100 tips to speed up your software

Google Gmail

It's a plus
Use a plus symbol and a keyword after your account name and before the "@gmail.com" in your email address for mail coming from a particular source, such as a forum or an e-tailer you want to highlight (for example, john.doe+forum@gmail.com). You can then set up a filter to route mail sent to these special addresses (especially useful if spammers get hold of the address).

Your own domain
It's easy to set Gmail up to send mail that looks like it's coming from one of your other addresses. Go to Settings > Accounts, then click on "Add another email address". A small window will pop up asking to input your name and the other email address. Then click Next Step > Send Verification, and Gmail will send an email to that other account with a link to click to confirm that you want to be able to send mail using its address in Gmail.

Feed the Gmail beast
You can set up your RSS reader to notify you when you receive new Gmail messages. Enter https://gmail.google.com/gmail/feed/atom as the name of the feed, then your username and password. Note that not all feed readers will be compatible with the Gmail feed, so your mileage may vary.

Print it!
One of Gmail's key innovations was to show groups of related messages as one long thread. Unfortunately, the default option for printing a thread is to print all the messages, which can get out of hand if you have a back-and-forth exchange that features a couple dozen replies. To print a single email from a thread, open the message and click the downward arrow at the top right-hand corner of the message. Select Print from the drop-down menu, and the message will open in a new window. The Print dialog box will also pop up to allow you to print the message.

Office alternative
Google has recently integrated its Google Spreadsheet and Google Docs apps into Gmail, and they're both compatible with popular Microsoft Office file formats. When you receive a Microsoft Excel XLS file or a Microsoft Word DOC file as a Gmail attachment, you can click "Open as a Google spreadsheet" or "Open as a Google document" to view the file. Note that you will have to create a free Google Docs & Spreadsheets account before you view these file types.

MSN Hotmail

Stretch your storage
If you use Hotmail as your primary email account, you will be surprised how quickly you reach its 1GB storage limit. Make sure you have room for new messages by dragging old ones into a Local Folder in Outlook Express. This lets you archive past email on your hard drive, leaving plenty of room on the server for new mail.

Watch for spoofs
An email may have a legit-looking originating address in the message header, but it could be a fraudulent email replicating an authentic "From" line (a scam known as "spoofing"). But Hotmail lets you see the entire message header, including the real originating email address. Simply click on Options (in the upper right of the Hotmail window), then select Mail > Mail Display Settings. Next to Message Headers, click Full.

Manage your safe list
Hotmail tries to anticipate what is junk mail and what isn't, but sometimes correspondence you want (such as newsletters) winds up being blocked. To make sure mail from a particular person or domain makes it to your in-box, add the sender to your Safe List. Click on Options > Mail > Junk email Protection. Select Safe List, type in the address or domain to allow, and click Add.

We prefer outlook, too
If you have Outlook 2003 loaded on your PC, you can use it to send, receive, and categorise your Hotmail email. In Outlook, select email Accounts from the Tools menu. Click on "Add a new email account", and click on Next. Select HTTP and click Next, then fill in your Hotmail username and password, and select Hotmail as the HTTP Mail Service Provider. (Make sure the "Log on using Secure Password Authentication (SPA)" check box is unselected.) Click Next, then Finish.

Receive hotmail alerts on-the-go
You can have Hotmail notify you of new messages via a range of supported mobile devices if you also have an MSN Mobile account. (Sign up at mobile.msn.com.) In Hotmail, click on Options and select Mail. Click on Mobile Alerts, and choose your preferences.

Yahoo Mail Beta

The keys
Here are some hotkeys to speed up your mailing tasks: Type m to refresh and check your messages list, n to create a new message, r to reply to a selected message, and a to reply all to a message.

Find an attachment
If you need to search for a specific attachment you received or sent via email, and you know the filename or even some of the words found within the attachment, you can do a file search by entering attachment:keyword in the search bar. You can also search by attachment file type by inputting it in the search bar (for example, attachmenttype:doc).

It's all subjective
If you've always wondered where spammers get their wacky subject lines, Yahoo Mail Beta can give you a taste. When you compose a new message, leave the subject line blank and hit the Subject button. Your subject line may be filled in with such perplexing inanities like "dodging serendipities". Keep clicking the Subject button until you find one suitably nonsensical to send to your friend.

Needle in a haystack
If you have thousands of messages and a new email comes in that's incorrectly dated and disappears into your Inbox, use the following key combination so you don't have to scroll through messages hunting it down. Pressing Ctrl+Alt+Shift+Up Arrow (or Ctrl+Alt+Shift+Down Arrow) pops up a dialog box that lets you search by subject or sender, or whether the message is flagged or unread.

When minus adds up
You can narrow down your search results by placing "-" at the beginning of specific words at the end of your query to eliminate messages you don't want to retrieve. For instance, typing in recipes -chocolate will find all messages containing the word "recipe" that don't also contain the word "chocolate".