Managing Email Folders

Email folders offer users the ability to better organize their mail by topic, by sender, or by any means they find best suited to their needs. Just like paper folders, email folders store messages that are moved out of the user's Inbox (or any default folder). Messages can be moved between folders, folders can be embedded within "parent" folders, and more to help users keep their mail sorted and organized.

Folder Icons

At the top of the Folders view, three icons are displayed:

• Folders
• Email Classifications
• Actions (⋮)

Folders

The Folders icon allows users to manage their folders. In addition to the options available being displayed when a user clicks the Folder icon, the same actions are available in a context menu when a user right-clicks on a specific folder name. The actions available include:

• New Folder - Opens a modal that allows the user to create a new folder, either in the root or as a sub-folder of an existing folder.
• Share Folder - Opens a modal that allows the user to share that folder with another user or group on their domain. See Sharing Folders further down this page for more information.
• Run Content Filter - Allows the user to manually run an existing content filter on the contents of a specific folder. See Run Content Filters further down this page for more information.
• Disposable Address - Opens a modal that allows a user to create a Disposable (temporary) Address in a specific folder. See Disposable Address further down this page for more information.
• Delete All in Folder - Deletes all messages in the folder selected.

Email Classification

Next to the Folders icon is the "Show Email Classifications" icon. (The sparkle/star icon). When a user clicks this button, it displays a list of email classifications above the folder tree in webmail. These classifications include: Primary, Transactions, Updates, and Promotions. Clicking on a class filters the inbox to show only messages belonging to that classification. Toggling the feature off removes the list of classes and shows all messages combined.

When a user first enables classifications, a tutorial dialog appears explaining: "Your emails are automatically sorted into categories: Primary for important messages, Transactions for receipts and orders, Updates for newsletters and notifications, and Promotions for deals and offers."

If the feature is newly enabled for an existing user, there is also a background process (the Classification Coordinator) that goes back and classifies existing messages in the inbox so the tabs are populated, not just for new incoming mail. This process can take some time, depending on the size of the inbox.

How Classification Works

When an incoming message is received, its content is analyzed and a classification is assigned. This classification is stored as a header on the message (X-SpamFoo-Classification) and is persisted so it can be referenced whenever the message list is displayed. The system also learns from user corrections: if a user drags/moves a message to a different classification, that feedback is stored so future messages from similar senders are classified more accurately. Users can actually chose to only re-classify that particular message, or all messages sent from the same sender/domain.

The four classifications include:

• Primary — Important personal emails that require your attention. This is the default/catch-all category. If a message doesn't clearly fit into another category, it is classified as Primary.
• Transactions — Purchase receipts, shipping notifications, and delivery confirmations. These are transactional emails related to orders, payments, or account activity.
• Updates — News headlines, newsletters, and social media alerts. This includes subscription-based content, notification emails, and social updates.
• Promotions — Coupons, sales announcements, and promotional offers from retailers. Marketing and advertising emails fall into this category.

Actions (⋮)

The final icon is for Actions (⋮). The options here include:

• Manage Shares - This opens the Sharing page of your settings and allows you to see and manage those items shared with you, items you've shared with others, and any Delegation settings.
• SpamFoo Dashboard - This opens a new window that displays the SpamFoo Dashboard based on the user. For more information, see SpamFoo User Dashboard.
• About Classifications - This opens a modal window that explains what each Classification means and displays some brief information about how many messages of that type are displayed.

Default Folders

On first glance, SmarterMail users will notice that their mailbox has five special-purpose, permanent folders that can't be removed or renamed. These folders will reside at the top of the folders list as well as being listed with any other folders a user creates. These include:

• Inbox - All incoming messages automatically go to your Inbox folder. You can read your mail in the Inbox, then delete it, move it to another folder or leave it in the Inbox. When creating folders, it's not recommended to create them within the Inbox as many email clients, especially mobile clients, have difficulty syncing folders created within the Inbox.
Note: If you have set up content filtering for your mailbox, incoming messages may bypass your Inbox per your content filtering settings.
• Drafts - This folder holds messages that you've composed but haven't sent yet. A message saved in your Drafts folder stays there until you either send it or delete it.
• Deleted Items - When you delete messages, by default they're moved to the Deleted Items folder. (Just know that, this default action can change based on your settings - see Deleting Email Messages for more information). Messages in the Deleted Items folder can be deleted at any time without warning depending on any auto-clean settings your system administrator has in place, so it's best if you don't delete messages if you think you'll want them later. The Deleted Items folder is the default folder SmarterMail creates for deleted items. When migrating from other email systems to SmarterMail, the migration may create a different folder for deleted items based on what that email system uses as its default.
• Junk Email - Messages SmarterMail believes to be junk mail bypass your inbox and go to the Junk Email folder. You should periodically check this folder to ensure that valid messages were not accidentally delivered to the Junk Email folder. If you find valid emails in your Junk Email folder, you can move them back to your Inbox by either dragging them to the Inbox or using the right-click context menu. If the sender is someone you know, you can also add them as a Trusted Sender using the right-click menu, thereby skipping most spam checks for messages from that sender in the future.
• Sent Items - All outgoing messages are automatically saved to your Sent Items folder, making it easy to review or resend a message if necessary.
• Scheduled - This folder only appears if you have scheduled an email to be sent at a later date and/or time. Scheduled messages will appear here, and can be edited, as needed, should the date and/or time need to be adjusted or the email simply deleted.
Note: Messages sent from a third-party client such as Outlook may or may not be saved in the Sent Items folder. It is dependent on the protocol used to connect that client.

The folder icon at the top of the folders view contains the following actions:

• New Folder
• Share Folder
• Run Content Filter
• Disposable Address
• Delete All in Folder

When you right-click a folder, bringing up its context menu, or when you select a folder and click the Folders icon, you will see a list of available actions (which might vary depending on the type of folder):

• New Folder
• Move Folder
• Edit Folder
• Delete Folder
• Share Folder
• Manage Shares
• Run Content Filter
• Disposable Address
• Delete All in Folder

Creating a New Folder

To make your email easy to manage, SmarterMail lets users create as many personal mail folders as they want. Personal folders help users organize incoming and outgoing messages in ways that make sense to the individual user. That being said, creating a very large number of folders that have large numbers of sub-folders can impact the performance of any email server, not to mention syncing with email clients.

To create a new Folder:

1. Click the Folders icon at the top of your folders list.
2. Select New Folder from the dropdown menu. Or, you can right-click anywhere in your list of folders and choose New Folder from the context menu.
3. A New Folder window will open.
4. In the Parent Folder field, choose an existing folder to create a sub-folder under it, or select Root Folder to create a new top-level folder.
5. Type the name of your new folder.
6. Click Save.

To make your SmarterMail folders available from a third-party email client such as Microsoft Outlook, when you set up your client you will need to set it up using IMAP as your incoming mail server type, or use one of the add-on protocols: EAS and/or MAPI & EWS. If you use POP mail, you only have access to your SmarterMail inbox, not any personal mail folders you created to organize messages.

? | | : * ? < > " . u000 (a unicode null character) and leading/trailing spaces

When importing folders, it's likely SmarterMail will replace those characters with an underscore (_). For example, if a folder is named "Problems?", the folder would show up as "Problems_" in webmail after import. (Quotation marks are not part of the folder name in the example.) Folders in webmail can be renamed to remove the underscore characters, but none of the restricted characters can be used in the rename.

Moving Folders

Once a folder is created, it's possible to move it to a new location. For example, say you have a folder for each month of the year, and you move messages received in a particular month into its particular folder. Then, at the end of the year, you want to move those monthly folders into a new Year folder. (E.g., You move January - December folders into a 2022 folder.) It's very simple to do that.

Simply right-click on a folder and select Move Folder from the context menu. The Move Folder modal opens, and you simply select the folder you want to move TO from the "Move To" dropdown. Once you've selected the proper folder, click the Move button. Then, you can do the same for each folder you want to move.

Moving Messages to Another Folder

Moving messages between folders in SmarterMail is easy. You can either move them using the Actions menu or right click on one message, or a selected group of messages, and use "Move" from the context menu. It's also possible to drag one or more messages from one folder and drop them into another.

Editing and Deleting Folders

You can change the name of a personal/custom mail folder anytime by simply editing it, or delete a folder (and its messages) completely when you no longer need it.

To rename a folder, select the appropriate folder in the navigation pane. Use the Folders icon (or use the right-click context menu) and select Edit Folder from the pop out menu. In the New Folder Name field, type the new folder name you want to use.

To delete a folder, select the appropriate folder in the navigation pane. Click the Folders icon (or use the right-click context menu) and select Delete Folder. Deleting a folder also deletes all messages within that folder.

Sharing Folders

There are 3 ways to share email folders, two of which are available right from the Email page in the webmail interface:

• Using the Folders icon,
• Using the right-click context menu, and
• Using the Sharing page of your Settings.

When using either the folder icon or the right-click context menu, you simply select a folder, then click on the folder icon or right-click on the folder name. Either way, you select Share Folder from the menu.

When you do this, the Share Folder modal opens. Here, you can add in Users or User Groups to share the folder with, then set the permissions for each share you create. For more information about sharing, and the permissions available for users and User Groups, see the Sharing Overview page of this help documentation.

Manage Shares

Opens the Sharing page of your settings. This allows you to see and manage those items shared with you, items you've shared with others, and any Delegation settings.

Run Content Filters

Opens a modal window that allows you to run one or more content filters against the messages in the folder. For more information, see My Content Filters.

Disposable Address

A Disposable Address is a randomly generated address for a domain that's completely independent of a user's current email address. This address acts as a timed alias, forwarding mail to a specific folder for however long specified. When the time limit has been reached, the address is no longer valid and mail will not reach the mailbox — it simply bounces back to the sender. This is useful when you only need a temporary sign up or don't want to give out your email address and possibly get inundated with spam messages.

Creating a Disposable Address

You create a Disposable Address by right-clicking on a folder to bring up the context menu, then selecting Disposable Address from that menu. A modal opens where you can see the folder the address will use (you can change it if you want by clicking the dropdown arrow and selecting a new folder) plus the length of time the address will be active. Once you click the Next button, you'll see the actual address (which you can copy using the Copy icon), the folder name, and the Time Remaining.

Once the address is active, a small note appears at the top of your custom folders regarding the disposable address. Clicking on its link will re-open the modal to display the address's details. You can also either extend the timeframe for the address or revoke it entirely.

Disposable addresses are created using a randomly generated character set. As such, it's important to copy the address so it can be used as needed.

Locating a Disposable Address

When you have a Disposable Address in use, you'll be reminded of it with a notification that appears at the top of your custom folders list with the following message: "A disposable address is active on this account. Expires in X." The "X" in the message is the amount of time the address will be in use. Clicking on the message opens a modal with the details of the disposable address, including the address itself, it's time remaining, the folder being used for the address, and the ability to Revoke (delete) the address or extend its time.

If you need to edit the address, you can simply click the linked text in the notification to open the Disposable Address modal.

Delete All in Folder

Deletes all contents of the selected folder. This includes messages, sub-folders, etc.