43Folders: Using smart folders in Mail

I use Mail.app's smart folders extensively -- and look forward to an overhaul in Leopard (logic operators too limited etc.). Anyway, here's my list of smart folders. All incoming email is sorted into a few (3) regular folders using rules. Nothing remains in the inbox:

* Unread - Account A (POP3)
* Unread - Account B (IMAP)
* Flagged - Account A
* Flagged Account B
* Last week (received, sent or viewed within last 7 days)
* Spouse recent (recently from spouse, to me or others)
* CHI flagged
* CHI junk (i.e. everything else)
* Newsletters and mailing lists
* Newsletter subscriptions (for the nl I manage)

Only catch is to *remember* for god's sake to flag stuff I want to keep my attention on. If I (or someone using my computer) reads an important email without flagging it, it sinks into oblivion.

Oh, and by the way. One very important issue is permanently brought to your attention when you use smart folders: THE COLUMNS SUCK (thanks for the refreshing TUAW posting). Please, please fix that Leopard guys (when you get back from your iPhone trip). Has this bug been noticed in the Leopard seeds?

-Martin

I have an über-smart folder: “Flagged or unread messages in all folders”.

.procmail, MailTags and Mail.app's rules work in tandem to categorise the several thousand e-mail messages I get each day, and dump them all in their various folders, then I use the smart folder to actually read the messages: stuff I need to deal with I flag so it stays there, otherwise I just move to the next message and next time I look at the smart folder it's gone.

Isn't that just a case of "passing the buck"? I mean, now, instead of a Mail.app inbox that's chock full of things that need to be done, now you have a Backpack web page that's chock full of things that need to be done.

Seth: Sure. Backpack by 37 signals lets you create webpages to store just about anything you want - notes, lists, files, images:

http://backpackit.com/

Each page you create gets a unique email address. Any message you send to that address gets posted to that page as a note.

I created a Backpack page called "Inbox," and a contact in Address Book called "Inbox," which uses the special email address for the Backpack Inbox page. So, whenever I receive a message that isn't trash - meaning, something that may require me to do something - I immediately forward it to the "Inbox" contact email, and it gets posted to my Inbox Backpack page. When it comes time for me to process my inbox, I go through them one at a time, decide what needs to be done and act accordingly. That way, things are stored moved to where they need to be and I never have a rat's nest of emails in Mail to weed through.

I have one for each client i am working for but thats about it, if i need to see a most recent one then i simply start typing the date in the search function and they pop up. I guess we all get used to our own little work flows though :-)

"Any message that I think requires me to somehow do something I forward to my Backpack "Inbox" page, where it waits for me to decide what it is and act accordingly. But that's me."

Could you explain this a little?