Windows XP Power Hound

Organizing and Handling Mail

If your inbox look like the computer equivalent of a bad hair day, you'll probably welcome some tools to tame mess. This section offers all kinds of hints for organizing and handling your mail, including nifty ways to force your email software to sort everything automatically for you.

Adding New Contacts in Two Seconds

Here's a super-quick way to add new contacts to Outlook and Outlook Express. If you use Outlook, when you receive an email from someone you want in your address book, open the message, right-click the From: or Cc: line, and then choose Add to Contacts. Outlook adds the sender's name and email address to your contacts. In Outlook Express, you don't even have to open the email; in your inbox, just right-click the message and choose Add Sender to Address Book.

WORKAROUND WORKSHOP: Outlook Express Address Book Bloat

Outlook Express has the very bad habit of automatically adding names to your address book. Every time you reply to an email message, the program enters the person's contact information in your address book without telling you.

As a result, your address book can quickly fill up with people you may not ever want to contact again. It also means you can end up with duplicate entries. For example, if someone already in your address book sends you a message from a new or different email address, Outlook Express creates a separate entry for that person.

To stop this behavior, simply choose Tools → Options → Send, and turn off "Automatically ...