A VC - Latest Comments in Email Fail

Re: Email Fail

fredwilson — Thu, 21 May 2009 21:04:44 -0000

I've moved to gmail's web app and after a couple weeks and learning the shortcuts I'm starting to like it

Re: Email Fail

fredwilson — Thu, 21 May 2009 20:30:34 -0000

I've moved to gmail's web app and after a couple weeks and learning the shortcuts I'm starting to like it

Re: Email Fail

fredwilson — Thu, 21 May 2009 20:23:44 -0000

I've moved to gmail's web app and after a couple weeks and learning the shortcuts I'm starting to like it

Re: Email Fail

NICCAI — Wed, 20 May 2009 14:07:55 -0000

You might be interested in this article then:

Achieving Email Bliss with IMAP, Gmail, and Apple Mail

Re: Email Fail

Adrian Palacios — Thu, 14 May 2009 10:15:35 -0000

Just for the benefit of anyone who stumbles into this comments section after the fact: Gmail announced a rollout of a tool that makes it easier to import contacts/emails from other accounts http://gmailblog.blogspot.c...

Re: Email Fail

fredwilson — Thu, 07 May 2009 07:19:13 -0000

Thanks

Re: Email Fail

Michael Grant — Wed, 06 May 2009 23:39:50 -0000

Sorry Fred, one more thing, and it was a BIG one for me. I don't particularly like Mail.app's window layout for reading mail with the mail message below the message list. I MUCH prefer the Outlook style of the message list parallel to the actual message text. With a landscape monitor, this gives you the ability to use more screen real estate effectively and to see more of the message. Also critical for composing long messages in my opinion. How do you get this in Mail.app? Meet your other new friend: http://www.daneharnett.com/...

Hope this completes your initial training young grasshopper. Feel free to email me directly if you need any advise or help with your setup.

-m

Re: Email Fail

Mark Essel — Wed, 06 May 2009 20:29:12 -0000

I'm retraining myself to believe in a future full of the marvels of technology, driven by competition to provide incredible consumer satisfaction, contrary to what my pessimism predicts. I'm convinced this is one of the secrets to success: continual positive thinking in the face of current limitations ;)

Re: Email Fail

fredwilson — Wed, 06 May 2009 12:02:04 -0000

I'm headed to gmail/imap and mail.app so this is a good tip

thanks

Re: Email Fail

Michael Grant — Wed, 06 May 2009 11:34:19 -0000

Mark,

Let's hope for some improvements to the iPhone's mail app. I find it to be frustrating with no search capabilities. Given the richness of the underlying platform OS, I suspect Apple has a real opportunity to take on the Blackberry for the mantle of 'best mobile email', but they have yet to get there in my opinion. The coming 3.0 landscape keyboard will be very welcome. And while they are at it, Apple needs to improve the calendar services on the iPhone. Not being able to deal with meeting invites is a big problem. Again, I think 3.0 addresses this along with a bunch of other things that have been missing.

I'll be surprised in the 4G phone will run mac software however. I think Apple is keeping the brands separate.

-m

Re: Email Fail

Michael Grant — Wed, 06 May 2009 11:27:04 -0000

I should have added that I use Mail.app's smart folders to group mailtags tagged messages instead of creating some byzantine organizing folder structure that requires a lot of discipline to keep up with. I have created a VERY simple tagging system that actually works for me. Having tried more involved systems, I often found the process getting in the way. My tags involve projects I'm working on (could be deals or portfolio companies for you) and then simple priority tags such as 'Action', 'Waiting On', 'Delegated'. The nice thing about Mailtags is that it is VERY fast and doesn't get in the way. It also maintains tags across machines if you need to check your IMAP mail from another Mac. Finally, Mail Steward supports indexing Mailtags so that you can search your archived mail by tag as well as other criteria.

I've tried a lot of systems and I know that some people swear by just using the gmail web app since it supports many tagging type things as well. But I find Mail.app to be the right combination of simplicity, features, and OS integration. Mail Steward saved me as I was doing my archiving by exporting to .mbox - a standard mail interchange archiving format - but unable to adequately search my archives.

Not sure if you are aware of it but Merlin Mann has a nice 'Inbox Zero' article over at 43folders.com. That might help as well.

-m

Re: Email Fail

Mark Essel — Wed, 06 May 2009 07:19:09 -0000

Thanks Michael, I'm guessing the future...
The iPhone 4G will run full mac software and this type of setup will be standard (and brilliant).
Found this comment from following Fred's friendfeed btw, good stuff (I missed the original post/comments)

Re: Email Fail

fredwilson — Wed, 06 May 2009 07:11:14 -0000

This is where I'm headed. Outlook in a vm failed me

Re: Email Fail

fredwilson — Wed, 06 May 2009 06:48:16 -0000

I sure hope gist can help me. I've got the invite. Thanks!

Re: Email Fail

Michael Grant — Tue, 05 May 2009 15:16:15 -0000

Fred,

Another idea. Here's what worked for me (also on a Mac):

- Use Apple Mail.app linked to your gmail IMAP account. I find it works flawlessly.

- Once every 3 months I archive all my mail for that Qtr using Mail Steward. MS is a fantastic email archiving program on the mac built on a embedded SQL database. Whenever I need to search past email, I just launch MS and search away! Also handles indexing attachments etc.

- For dealing with current email, I simply set up a master 'Mail Archive' folder that sits within my gmail account. Once I read an email, I either 1) immediately archive it to the Mail Archive folder using drag and drop, or 2) I tag it using Mailtags (a plug-in for Mail.app). Mailtags really couldn't be easier to use and if you keep your tagging VERY SIMPLE, you don't get hung up by the process.

- Running Outlook in a VM and having your mail locked in a .PST file seems crazy to me.

Check out: Mail Steward & Mailtags. They are your friend. ;-)

-m

Re: Email Fail

tamccann — Tue, 05 May 2009 09:32:04 -0000

I used to work on the Exchange team at MSFT and have been a long-time user of Outlook. I have tons of shortcuts, rules and strategies on dealing with email inside Outlook. When we started Gist, we started using Gmail as our mail system, so I have been using the Gmail interface more recently and liking it, especially all the keyboard shortcuts which make it incredibly fast to "process" mail. Yes, conversations take a bit of getting used to, but that it the way Exchange and Outlook are going as well with the new versions http://www.infoworld.com/d/... (my brother designed most of it for Exchange), as it is more efficient ultimately to keep the key stuff in view.

We are Gist (www.gist.com) are also trying to tackle some of these issues with federating messages from multiple places (email and twitter) as well as providing some smarts on "priority". While we have not set out to build a new email client just yet, we are working on the problem space on helping you control to flow of information and making it more actionable.

Re: Email Fail

Jim — Mon, 04 May 2009 21:12:21 -0000

Fred -- I have read "Take Back Your LIfe" which is book/toolset with techniques to get through email easier. It's not a total solution, but if you can scan the book, you might find 5-10 things that you can adopt. I took the class and read the book and adopted about 1/3 of it in processing email.

Good luck -- lots of great ideas from your readers in this forum!

Re: Email Fail

fredwilson — Mon, 04 May 2009 12:59:48 -0000

i am a packrat, totally disorganized, and run my life to maximize the amount of serendipity and chaos

that's how i try to find things that others don't

my concern is all these approaches, like bit literacy which i've read, don't work for someone like me

Re: Email Fail

Dmitri Eroshenko @Relenta — Mon, 04 May 2009 11:51:51 -0000

Thanks Bernard. Fred, I will be thrilled indeed, except now I am afraid to email you :)

Re: Email Fail

fredwilson — Mon, 04 May 2009 06:55:09 -0000

i can't walk away

but i can let everyone know that email is not the best way to communicate with me

i did that with the phone a few years back and now i do very few phone calls where some other form of communication would be preferable

Re: Email Fail

Stephen Bates — Mon, 04 May 2009 06:41:07 -0000

Fred, I haven't read all the comments here, but the bottom line is Gmail is the way to go.

The way to power through Gmail is to master the keyboard shortcuts, label things, and archive them. Use filters to auto-archive less than time sensitive emails, when you can go through them at your leisure.

Unsubscribe from any informative newsletters, etc..and use Google Reader and RSS (again, keyboard shortcuts)

Install Google Gears for off-line access.

Re: Email Fail

fredwilson — Mon, 04 May 2009 06:23:14 -0000

that's a great suggestion

thanks

Re: Email Fail

TweetProbe — Sun, 03 May 2009 18:30:32 -0000

Today's AI will just melt it up more :) If you have a simple desktop client allowing you to organically build your filters over the years, then you would not be in bk again. If twitter will add a new status object pointing to a payload, this as u darn well know, forces the sender to focus their intent in to 140 chars. Wanna bet this will change the World?

Re: Email Fail

Daniel Odio — Sun, 03 May 2009 11:05:04 -0000

Fred, I also manage copious amounts of email. Mac Mail via hosted IMAP w/ Google Apps was growing unstable at my level of usage - about 50 gigs for the email package alone.

My solution, which has worked very well, was to put all email older than 18 months in a specific folder and instruct Google to not synchronize that folder with my mail client (this "non synching" is possible via a new Google Labs feature).

When I have to find an email that's older than 18 months, I'm able to log in to my branded gmail interface to find it, but it's very much worth the trade-off of a smoothly functioning Mac Mail interface.

On a somewhat related note, I've hooked Google Voice into my iPhone voicemail. Here's a video on how I did that: http://vimeo.com/4382844

Regards,

DROdio

Re: Email Fail

Mukul — Sun, 03 May 2009 10:38:36 -0000

outlook 2007 works like charm on my mailbox of over a GB