

Additional or "custom" folders you may have created, e.g., "Smith Client," "Conferences," "Uncle Joe," "Soccer Club," etc.Your email program puts messages into these different folders as you compose, send, and receive email. Standard folders: Inbox, Sent, Drafts, Trash (or Deleted Items), and Junk (or Spam or Bulk).What's the difference between a regular email folder and a Smart Folder?Ī regular email folder (or mailbox) is a container where your email messages are actually stored. Unfortunately, as far as I can tell a number of other webmail systems do not have this ability, including aol.com,, , msn.com (a.k.a.A few webmail systems provide a way to save your searches, including, rcn.com, and Godaddy's domain webmail.Many regular email programs have this ability, including Microsoft Outlook, Apple Mail, Mozilla Thunderbird, and Eudora.In a quick survey of email programs and webmail systems, I found that: There may also be a function where you make a new Smart Folder by choosing a name and criteria without doing a search first.ĭoes my email program let me make a Smart Folder or Save a Search?

When you search your email, many email programs have some sort of "Save" button right next to the search results that lets you store your search criteria as a Smart Folder and give it a name to use it again later.

Here's the good news: In many email programs, if there is a way to search for messages, there may also be a way to save your search criteria and re-use it! Each email program is different, so yours may call them "Smart Folders," "Smart Mailboxes," "Saved Searches," "Search Folders," or "Mail Views." To keep this discussion simple, I will use the term "Smart Folder." If you have found searching your email to be useful, over time you have probably wished for a way to keep some of those searches and perform them again, without having to start each one over from scratch. If you have lots of email, whether you use a regular email program (Outlook, Apple Mail, Thunderbird, Eudora, etc.) or you use webmail (email on a web site like, rcn.com, etc.), you have probably used your email program's Search or Find function to try to locate important messages or sets of related messages. This should clear that number.Are You Always Searching Through Your Email? Try Saved Searches!

If you already have this #, the only way I've found to deal with it so far is to go to your Settings > Mail Settings and delete the account and then set it up again. When cleaning up your trash folder, it is important to open the folder and give it a few seconds before deleting any messages. Then if you were to the following day do the same thing, the number will increase. If you are quick enough to delete two messages before the folder catches up you would see Trash (2). So if you deleted one unread message prior to the folder catching up, at the end of your cleanup you will see Trash (1) at the top. If you start deleting messages before your folder is updated and one of the messages you deleted is unread, it will leave a number of unread messges. Your trash folder is being updated how many messages in trash have been unread. I've discovered that the source of the problem is this when I open my trash folder to begin emptying it, there is a lag where at the bottom of the screen it says "connecting".
