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 nested within "parent" folders, folders can be shared with coworkers, and more — all to help users keep their mail sorted and organized. For example, a user might create a "Vendors" folder with sub-folders for each supplier, or a "Receipts" folder that a content filter fills automatically.

The Folder Pane at a Glance

The folder pane displays your folders in two groups: the default (system) folders at the top, in a fixed order, followed by any folders you've created — along with any folders shared with you — below. Next to each folder is a count: for most folders this is the number of unread messages, while the Drafts and Scheduled folders show their total number of messages. Folders containing sub-folders can be expanded or collapsed using the arrow next to the folder name, and SmarterMail remembers which folders you've left expanded.

At the top of the folder pane, up to three icons are displayed:

• Folders - The folder icon, used to manage whichever folder is currently selected.
• Show Email Classifications - The sparkle icon, which toggles email classifications on and off. (This icon only appears when classifications are enabled for your account.)
• Actions (⋮) - Additional folder-related options.

Folders

The Folders icon allows users to manage their folders. The same actions are also available in a context menu when a user right-clicks on a specific folder name. The actions available vary depending on the type of folder selected, and 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.
• Move Folder - Opens a modal that allows the user to move the folder to a new location. (Available for folders you've created; default folders can't be moved.)
• Edit Folder - Opens a modal that allows the user to rename the folder. (Default folders can't be renamed.)
• Delete Folder - Deletes the folder and all messages within it. (Default folders can't be deleted.)
• 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. (The Drafts and Scheduled folders can't be shared. For a folder that's already shared, this option is replaced by Properties, where the share can be reviewed.)
• Run Content Filter - Allows the user to manually run one or more of their existing content filters against the contents of the folder. See Run Content Filters further down this page for more information. (This option is only selectable when you have content filters set up.)
• Disposable Address - Opens a modal that allows a user to create a Disposable (temporary) Address that delivers to a specific folder. See Disposable Address further down this page for more information.
• Delete All in Folder - Deletes all messages in the folder selected. (This option only appears when the folder actually contains messages.)

Show Email Classifications

Next to the Folders icon is the "Show email classifications" icon — the sparkle icon. (This icon appears when classifications have been enabled by your administrator and for your account.) When a user clicks this button, a set of classification tabs displays above the folder tree in webmail: Primary, Transactions, Updates, and Promotions, each with a count of messages. Clicking a classification filters the Inbox to show only messages belonging to that classification. Toggling the feature off removes the tabs and shows all messages combined.

When a user first enables classifications, a tutorial dialog titled "Your Inbox is Now Organized" 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 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 by SpamFoo, SmarterMail's AI classification engine, 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: simply drag a message onto a different classification tab to reclassify it. When you do, SmarterMail asks whether you want to reclassify "Just This Email" or "All Emails" from that sender — choosing All Emails means future messages from that sender are classified the same way. For example, if a newsletter you value keeps landing in Promotions, drag one issue onto Primary and choose All Emails; from then on it arrives in Primary.

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 - 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.
• SpamFoo Dashboard - This opens a new window that displays the SpamFoo Dashboard based on the user. For more information, see SpamFoo User Dashboard.
• Reset Manual Classifications - Removes any classification corrections you've made, returning all messages to their automatic classifications.
• Reset Spam Classifications - Removes any spam-related classification overrides you've made.
• About Classifications - This opens a modal window that explains what each classification means and displays some brief information about the messages of each type.

Default Folders

On first glance, SmarterMail users will notice that their mailbox has special-purpose, permanent folders that can't be removed, renamed, or moved. These folders reside at the top of the folders list, above any 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.
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.
• 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. Because of its special purpose, the Scheduled folder can't be shared, and messages can't be dragged into it.

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 on a folder 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. In the Name field, type the name of your new folder. (Names can be up to 100 characters long.)
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.

: / \ * ? < > | " and the unicode null character

When importing folders, it's likely SmarterMail will replace restricted 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 2026 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. Two drag destinations are special: dropping messages onto the Junk Email folder treats them as spam (just like Move to Junk), and dragging messages OUT of Junk Email into the Inbox marks them as not spam.

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 menu. In the Name field, type the new folder name you want to use, then click Save. The same folder name rules noted above apply to renames.

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, so double-check its contents first.

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 Folders icon or the right-click context menu, you simply select a folder, then click on the Folders 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 example, you might share a "Support" folder with a coworker who covers for you when you're out, giving them full access so they can file messages too. For more information about sharing, and the permissions available for users and User Groups, see the Sharing Overview page of this help documentation.

Folders that others have shared with you appear in your folder list alongside your own folders, and a notice above the messages list reminds you when you're viewing a shared folder. To review or change your shares later, use Manage Shares in the Actions (⋮) menu, which opens the Sharing page of your settings.

Run Content Filters

Selecting Run Content Filter opens a modal window that allows you to run one or more of your content filters against the messages already in the folder. This is particularly useful right after creating a new filter: for example, if you create a filter that moves messages from a particular sender into a "Vendors" folder, running it against your Inbox files all the existing messages, not just future ones. 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, delivering 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. For example, use a disposable address to register for a one-time webinar or download a whitepaper: you receive the confirmation email, and when the address expires, any follow-up marketing simply bounces.

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 deliver to (you can change it if you want by clicking the dropdown arrow and selecting a new folder) plus the Time (Hours) the address will be active — from 1 to 24 hours, with a default of 4. 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.

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 remain in use. Clicking the linked text in the notification opens a modal with the details of the disposable address, including the address itself, its time remaining, and the folder being used for the address. From there you can also Extend the address — adding 4 hours to its lifetime — or Revoke (delete) it entirely. Revoking asks for confirmation, then immediately deactivates the address.

Delete All in Folder

Deletes all contents of the selected folder in one step. You'll be asked to confirm, and the confirmation tells you how many messages are affected. This is the quickest way to clear out a bloated folder — emptying the Junk Email or Deleted Items folder, for instance.