Email can be a blessing or a burden. It is cheap instant communication with others around the world that you can access from almost any where, however, the flip side is that you can get too much of it. Recently I have had to consolidate and organize my email situation.
First, I'm a bit overwhelmed with email, as many people probably are. I subscribe to too many newsletters and lists. I have four active email accounts. Then I keep old emails, especially at work, for reference and back up. I originally attempted to file everything in either categorical or project folders. I also created folders for inidvidual family, friends and co-workers. However, I found that searching sub-folders is a hassle, because I do not always remember if I moved an email to a person or topical folder. In addition, my favorite email cleint, Thunderbird does not search through sub-folders. Then there are the inbox size restrictions, which I have been pretty good about staying under, but some of co-workers are constantly bumping into the inbox ceiling largely due to large attachments.
I found a couple solutions...
First, I came across a great article on email inbox management at Lifehacker, one of my favorite blogs. The main principle is to do more with fewer email folders: action, hold and archive in order to clean out the inbox, keeping mind that everything is searchable. Tis method looks promising for cleaning out my inbox at work.
However, I have four email accounts. One, my .Mac account I started when I purchased my Mac G5, I am going to eliminate by the end of summer because it is too expensive at $99 per year to keep up when there are better cheaper alternatives. I do not utilize enough of the other .Mac services to make it worth while. The better cheaper ( as in free) alternative is Google's Gmail. I've concluded that I cam going to consolidate all of my email through Gmail, because it has a great interface and is avialble anywhere. With over 2 GB of storage, I'll have plenty of room. Plus, Gmail's labels, search engine, filters and conversation views make organizing the email very easy. Google has a Gmail notifier that sits in the taskbar to let you when there is new incoming mail. Check out Google's Gmail tour too see all of the features and advantages.
I was able to import my address books and easily forward my mail to Gmail. The downside is that I cannot make a complete conversion because it doe snot appear that I can import my old email or access my pop and imap accounts with Google's Gmail interface. So, at least for a while I'll still have to use Thunderbird or Mac Mail to refer to my old emails. Maybe there is a solution at Googletutor.com.