You can obviously just fire up your email client manually, copy and paste the link and/or description, enter the recipient’s email addresses before sending the email. While that’s a practicable solution, it quickly becomes a nuisance if you happen to email pages quite often.

Google’s Email This Page extension for the Chrome browser offers a much simpler solution that automates part of the workflow. The extension adds a single button to the Chrome address bar. A left-click on the button launches a new email draft in the system’s default email client with the web address of the site you want to share already filled out automatically.

All it takes now is to add one or multiple recipients, a subject, and if you desire additional body text.

This works not only on http websites but also https sites and even internal chrome pages.

The extension ships with a single option, allowing users to change the default email handler to Gmail. This is the only web mail provider supported by Google’s extension.

The extension description states that the extension will not only add the web address to the body text of the email, but that it will furthermore use the page title as the email subject. This did not work during tests. Both Thunderbird and Gmail showed a blank subject line on the write email page.

Email This Page improves the workflow slightly. It can be an interesting option for users who use a desktop client as their default email client but want to send pages with Google Mail. Chrome users can download Email this page from the official Google Chrome web store.

The release notes list several fixed security vulnerabilities which make Thunderbird 9 a mandatory update for all users of the email client. The security advisories page lists a total of seven security vulnerabilities, of which one has been rated critical and the other six as moderate.

It is however relative unlikely that Thunderbird will see attacks exploiting the issue, as it uses a crash when scaling an Ogg video element to extreme sizes.

The remaining list of changes is not nearly as spectacular. Thunderbird 9 uses the new Mozilla Gecko 9 engine, and an opt-in system to send anonymous performance and usability reports to Mozilla. The data is used to improve future versions of the email client. This is the same feature that has already been implemented into the Firefox web browser.

Windows users can now show and hide the menu bar when they press the Alt key. The change log furthermore lists better keyboard handling for attachments without going into details as to what has been improved in the version.

The only other features listed in the change log are additional support for Personas, and “several user interface fixes and improvements”.

Thunderbird 9 ships with another change that has not been mentioned in the release notes. Users who click on the Tools menu will notice a new Test Pilot entry there. This is a Thunderbird extension that the developers have installed in the email client. Test Pilot is used to “make Thunderbird better by running user studies”.

Silently installing the extension without giving users options to opt-out during updating or installation is definitely something to be criticized. Thunderbird users can however uninstall the extension in the add-ons manager.

Have you updated your version of Thunderbird yet? What’s your take on the new version?

New email accounts can be created on the official Hotmail website. Please note that you can use an existing Windows Live account to sign in as well.

Schedule Cleanup

The new cleanup option is configured individually for each sender. It basically allows you to delete messages from that particular sender automatically. This can be handy for “daily-offer” emails, logs, notifications or any other kind of messages that are only relevant for a specific amount of time. You can alternatively configure the messages to be moved to another folder instead.

To configure cleanups select a message from the inbox, and then Sweep > Schedule Cleanup.

This displays an overlay menu with the following configuration options:

• Only keep the latest message from this sender
• Delete all messages older than 10 days (alternatively 3, 30 or 60 days)
• Move all messages older than 10 days (3, 30 or 60) to a specific folder.

One-click unsubscribe

This is a similar to Gmail’s unsubscribe from newsletter and notification option. Hotmail notifies the sender that the user wants to unsubscribe, and will furthermore configure filters to move existing and future messages into the junk.

Flag Important Messages

It is now easier to flag important message to locate them faster in the future. The new “Keep this message at the top of your inbox” option makes sure that important messages stay on top of the box and are not moved down with the rest of the messages.

The Hotmail team has created a short video demonstrating the new flag capabilities.

Photo Album, Attachment Improvements

Users who send photos regularly now see the photos in Hotmail when they are composing the email. That’s useful considering that you’d only see file names before.

Large attachments can now also be send using SkyDrive which resolves possible attachment size limitations. Instead of compressing emails or splitting them up to stay below the limit, it is now possible to store the files on SkyDrive instead.

The new forgotten attachment detector makes sure that you have not forgotten to attach files to the email. This is based on popular words and phrases that indicate attachments.

Instant Actions

Instant actions are one-click actions. Flag to stick mails at the top is for instance an instant action. Hotmail users can configure actions in detail. This is done under Options > More Options > Customizing Hotmail > Instant Actions.

Actions can be configured to always show or only show on mouse over. Flag is the only action that is always shown by default, while delete and mark read/unread are only shown on hoover.

Additional actions are moving and categorizing messages, sweep and junk. The order can be configured as well.

Folder Management

Hotmail users can now create and manage folders more easily with a right-click on the folder. Messages can now also be moved directly to folders that are displayed under Folders.

Hotmail for Android

Android users can now download and install the official Hotmail Android app. The app features email, calendar and contact synchronization.

It supports multiple Hotmail accounts on the same device and displays new mail notifications on the Home screen.

Of all the features, the option to stick emails on top of a folder is the one that I like the most.

What’s your take on the new set of features? (via)

So how does this break down and can we draw any meaningful conclusions about it?  There were a series of questions in the study designed to do just that.  It would appear that those most likely to check their work email are also those people most worried about losing their jobs, either through redundancy or something else.

This would seem reasonable as work anxiety can easily cross over into holiday periods.  Those more addicted to their email however are also more likely to check their email.  People in the 18-24 age bracket were the biggest age group while those over 50 didn’t seem to mind leaving work behind for a while.

Of the total figures, 31% of people questioned said they would intermittently check their work emails with 15% intending to check them regularly.  By contrast just 34% of people had no intention of checking their work email at all.

There can be no doubt that work email can impact negatively on the rest of your life.  The Work Foundation Think Tank told the BBC that “It suggests that about two thirds of all employees feel the urge to respond to emails immediately as they come through.”  This is common in my experience and a symptom of the general immediacy of both email and instant messaging.

It is becoming more and more difficult to get away from work email too, with modern smartphones all offering Exchange support and more and more people having multiple inboxes on their phones and home PCs.

Personally I’ll have a few email clear days but while I’ll check work email as I’m self employed I don’t expect anything to happen as the companies I tend to work with have clear closedowns.  It is an interesting phenomenon though so we’d like to hear if you plan to check your work email over the Christmas holidays and if you think there should be a clear switch-off from work when away from the office.  Why not tell us in the comments below?

That’s what Hotmail has added to their website recently. When you open the Windows Live Hotmail website you see the standard Hotmail sign in screen for the most part. If you look below the Sign In button you see this:

Not your computer? Get a single use code to sign in with

The sign in form changes when you click on the link. You are now asked to enter your Windows Live ID and the single use code instead of your regular password to log in to the service.

This is also indicated at the top where it states:

sign in with single use code. If you’re signing in from a public computer, you can use a single use code instead of your password for added security.

If you do not have a code yet you can request one with a click on Get one here on the same page. You are then asked to enter your Windows Live ID and a mobile phone number that is linked to the account. Microsoft will send a text message to the phone number containing the single use code that you can use to sign in to Hotmail.

If you have not linked a mobile phone number to your Windows Live account yet you can do so in the account settings. Open the link and enter your standard login information. Click on the Manage link next to Security Info on the page and then on Add New below Mobile Phone on the next page.

The mobile phone number needs to be confirmed before it can be used for single use codes. Hotmail sends an email to the linked account email address. This email contains a confirmation link that you need to load to confirm the addition of the mobile phone number to the account. This obviously only adds to security if you do not use Hotmail as your email provider for that account email address.

Once the number has been verified you can start requesting single use codes for your Hotmail sign ins.

Single use codes are actually available on all Windows Live sign in forms.

The addition of single use codes adds to Hotmail’s and Windows Live’s security big time. What’s your take on this? (via)

With the release of Thunderbird 8 came the release of Lightning 1.0. We already mentioned that in the Thunderbird release review we posted yesterday.

Lightning in terms of compatibility has made a step backwards. The calendar only supports Thunderbird 8 and later versions, which can be a serious problem for users who do not just jet want to upgrade to the new version of the desktop email client.

Mozilla has this to say about Lightning:

Lightning 1.0 is the fully integrated calendar Add-on for Thunderbird that lets users organize their schedules and life’s important events as a natural part of their email experience. Lightning gives users the ability to manage multiple calendars, create daily to do lists, invite friends and colleagues to events and meetings, and subscribe to publicly available calendars. With over a million active users, Lightning 1.0 is the calendar solution that users rely on to help them manage their daily lives at work and at home.

When you look at the release notes of Lightning 1.0 you will notice that there are not really that many notable changes to report. Most of the changes are bugfixes that resolve issues of previous Lightning versions. Lightning 1.0 has received some cosmetic changes, most notable new user interface styles for all calendar views.

When you install Lightning in Thunderbird you will notice – after a restart – that it adds a column on the right side of the program. Here you see the current date and calendar week as well as events for today, tomorrow and “soon”. Lightning adds the Events and Tasks menu to the top menubar.

An import option is available supporting iCalendar and Microsoft Outlook comma separated value files. It is furthermore still possible to synchronize Lightning with Google Calendar and other remote calendar locations (via New > Calendar > On the Network).

New Lightning users should take a look at the known issues highlighted on the Lightning 1.0 release notes page.

Are you using a calendar application? If so, which?

Thunderbird 8 has just been released. Existing Thunderbird users may have already noticed the update when they have stared the desktop email client today. Users who have not can check for new updates by going to Help > About Thunderbird in the main menubar of the email client. This triggers an automatic check for new updates in the program itself.

So what’s new in Thunderbird 8? The beta release notes, which have been published last month list the following improvements:

• Add-ons installed by third party programs are now disabled by default
• Added a one-time add-on selection dialog to manage previously installed add-ons
• Improved accessibility of the attachment lists
• Several user interface fixes and improvements
• and numerous other platform fixes

The big new feature is the blocking of automatic installations via third party software programs. This is actually the same feature that made it into Firefox 8 released a few days ago. In addition, Thunderbird users now get a one-time dialog when the update in which they can manage installed add-ons. The email client will suggest add-ons that may not be compatible giving the user the choice to disable them to improve stability of the email client.

The official download site is still listing Thunderbird 7.01 as the latest stable version. It may take some hours or maybe even a day until the new Thunderbird 8 version is published on the official website. Download portals such as Softpedia or MajorGeeks are already hosting the new version, so grab it from there if you are in a hurry.

Update: The calendar add-on Lightning for Thunderbird has been released in version 1.0 as well today.

Mail improvements and changes have been implemented into the latest snapshot build of Opera 11.60. Snapshot builds are Opera versions released for testing and bug finding. While they usually work fine they are not suitable for productive environments.

Please note that the released snapshot build will upgrade existing Opera stable builds by default. Users who want to install the snapshot for testing purposes should click on Options and select a different home directory to avoid this. (One option would be to select the Stand-aline installation in the advanced options).

Probably the biggest change in this release apart from the cleaned up look is the new two-lined message list.

The new layout displays three mail columns when Opera Mail is opened. First the Opera Mail message, feeds and attachment listing on the left, then the actual messages from the selected mail folder and after that the selected message.

Users who do not like the change can switch back to list only or list and message below views easily.

Mails are now also automatically grouped by date. This can be switched as well to status, label, size or subject sorting, and grouping by read status, flag or date.

Another interesting new feature is the ability to pin important messages in Opera Mail. That’s handy if you need to reply to an important message but cannot do so right away, or if you need to access contents of a mail regularly. The pin message button appears in the message’s header and as a small dot next to the message listing.

Interested computer users can download the latest Opera 11.60 snapshot with improved mail module from the announcement over at the Opera Desktop team blog. Downloads are provided for all supported operating systems (which means Windows, Mac and Linux).

Small business accounts are limited to 500 recipients per 24 hours and enterprise accounts are limited to 1500. Office 365 technical support was unable to tell me when the limitation is reset… They also said it is very difficult to upgrade from a small business to enterprise Office 365 account. I would need to create a whole new account and migrate the domain and users, so that is not an option.

I’m just finishing writing a book about Office 365 for small businesses so this caught my eye.  It’s very interesting when you consider that a business using Office 365 could be, practically, any size at all.  If you have fifty people working at a company then each of them will only be able to send emails to 10 people every day.

50 employees isn’t a lot and 10 recipients is even less.  In the enterprise, where you could have several thousand employees, this could mean that many emails remain unsent as the limit will most likely be hit quite early in the day.

Ed very sensibly points out…

It’s not hard to imagine scenarios in which a small business can bump up against that number. In this case, the new CEO had sent a getting-acquainted message to 400 of the company’s customers and prospects. But it could easily happen to any small business. Imagine if your little company rolls out a new product that gets a mention on the Today Show or a high-profile web site like ZDNet. You could easily have 500 messages in your inbox when you get to work in the morning. If you try to respond to every one, even with a form response, you’ll hit that 500-recipient lockout before your first coffee break.

I cna only imagine, though there is little evidence of this, that this clause could exist to prevent Office 365 Exchange accounts being used for spam.  It could also exist though to ensure that Microsoft’s servers, from where Office 365 is hosted and run, don’t get swamped.

Ed contacted Microsoft who said…

In the world of email, one of the thresholds that must be enforced is the amount of email that is sent through the system by any one user or organization in order to combat spam, mass-mailing worms & viruses.  To ensure that all users experience the level of performance, email delivery expediency and client connectivity behavior that they expect, we must determine what usage typifies behavior of a spammer, for example, and put controls in place to prevent such inappropriate use.  We ask customers with legitimate needs for a service that exceeds these thresholds or must go beyond these limitations to contact support so that we can best meet their specific needs.

It’s crystal clear though that these limits are far too low for the average business.  It would prevent product launches as Ed says, or bring an entire office to a grinding halt before lunchtime on a busy day.  This could, and probably will leave many customers twiddling their thumbs while they wait, probably in vein, for Microsoft to rectify the block for them.

At the very least this will potentially put people off buying into a extremely good service.  Would it put you off?

The video announcement highlights many upcoming Gmail design changes and features. This includes a new look and feel that looks very similar to the Google Plus interface, and other new features like Gmail’s ability to adapt automatically to the windows size in which it is displayed. Users who resize their Gmail window will notice that the relevant information, for instance the sender, subject and date of each email in the inbox, are always visible on screen.

The options button at the top right leads to additional display density options. The default comfortable setting uses big margins and whitespace areas between posts which users can reduce by switching to the cozy or compact display density options.

Another new feature is the slider that allows users to increase or decrease the label or chat area on the left sidebar.

Google has uploaded new high resolution themes that users can switch to.

Conversations have been redesigned to improve readability. You will also notice that profile pictures have been added if available.

Google has updated search as well. If you are a Gmail user you know that search consists of just a single form that you can use to search.

The new search comes with filters that include from, to and subjects as well as words, attachments and date filters.

Filters can now also be created right from the search box. You can see the video with all the changes discussed in this news article below.

There is no official word yet on the availability of the new features but it is likely that they will be rolled out soon.

I’m not really affected by the changes as I’m using Thunderbird as my main email client. If you are a Gmail web interface user, what’s your take on the changes announced in the video? (via)

The developers of this excellent free email backup software have just released version 5 which is more of a bug fixing release than one with many new features. The software’s functionality remained mostly unchanged. It is still possible to backup and archive email accounts both online and software based, to search and filter those emails, migrate emails into other applications and even restore emails. Some new features deserve mentioning.

One of the nicest options that has been added to MailStore Home 5 is the ability to “install” a portable copy of MailStore Home on a computer system. This makes it possible to use the software on USB flash drives and other external devices or discs.

Another rather apparent change is the new user interface which gives the program a modern cleaner look. Here are two screenshots, the first showing the new interface, the second the old one.

The developers have added an auto configuration feature to the email backup and archiving software. The program tries to automatically detect settings based on the email address entered. This works well for known providers such as Google Mail, Yahoo Mail and others. Manual configuration options are available in case the mail server settings are detected incorrectly.

The last new feature is the ability to run multiple archiving tasks at the same time. Before it was only possible to run one archiving task at a time which limited the software quite a bit, especially for users with multiple email accounts.

The addition of a portable version of MailStore Home is without doubt the most promising new feature of the program.

Windows users can download Mailstore Home 5 from the developer website. the program is compatible with all Windows based operating systems from Windows 2000 on. (via)

The free online service HackNotifier is more or less a frontend that users can use to search for email addresses that were leaked in hacking attempts. You basically enter your email address – or the email address of someone else into the form on the main page to see if it was listed in one of the hacked user databases.

You then get to review your status on the next page. The service lets you know immediately if your account is insecure and if it has been compromised.

HackNotifier lists the company that was compromised and the day it happened. A link points to third party websites that offer additional information about the hack. It then asks you to change your account passwords if you have not already done so.

Users can sign up for the company’s service to receive notifications when their email account gets hacked again. This obviously is only effective if the hackers publish the user database on the Internet. The service at the time of writing has information about 20 leaks and almost 1.5 million accounts in their database.

HackNotifier assures that they do not save email addresses that users enter on their front page to check whether the account has been compromised.

Probably the biggest issue is that most hackers do not dump user databases publicly. It can still be frightening to see your email address listed as compromised on the results page.

You can check out HackNotifier here. A similar service is Should I Change My Password.

With the release of Firefox 7 came also the release of Thunderbird 7. The email program made a big jump from version 3 all the way to version 7, even skipping a version to sync with the Firefox browser.

Existing Thunderbird users should get update notifications right in the email client. They can then update from within without having to download the client from the official website. Users who have not received the notification of the update yet can check for it manually by going to Help > About Thunderbird.

The release notes list several changes and feature enhancements.

• Thunderbird is based on the new Mozilla Gecko 7 engine
• Several user interface fixes and improvements
• Several fixes to attachment handling
• Ability to print a summary of selected email messages
• Platform improvements to Address Book
• Fixed several security issues
• Numerous platform fixes that improve speed, performance and stability

Nothing major as you can, mostly under the hood improvements or changes that the majority of users might not even recognize.

The Welcome to Thunderbird page after updating or installing the new version lists additional features. I’m not sure if they all made their way into this version or if they have been available before. Thunderbird 7 starts up faster and is more responsive according to that feature listing. A new troubleshooting information page is listed there as well. It looks exactly like the page of the Firefox web browser.

New users can download the latest Thunderbird version from the official Mozilla Thunderbird project homepage. It is available there for all supported operating systems and languages.

Are you using Thunderbird? Let me know what you think of the latest update.

Use BCC Instead is a Mozilla Thunderbird extension. It works almost like the native attachment warnings that you get when you use words like attached in the email body or subject without attaching a file to the email.

The extension warns you whenever you send emails to multiple recipients using either To or CC instead of BCC.

Please note that the extension warns you about sending the email to multiple To or CC recipients. It gives you the option to go ahead and send it anyway or to click cancel to modify the parameters to BCC. It does not auto-correct the issue.

The default limit is set to 10, which means that you only get warnings if you send out emails to more than ten recipients using To or CC. You can change that in the options, for instance to 1 which would always warn you when To or CC is used.

You can furthermore block emails from being send out at all if the selected value is exceeded.

Thunderbird users can download Use BCC Instead from the official Mozilla extension repository.

There are even extensions that synchronize data with social networking sites. We have reviewed Thunderbird Contacts in the past which can be used for that purpose.

Most users open the Thunderbird address book from within the email client. That’s great as long as the program is already open. But what if you want to open the address book when Thunderbird is not running on the system?

You could of course start Thunderbird on the computer before opening the address book via Tools > Address Book or with the keyboard shortcut Ctrl-Shift-B.

Or, you could create a new shortcut on your computer that opens the Thunderbird address book directly and without starting the email client itself.

Navigate to the Mozilla Thunderbird folder on your computer. The default installation folder under Windows is C:\Program Files\Mozilla Thunderbird\

Right-click the thunderbird.exe file and select Create Shortcut. Save it in that directory or alternatively on the desktop if restrictions prevent the saving in the same directory.

Right-click the shortcut afterwards and select Properties from the context menu. Locate the Target path in the Shortcut tab and add -addressbook at the end of it (there is a blank between the closing ” and the -addressbook).

Select Apply and OK afterwards. Double-click the shortcut. If everything went right, you should now see the address book open up immediately. If something went wrong, retrace the steps to correct the error.

The good news is that it’s actually possible to migrate all your email, contacts and calendar between multiple email providers using a service provided by TrueSwitch.  What’s more, if you’re switching to Gmail, Hotmail or one of the other ‘partner’ providers for the company the service is completely free.

To use it all you need to do is enter your usernames and passwords for the two relevant accounts and wait up to 24 hours for the system to transfer everything from your old account to your new one.  What’s more, because it merely copies the email, calendar and contacts, you can also use it to completely back up an email account!

When you go to the main website, which isn’t the most usable one I’ve ever encountered, if you are switching your email to one of the providers listed on the right side of the page, listed under the “Free when you switch to our partners” link, just click the icon relevant to the email provider you are switching to.  You will then be taken to the relevant form on their website where you enter the details of the two accounts, and tell TrueSwitch what data it is that you want to transfer.

Additionally you can then set the service to continue forwarding email from your old account to your new one for up to 60 days.  This is extremely useful if you’re moving your whole account from one company to another.

But what do you then do if your old email is sitting in an Outlook PST file or Outlook Express.  Well with the latter you’ll first need to import your email into Outlook.  Then you need to make sure you have the latest version of the Outlook Connector software installed if you’re using Hotmail, or that you set up your Gmail or other account with Outlook using IMAP.

Do you know that when you’re in Outlook and looking at your email folder tree, you can simply drag and drop email from an Outlook PST file into your Hotmail connector folder, or an IMAP folder.  The emails will be moved from the PST file into the connector file and the next time you synchronise your email they will all be uploaded to the cloud to become part of your Hotmail or Gmail account.

It really couldn’t be simpler to get all of your email, from any ISP and no matter how old, into a single email service.  I’ve used it to aggregate email from two separate ISPs that I downloaded since 2001 into Outlook using a POP server, and my old now defunct Gmail account into my current Hotmail account.

I then used the TrueSwitch service to back up that entire Hotmail account, now the repository of all of my sent and received email from multiple services since 2001, into my Gmail account.  I’ve done this because the recent Hotmail outage earlier this year that deleted some people’s emails for good, including some of mine, made me a bit jumpy.

There have been other services and software packages over the years that have also been able to migrate your email, calendar and contacts between providers, but none that I’ve found are quite as powerful or as flexible.

So what is new in Thunderbird 6.0? The release notes, which are up already on the official website, list the following items that have been updated, changed or added to the email client.

• Thunderbird is based on the new Mozilla Gecko 6 engine
• Several theme improvements for Windows 7
• Support for Windows 7 Jump lists
• Several fixes when importing email from Microsoft Outlook
• Default mail client check now works with newer Linux distributions
• Various other user interface fixes and improvements
• Numerous platform fixes that improve speed, performance, stability and security

The feature list, as you can see, is rather small, and offers barely any new features for users of the email program. Windows 7 users benefit from jumplist support and theme improvements. Jumplists show up when a Windows user right-clicks on the icon in the taskbar. For now, Thunderbird users get links to their address book, writing a new message and the mailbox.

The update check from within the email client is already picking up the new version. This makes it possible to perform an in-program update to install the latest version of Thunderbird.

Users can do that with a click on Help > About Thunderbird.

The email client is also available for download at the official website for all supported operating systems and languages. Thunderbird users who want to take a closer look at the release notes of this particular release can do so here.

There they find troubleshooting tips and known issues, which are always worth checking out before upgrading or install a new version of the software.

Thunderbird does not come with options to set different archiving folders for emails, which means that users who want to have more than just a single archive folder per year need to move the emails manually into other folders.

Or, they could use QuickArchiver for the Thunderbird desktop email client which is a brand new add-on that speeds up the archiving noticeably.

The idea behind the extension is simple. When you archive emails, you usually archive emails from the same sender into the same folder. The extension remembers the target folders once you start archiving emails, for instance by pressing a or moving emails to another folder using the context menu or drag and drop.

These folders can then be displayed in the Thunderbird inbox, so that it takes only one click to move a particular email into the previously used folder.

You need to enable the Folder header in the Thunderbird mail view after installing the extension to make use of the feature. This is done with a click on the rightmost icon of the inbox header bar and the selection of Folder from the available options.

Once enabled it will display the last archive folder of that particular email sender. A click on the location moves the selected email automatically into that folder without further confirmation or menus.

The technique used is different from filtering emails into folders. Filtering is an automated process which means that the user cannot read the email subject or body before it is moved. With QuickArchiver, that is possible.

QuickArchiver is a handy extension for Thunderbird users who archive emails from one sender in the same folder. Interested users can download the Thunderbird extension from the official Mozilla Thunderbird extension repository.

Google yesterday announced the availability of a new Labs application called Preview Pane which adds that missing feature to Gmail.

The Gmail layout does not change automatically after Preview Pane has been enabled. A tooltip on the inbox page guides the user to a button that adds another column or row to the window. Below is a screenshot of the vertical split mode of the new preview pane feature.

The preview pane column is added to the right of the Gmail inbox. The area is fully resizable, which is done with a click on the divider between the inbox and the preview pane.

A click on the down arrow icon next to the preview pane’s button opens a menu with options to switch from horizontal previews to vertical previews.

The selection boils down to personal preferences and the resolution of the monitor. Vertical preview mode has the look and feel of desktop email programs.

Email previews are displayed whenever an email gets selected in the inbox or another mail folder.

But the preview pane adds more than just previewing of emails in the Gmail inbox. It can also be used to quickly reply to the selected email. All controls are available right on that screen.

Gmail users can also hide the preview pane again by selecting the No Split option from the down arrow.

Preview Pane adds a feature to Gmail that has been missing since day one. While it won’t entice me to use the Gmail web interface more often, it can surely make a difference for users who work with that interface on a daily basis. (via).

I understand that some studies have suggested that it is actually faster to leave all mails in the inbox. I on the other hand believe that my system is better suited for accessing all important emails immediately after they have arrived. (sorry cannot find a link to the study right now)

The Thunderbird email client comes with powerful message filtering options. You can access the filtering management window with a click on Tools > Message Filters.

Thunderbird can apply filters to a specific email account or all email accounts.

Select an email address or the global Mail address from the pulldown list at the top of the screen. A click on New opens the message filter configuration screen. Each filter is configured with four parameters.

• Name: A unique name. Best option is a name that identifies the filter on first glance.
• When to apply: When to run the filter.
• Match: The data of the message that needs to match the entered information.
• Actions: The actions that are executed when a message matches a filter.

Any or all rules need to match for the actions to be executed. It is alternatively possible to run a filter on all messages. Rules consist of three parts. First a data field or custom field, then a state and lastly a custom string.

A data field can be the message subject, body, data, priority status, age, size, tags, recipients, senders and a lot more. The state basically defines if the email needs to contain the selected string or not.

Basic examples are

• Subject > Contains > Ghacks
• Priority > Is higher than > Normal
• To > Is in my address book > Personal Address Book

The actions are executed if the selected rules match. Basic actions include moving, copying or deleting email messages. Other options include setting tags or stars, setting the emails junk status, deleting it from pop3 servers or replying to it automatically with an email template.

Filters can not only be executed when new emails arrive, but also on existing mailboxes. Just select a mailbox in the main Message Filters window and click the Run Now button to execute all filters on the selected mailbox or folder.

As a side note. Thunderbird users can create from filters right from the message preview area or the mail viewing window. A right-click on an email address in the email header opens a context menu with an option to create a new from filter.

And that’s how you create message filters in the Thunderbird desktop email client.

Are you using filters in Thunderbird or another email software? Let me know in the comments.