Yahoo has added a small but useful feature to its Web mail service that lets users filter the contents of their in-box to see only the messages from their contacts. This means that if someone's not on your contacts whitelist, you don't see their message.
Short of Yahoo Mail's built-in filters and its connections sorting, this is one of the simpler ways to cut out any in-box clutter from people you don't know. However, there's some work involved on your part to build that list of contacts. To enable the feature, users must first create a Yahoo profile over at profiles.yahoo.com. Then add people they wish to list as contacts.
Besides sorting by connections, users will soon be able to sort by contacts. Here's what the in-box looks like before the sort.
(Credit: Yahoo )
And here's what it looks like after the sort.
(Credit: Yahoo)One area where this terminology might confuse users is the difference between "contacts" and "connections." Yahoo Mail's help section refers to connections as "contacts with special status." In the case of mail, what makes them special is that you've interacted with them frequently, so the product assumes you know them. They must also confirm you as a contact before a connection is made. Contacts, on the other hand must be manually added, either through mail, or over on Yahoo's profiles site.
Yahoo Mail's senior product manager Rick Pal says this feature will only be available for Yahoo Mail users in the U.S. and Australia, and won't be rolling out to all accounts until a "few weeks" from now.
Update: Made a clarification on the difference between contacts and connections.
Previously: Yahoo puts meat on Open Strategy bones
There are lots of things to like about Google's Gmail service: It's free (unless you count the text ads at the top of each window; it is available on any device with Internet access, and it's easy to use as a central repository for multiple e-mail accounts.
Unfortunately, there are also many useful features of Microsoft Outlook, Mozilla Thunderbird, and other standalone e-mail programs that Gmail lacks. One of the features I miss most is the ability to sort messages by sender. I used to have to page through old mail 50 messages at a time to find the one I was looking for. Now I use the service's filters and labels as a sort substitute.
If you're looking for a message from a particular person, select that person's entry in the Contacts list on the left of the main Gmail window, and copy the address in the To: field. Next, click Settings in the top-right corner of the window, and choose Filters > Create a new filter.
Find all the messages from a single person by entering their address in the From: field of Gmail's Create a filter screen.
Paste the address in the From: field and click the Next Step button. After a few seconds you'll see all the mail from that person listed at the bottom of the screen. Check Apply the label, and choose New label from the drop-down menu to the right. Enter a name for your filter, and click OK. You can select the messages you want to view in the list, or simply click Also apply filter to the xx conversations below to add all of them. Click Create Filter to return to the Filters tab of the Settings window.
Sort your Gmail messages by applying a label to a filter.
The messages you selected and all subsequent mail from that person will now be viewable by clicking the entry you just created in the Labels list on the left side of the main Gmail window, just below your list of contacts. Of course, you can also create a labeled filter to find the mail you sent to a specific address, with or without certain words in the subject or elsewhere, and with attachments.
Tomorrow: enable the hidden administrator account in Windows Vista, and password-protect the XP equivalent.
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