On the Mac, if your intention is to categorize incoming mail based on sender, a built-in feature makes this very easy. The two primary ways to auto-categorize is to do it based on sender name or based on a keyword in the mail. While automatic categorization of all of your mail is not possible, you can do it with much if not most of your mail. If e-mail arrived precategorized, all you would need to do after you read it is drag mail in bulk to the Processed Mail folder, which is what you do anyway.
Wouldn’t it be great if your e-mail were categorized automatically? Think how much time you would save. It takes time to decide how to file e-mail and assign categories or drag to folders. Probably the least enjoyable part of any e-mail organization system is filing. If you are filing e-mail using Outlook Categories, as described in Lesson 8, consider this.
This is a fantastic way to save time on topic filing and beats similar folder-filing rules since it leaves the e-mail in the Inbox where you can read it before dragging it out of the Inbox. They are on creating rules in Outlook 2011 for Mac to automatically categorize mail coming into your in-box, based on sender or subject line. Here are two excerpts from the new third edition of Total Workday Control Using Microsoft Outlook.
