Managing Email 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. 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 the following actions:

• 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. Note: When creating new folders, DO NOT create sub-folders within your Inbox. While technically possible, many third-party email clients and most mobile devices can not accurately and reliably sync sub-folders that are part of a user's Inbox.

To create a new folder, use the Folders icon at the top of your folders list. From that, select New Folder. It's also possible to create a new folder using the right-click context menu from within your list of folders. Regardless of the method used, a new folder window opens. In the Parent Folder field, select an existing folder in order to create a sub-folder, or select "Root Folder" to create a new parent folder. Then, type the name of the new folder. Folder names can include letters, numbers, and the hyphen (-), space ( ), and underline (_) characters only.

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.

NOTE: SmarterMail does not allow the following characters to be used in folder names:

? | | : * ? < > " . 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. NOTE: You can only select one email folder at a time, so each folder needs to be moved individually.

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. NOTE: It's not possible to rename any default folders.

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, 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 can create a Disposable Address using the menu option at the bottom of the navigation pane, or by right-clicking on a specific folder and selecting Disposable Address from the context menu. When you create the address, SmarterMail will automatically create the username, but you have the ability to select the folder where the messages to that address are delivered, plus the length of time you want to use the address. At any time you can either extend that timeframe or disable the address 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. If you forget the address, you can see it again by clicking on the linked text in the notification discussed below. Only one Disposable Address can be used at any one time.

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. NOTE: This action cannot be reversed, so be sure you want to perform this action before you actually carry it out.