>>Thus Smart Folders are VERY much like using filters > >... You say "if I can assign these criteria to each folder instead within >*the filter window*, this will leave me with less clutter in *the filter >window*". Read that sentence again. Is it correct? If so, what did you >actually mean? It's incomprehensible to me. Perhaps you could detail it a >little?
If I have a smart folder to identify certain messages that I used to filter into their own little sub-folders, I would certainly need fewer items all around. Suppose I have four clients under one corporate account. None of them generates messages frequently enough to deserve their own filters. Smart folders would reduce the number of filters I need in my filter list, plus if I close the account with that company, I can export them (archive out of my active message database) and not have to clean the cruft out my filters list afterwards. For example: folder: IBM Corporation with 4 subfolders: John Doe, Jane Jones, Bob Smith, Wendy Wilson. I can make filters to separate messages into their own folders. Four filters, four subfolders in one folder = nine items. Or, if I have just one filter putting all of these into the IBM folder, then four "smart" folders (a kind of active filter, I guess) which pick out just the messages for each individual person, then I have reduced the total items to six: one filter, one folder, four smart folders. I can pull a specific person's (smart folder) account to the top of my Folder List if it's getting more activity (I'm assuming user-resortable Folder Lists -- _CTM, see how useful this can be?_ :) ). Or, if there's a lull, I could drop that smart list back into the IBM folder like a subfolder (is it now called a "smart sub-folder"?). Assuming I have many corporate accounts, I could make a "most active" folder and pull all the busy smart sub-folders into it. Then I could delete them when done, or tuck them away in relevant containing folders as with the IBM example above. What I wouldn't be doing is having to clear out lots of filters from my filters list that have long passed on their usefulness because the messages they direct are no longer arriving, or even in the active database because they've been archived. I'm sure people with more e-mail than I could find better examples. Mikael, is that clear enough? Marlyse, is that what you were thinking for reducing clutter? Chris --
