How to automatically sort your incoming mail into folders

This is the easiest way to use any email list or newsletter subscription.

All the messages from the list are automatically placed in one folder – so that you can deal with them together. You can quickly scan the new messages by subject line and delete the ones you are not interested in. Since they are individual messages, you can easily participate by replying to the message author or to the group.

1. Create a folder in your email program. (If you name the folder with an exclamation point or hyphen as the first character – for example, ! alumni or -alumni – it will be first in the alphabetical list of folders.)

2. Make a filter that sends all incoming messages with HPAA in the subject line to the ! alumni folder:

• Yahoo Mail: click "Mail Options", then "Filters." For more filters, pay $20 per year for Yahoo Mail Plus.

• Gmail: click "Create a filter" to the right of the "Search the Web" button, then "Apply the label"

• Hotmail – Full Version: click "Options", then "More Options," then "Automatically sort e-mail into folders"

• Hotmail – Classic Version: click "Options", then "Automatically sort e-mail into folders"

• Outlook: Go to the Inbox, click the "Tools" menu, then "Rules Wizard," then "New"

• Outlook Express 5 or 6: Click the "Tools" menu, then "Message Rules," then "Mail"

• Outlook Express 4: Click the "Tools" menu, then "Inbox Assistant," then "Add"

• Eudora: "Filters"

• Thunderbird: "Message Filters"

• EarthLink Web Mail: No filtering capability; move emails manually to folder and read later.

• Mac Mail: click "Mail," then "Preferences," then "Rules," then "Add Rule."

3. Set each HPAA subscription for "Individual Emails"

Click here to quickly edit the settings for each of your Yahoo subscriptions – including the HPAA jobs lists and forums – on one page.