D-BUST Your Computer – Part 4-c
By: Janet L. Hall

S stands for Save

Saving incoming and outgoing email documents might be important to you because:

•You have verification that it was received or sent
•You need to keep track of correspondence
•The information pertains to your projects/work
•Company policy
•Reference material

However, this information SHOULD NOT be kept in your IN (NEW) or OUT (SENT) folders.

First of all it can become very cumbersome to locate something when you need it. Secondly, your company, web host, or Internet provider might have a limit to how much * stuff * you can store in the above areas. Periodically they might automatically * empty * the folders for you! Then where would you be when you need to refer to an email that you HAD NOT saved?

For safety, convenience, and efficiency, the best solution is to save emails onto your own hard drive or disk, into your own folders.

The following steps and tips are for saving emails using Microsoft Explorer's browser along with the mail program Outlook Express. If you are using Netscape or a different browser, and a different email program, chances are the steps are similar but the wording might be a little different. The best advice I can give you for other browsers and mail programs is to look in your Help section for guidance.

Steps for saving New Email:

Okay, you've just gotten an important email from your boss that promises you that you can have the month off to go on vacation! You want to save this in case a question arises later when you try to take off.

~~ Move Pointer to File at the top of the toolbar (usually on the top left corner) and Click
~~ Scroll down to Save as and Click

A Save Message As box will appear.

The Save in: section should have the last folder name that you saved a
document to. In this case you want to save your document in your * BOSSES *
folder, which is located in MY DOCUMENTS folder. (Remember, you will NOT have a BOSSES folder unless you have made one..this is just an example).

~~ CLICK the small black down arrow next to the folder name in Save in:
~~ CLICK on MY DOCUMENTS
~~ Locate the BOSSES Folder in the box and DOUBLE CLICK on it
~~ The BOSSES folder should now be in the Save in: section

Giving the document a name:

~~ PRESS Your TAB Key to move to File name: or move POINTER to File
name: and CLICK.

~~ The document will already be named for you from whatever your boss put in the subject line of the email message BUT you can change the name to something you will remember and can easily locate when needed.

TIP: You can keep the same document name or change it.

~~ Type in the new name you want to give your document or leave the same
BEFORE PRESSING RETURN OR CLICKING ON SAVE NOTICE THE FILE FORMAT YOU ARE SAVING IN!

Save as type: the default will be Mail [*.eml] but notice the small black
arrow next to this and CLICK on it. Here is where you are presented with a list of
file types that you might need to save your document into. Go ahead and play around with the different types and see how they look.

TIP: If you save type as .eml, the next time you open the document it will be presented to you as it looked in your email program. If you save type as .txt, the next time you open the document it will be a text document in Notepad with the mail header still in place.

After performing all this functions:

~~ Press ENTER/RETURN
OR
~~ Move POINTER to SAVE and CLICK

How to save the attachments on your NEW email:

If you receive an email with attachments, you can easily file all the attachments at the same time.

~~ Move Pointer to File at the top of the toolbar (usually on the top left corner) and Click
~~ Scroll down to Save attachments and Click

A Save Attachments box will appear with a list of the attachments (they will have the name the person that sent you the email named them) and they will be highlighted.

Notice the Save to: with a Browse Button at the bottom of the box. Something will already be there, such as C:My DocumentsMoe

If you don't want to file the attachments in the MOE folder, CLICK on the Browse Button. A Browse for Folder box will appear with a list of all you folders. Scroll up or down until you locate the folder you want to file the attachments and CLICK on it and CLICK OK

Notice how the Save to: information has changed, now CLICK Save.

Warning, Warning: If you have several attachments and you need to save them in DIFFERENT folders:
~~ Click Save attachments
~~ Click on the first attachment you want to save (it will be the only one highlighted after clicking), locate the folder you want to save that one to following the above steps. For each attachment on that email that you want to save in different folders, follow the same steps.

To save emails you have already sent (you must be in the email program) just place your POINTER where it says Inbox and CLICK.

Move POINTER to Sent Items and CLICK
Locate the email you need to save and follow the same steps you used for saving your new mail.

To return to your Inbox, CLICK on Sent Items and move POINTER to Inbox and CLICK.

TIP: You can do the same process for emails in your Deleted Items folder.

Smiles, not Piles,
Janet L. Hall

The Organizing Wizard, Janet L. Hall, is a Professional
Organizer, Speaker, and Author. She is the owner of
OverHall Consulting, and Organizing By Phone. Subscribe to
her FREE organizing newsletter at
http://www.overhall.com/newsletter.htm or visit
her web site at http://www.overhall.com

Copyright 1999, 2000 by OverHall Consulting
P.O. Box 263, Port Republic, MD 20676
All Rights Reserved. Permission is granted to reproduce, copy, or distribute so long as article is kept intact, this copyright notice and full information about contacting the author is attached.


About the Author
The Organizing Wizard, Janet L. Hall, is a Professional
Organizer, Speaker, and Author. She is the owner of
OverHall Consulting, and Organizing By Phone. Subscribe to
her FREE organizing newsletter at
http://www.overhall.com/newsletter.htm or visit
her web site at http://www.overhall.com