| The VersaMail application includes a folder structure for storing messages within each email account you have set up. The following folders are created by default any time you create a new email account and cannot be changed: Inbox Stores received messages Outbox Stores messages waiting to be sent Drafts Stores messages you aren't ready to send yet Sent Stores messages that have already been sent Trash Stores deleted messages until you empty the trash and permanently delete them
These folders follow the same general structure of email folders in a desktop email client, such as Microsoft Outlook. To access the different folders on your Treo, just tap the folder pick list in the upper-right corner of the main VersaMail screen. The message list changes to show only the messages stored in the currently selected folder. You can perform several operations on email messages from within the message list. To do so, you must first select a message (or messages) by tapping the small bullet to the left of the envelope icon for the message. When a message is selected, the small bullet changes to a small checkmark. You can also select and deselect all messages in the current folder by issuing the Select All and Deselect All commands from the Message menu. Tip Deleted messages are automatically stored in the Trash folder. To empty messages from the Trash folder and permanently delete them, press the Menu button and scroll down to select the Empty Trash command. Tap Yes in the confirmation screen to follow through and empty the trash. The Deletion section of the VersaMail preferences includes a setting for automatically emptying messages in the Trash folder that are older than a certain time frame; the default setting automatically empties the trash of messages that are older than one day. With one or more messages selected, you can issue commands, and they will apply only to the selected messages. For example, to delete selected messages, press the Menu button and scroll down to select the Delete command. To quickly delete older messages without having to select them, press the Menu button and scroll down to select the Delete Old command. The Delete Old Messages screen appears and enables you to specify the folder and a time frame for deleting old messages; all messages older than the specified time frame are deleted from the specified folder. This is a powerful technique to delete a lot of messages at once, so be careful when you use it. You might be wondering whether you can create your own message folders for organizing email messages. You can certainly create folders that co-exist with the default VersaMail email folders. Probably the best way to create a new folder is to do it as part of moving an existing message to it. Follow these steps to create a new folder while moving a message to it from the Inbox: 1. | Select the message by tapping the small bullet just to the left of the envelope icon. Note When you delete a message from the message list, you're prompted to confirm the deletion and asked whether you want to delete the message from the server. If you're sharing an email account with a desktop computer, you might want to leave the message on the server so that the desktop email client can retrieve it. Otherwise, you could end up deleting the message before it makes it to the desktop email client. Of course, for junk mail, this might not be a bad idea. | 2. | Select the Move To command from the Message menu. The Move Message(s) To screen appears, as shown in Figure 8.18. The message folders shown in the figure are target folders for moving messages. Folders with an asterisk next to them contain unread messages. Figure 8.18. The Move Message(s) To screen is used to move email messages between folders and to access the folders for editing.
| 3. | Tap the Edit Folders button to open the Edit Folders screen, which displays a list of custom folders along with buttons for editing them (see Figure 8.19). Figure 8.19. The Edit Folders screen is where you create and edit custom email folders.
| 4. | Tap the New button to begin creating a new folder. Folders in VersaMail are also referred to as categories, which is why the screen that appears next is called Edit Categories. Enter the name of the new folder, and then tap the OK button. The folder is added to the folder list you saw in Figure 8.19. Tap OK again to return to the Move Message(s) To screen. | 5. | Scroll to select the newly created folder, and then tap the OK button. The selected messages are moved to the new folder. Perhaps more important, the new folder is now accessible via the folder pick list in the upper-right corner of the main VersaMail screen. |
You now have a good feel for how messages are displayed as well as how folders are used to store and organize them. What you haven't learned is how to alter the default sorting of messages in the message list for a given folder. The Display section of the VersaMail preferences includes a setting for controlling message sorting. In fact, several interesting settings are available in the Display preferences. Follow these steps to access and change them: Tip You can mark selected messages as read (normal font) or unread (bold font) by selecting Mark Read and Mark Unread in the Message menu. 1. | Tap the Display button at the bottom of the main VersaMail screen to open the Display Options screen (see Figure 8.20). The Display button is a shortcut for opening the Display Options within the VersaMail preferences. Figure 8.20. The Display Options screen includes several preferences related to how email messages are displayed.
| 2. | The Sort By setting determines how messages are sorted. Tap the first pick list to change the sorting to be based on email subject, sender, date, or size. The second pick list enables you to reverse the sorting by switching from descending order to ascending order. | 3. | The Show setting determines how many lines are displayed for an email message (one or two), along with whether the message date and size are displayed. Although the one-line view is more efficient (only the sender is visible), being able to see the subject of each message in the default two-line view can be helpful. | 4. | You can use the Font setting to change the font family, size, and style used throughout the VersaMail application. This is entirely a personal preference, but it's worth pointing out that if you can handle reading a smaller font, you'll be able to see more messages on the screen; you might have to experiment with different fonts to change the size. | 5. | The last two display settings, Unread and Read, relate solely to the color of read and unread messages displayed in the message list. By default, messages are distinguished only by unread messages being in a bold font. If you want to make this distinction a bit more obvious, try changing the color of one or both of them. I find that changing unread messages to a bright color helps make them more obvious, but changing the color of both messages is too much for me. | 6. | Tap the OK button when you're finished tweaking the email display preferences. |
I'd say you now have a good handle on email message management, but there are still a few more interesting topics you have yet to uncover. |