While we’re on the topic of IMAP, Gmail’s new feature, I thought I would share a few tips.

TIP #1

Don’t use the e-mail client’s automatic spam settings. Why? Gmail already filters out the majority of spam anyway. Sometimes a few e-mails do get through. When they do, you don’t want to open up a browser and then mark it as spam. You want to do this directly from the client, right?

Because Gmail already does a great job in detecting spam, I don’t let Thunderbird automatically check for spam, because if I’m going to use more than one client, I don’t want to deal with having to train them all and figure out which one is sending good e-mail to the Spam folder.

If you use Thunderbird and don’t want it to check for spam, but you want to manually send spam to Gmail’s Spam folder using the Junk button, follow these steps:

1. Click on Tools in the menu.
2. Click on Account Settings….
3. Click on Junk Settings in your Gmail account.
4. Uncheck Enable adaptive junk mail controls for this account.
5. Uncheck Trust junk mail headers set by:.
6. Check Move new junk messages to:.
7. Select Other: and choose the Spam folder for your Gmail account.

Moving an e-mail to your Gmail account’s Spam folder also marks the message as spam.

TIP #2

Use Gmail’s filters, not the client’s. This is very important when using multiple clients, because if you set a filter in one client, you have to set the same filter in other clients that you will be using. If you use the same client on different computers, this could easily be done by importing your settings. But, if you’re going to check Gmail in the browser, too, then it’s best to use Gmail’s filters.

At first, this might seem like a huge task, because you have to set filters for any e-mails you receive if you want them to move to specific folders. Once it’s done, you don’t have to do it again. I recommend using the archive setting with filters. If you don’t, when you delete a message, it may delete it from that folder (removing the current label), but it will still appear in your Inbox.

To set filters and use the archive setting, follow these steps:

1. In Gmail, click on the e-mail you want to set a filter for.
2. Click on Create a filter next to the Search button at the top.
3. Enter in an e-mail address, name, subject, etc. Not necessarily all of those, but at least one so Gmail knows what it’s looking for. I usually use a wild card in the e-mail address: *@domain.com so it catches all e-mails at that domain.
4. Click Next Step.
5. Check Skip the Inbox (Archive it).
6. Check Apply the label:. Select the label from the drop down. (If you select the label first, it will automatically check Apply the label: option which saves one step). Don’t worry if you haven’t created the label yet, at the bottom of the list, you will see New label….
7. If Gmail found more than one e-mail matching your filter, you can apply this filter to all of those e-mails when creating it. Check Also apply filter to X conversations below.
8. Click Create Filter.

You have successfully created a new filter and it will be applied to any future e-mails that match the filter.

TIP #3

Don’t apply more than one label. Labels can be useful as tags, but if you want to delete an e-mail permanently, you need to remember to remove all labels from it, or it will still exist. I think Gmail should have folders and use labels as tags. Just like on a blog, you have categories and then you have tags.

TIP #4

This tip is more about saving time if you have several e-mail accounts. Gmail allows you to receive POP e-mail from other accounts. With the new IMAP feature, you can now receive e-mail from all of your accounts in one place and any changes such as deleting an e-mail will be seen no matter where you check your e-mail.

TIP #5

Outlook didn’t seem to have this problem, but Thunderbird doesn’t update the folders to show that there are new messages. It only updates the Inbox. Subscribing to all of the folders doesn’t update the folders. There is another option that must be set in order to update folders.

1. Right click on a folder and select Properties….
2. Check Check this folder for new messages.
3. Click OK.

Once you’ve done that to all of the folders, they will start showing whether there is new mail or not.

OTHER TIPS

• Opening a message will mark the e-mail as read.
• Flagging a message will apply a star to the e-mail. Most e-mail clients show flags, but in Thunderbird, it’s stars.
• Moving an e-mail to a folder applies a label to the e-mail and removes the current label.
• Moving an e-mail to Gmail’s All Mail folder will archive it. If there isn’t a label applied to the e-mail, remember that you can find that e-mail in the All Mail folder again.
• Moving an e-mail to Gmail’s Trash folder removes the current label and moves the e-mail to Trash.
• If you delete an e-mail in Gmail’s Inbox, it removes it from the Inbox. If you delete an e-mail from a folder it will remove the label. But, if the e-mail isn’t archived it will still exist in your Inbox.
• Deleting an e-mail from Gmail’s Trash or Spam folders is permanent and they will be completely deleted.
• Creating a new folder will create a new label in Gmail.

I recommend using Thunderbird. I am a huge fan of Outlook. But, I started to realize that Outlook is not that fast or easy to set up with IMAP compared to Thunderbird. Thunderbird and Gmail go great together.

If you have any useful tips to share, please leave a comment.