who use email never get beyond the basics of their email program. They never learn how to organize their email to make it easier to find old messages, or to create filters that automatically perform an action when email arrives or is sent. KMail offers several features to help you organize your email effectively.

Sorting and Threading

One simple way to organize your email is to sort it in your inbox or any other folder. A sort simply lists your email in a certain, specified way. By default your messages are listed in order of arrival, with the newest messages at the bottom of the list. You can change the sort order by clicking once on a column heading; for example, if you click on the Date (Order of Arrival) column, the triangle next to the column name will change to point up, and your messages will be sorted by Date in descending order, with the newest email at the top instead of at the bottom.

If you click the Date column heading again, the triangle changes to point down. Now the email is again sorted in ascending order, with the oldest email at the top and the newest at the bottom. At first glance, this seems to be the same as the default sort order of Order of Arrival, but it isn't. Many people may send email from computers with incorrect dates or times, so the date and time they send the message is different from the date and time you actually receive it. Also, if you have multiple email accounts but you don't check them all at the same time, ...