Keep on top of client emails in Mail.app

Mar 20, '06 06:49:00AM

Contributed by: sap.1

As an active member of the Apple Consultants Network, part of my consultant practice involves responding to client questions via email in a timely manner. Obviously, some messages are more urgent than others, so when I'm balancing onsite appointments and other work with responding to email, I often don't respond to messages chronologically. This can cause some messages to fall through the cracks if they don't require (or I can't provide) an immediate response.

A combination of Address Book groups, Spotlight, and Smart Mailboxes allows me to stay on top of client emails.

  1. Create a group in Address Book (e.g. "Clients") and add all the corresponding contacts to it.
  2. Create a new Smart Mailbox in Mail for messages that matches All of the following conditions: Sender is Member of Group [e.g. Clients]; and Date Received is in the last 7 days.
  3. Now, here's the cool part. From the View menu, select Sort By: Message Status. All messages that you have replied to will be at the top of the list, sorted reverse-chronologically. Messages you have not replied to will be at the bottom. Now click the Message Status column heading (the dot that should be highlighted already) to reverse the sort order. Messages that you have not replied to will be listed at the top of the list, oldest first.
Go down the list and check for messages that may need a response. Many of the messages listed at the top will not need a reply. But after a week, they drop off the list -- keeping it manageable without any effort on my part. As long as I don't wait longer than a week to respond to a message in need of a response, nothing slips through the cracks!

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