E-mail maintenance, Part 2

Get a grip on your e-mail. Whether you keep it on the server (using IMAP or a Web client) or have it all on your local drive (in which case you really, really, really need to be making frequent, multiple backups), it pays to keep it clean.

My mail gets out of control pretty quickly -- and pretty often. I have a work account, a main "personal" account (Yahoo Mail) and a few others that I barely use (Fastmail.fm, Gmail, AOL Mail, DSL Extreme) but which could be pressed into service at any time.

You know how it is with e-mail -- you stick with the account at which everybody sends you mail. I don't want to tell everybody that I'm changing addresses unless I'm really ready. And when it comes to the big providers of free e-mail (Yahoo, Google, even AOL), they just keep making their services better and better. Have you tried the new Yahoo Mail beta? It's made to function like a traditional stand-alone mail client, with the ability to drag and drop messages into various folders. I'm not personally using it, mostly because I don't change things unless there's a really, really good reason, and secondly because I value speed above everything -- that's why the Web mail interface at Fastmail.fm (which is also the back-end of Freelinuxemail.com) is so excellent -- it works well on computers and connections of poor quality as well as offering free IMAP access (though not an outgoing server, except on the Linspire-sponsored Freelinuxemail.com, but most people with an ISP have access to one anyway).

Anyway ... it took awhile, but I went through my Yahoo mail and moved the stuff I wanted to save into folders and deleted the rest. Most of it I didn't even look at (it's "directed spam" from places I know) -- I know I'll get more, so now I can handle it better). I also deleted a bunch of folders I no longer use. The whole thing is much cleaner now, and I feel better about using Yahoo Mail as my main account.

With so much clutter, I'd missed more that a few e-mails I woud've liked to respond to in a more timely way (i.e. at all).

Take 15 minutes here and there to clean out your mailboxes -- and if you can back up your e-mail to CD and a backup hard drive, do it.