Organizing Messages in FirstClass FIRSTCLASS DOCUMENTATION LIST: Find It FC: Click here to look up FirstClass Topics FirstClass Site Map What's New in FirstClass Printable "Getting Started" Basics Mailbox Rules Calendars Messages and Documents Controller's Guide Mobile Devices Frequently Asked Questions and Tips Off-Campus Connection Features Organizing Messages FirstClass on the Web POP Clients Installation - Windows Preferences Installation - Mac

Window View Properties

You can customize the way your mailbox is arranged by using the View menu. You can also customize the view of folders. The mailbox or folder window can be set to show each message, folder and conference as an icon, or they can appear as a list. Index card view is designed for contacts. The window can be split so that messages are on one side, folders and conferences on the other side. Other view properties can be set by using the Change View Properties dialog box (View > Change View Properties), several of which are described on this page.

Icon, Scaled Icon, List or Index Card

1. Select the window (desktop, mailbox, folder or conference) for which you want to change the view. If the window is split into two panes, either vertically or horizontally, each pane can be set individually to the view you choose. To select a particular pane, click anywhere in that pane.
2. From the View menu choose Icon, Scaled Icon, List or Index Card.
3. If you chose Scaled Icon, from the View menu choose Change View Properties. Click the Icons tab and move the slider to the size you want for all icons.

 

Split the selected window

Generally, folders and conferences will automatically be in the top or left pane in a split window. Messages will automatically be in the bottom or right pane. Items can be dragged from one pane to the other, however.

1. Select the window (desktop, mailbox, folder or conference) for which you want to add, remove or change the split. Split windows have two panes.
2. From the View menu choose the Split sub-menu and either No Split, Split Horizontal or Split Vertical.

Filtering messages

Deleting and undeleting

The trash can on your desktop

Anything you delete from your account will remain in the trash can until the nightly audit process permanently purges it from the server. (This procedure begins at 3:00 AM and continues for several hours to work through each account and conference. If the process does not reach each account, it will begin again where it left off on the next night.) While items are in still in the trash can you can remove (undelete) them. The trash can gives you access to all deleted items in your account. When you open the trash can it scans all of your folders for deleted items which are listed next to the name of the folder from which they were deleted. You can undelete any item by selecting it the item in the trash can and clicking the undelete button. The item will return to the folder where it originated.

Five ways to delete

• Drag the item to the trash can on your FirstClass desktop.
• Select the item(s) you want to delete then click the Delete button on your toolbar . (Dragging the item to the Delete button on your toolbar won't work; instead it will cause a shortcut to appear on the toolbar.)
• Select the item(s) you want to delete then File > Delete
• Select the item(s) you want to delete then press the DELETE key on your keyboard.
• Select the item(s) you want to delete then press CTRL-D.

Deleting from your mailbox

You can either delete individual messages or folders or you can select multiple items to delete together. Selection of a closed thread includes all messages in that thread and selection of a folder includes all messages within the folder.

If you are deleting messages because you are near your disk usage quota and want to delete an entire folder, first open the folder and delete all of the messages inside. Then delete the folder itself. This should release the disk space immediately.

Undeleting using the desktop trash can

1. Open your trash can.
2. Find the item you want to undelete.
3. Click the undelete button. The item will reappear in the folder where it had been before you deleted it.

 

Undeleting items in the folder or mailbox where they originated.

1. Open the folder or mailbox where the deleted item had been before you deleted it.
2. View > Show Deleted Items. Among your messages you will see all of the items you have deleted since the most recent time that the server system maintenance process purged old messages. Each of these deleted messages and folders will have a trash can icon next to it. (The Flag column must be visible in the list of folders or messages in order for the trash can icon to show.)
3. Select any item in the mail list that you want to undelete.
4. File > Undelete. The trash can icon will disappear from the selected item(s).
5. To hide any remaining deleted items that you do not want to recover, View > Hide Deleted Items.

 

Deleting from a conference

Unless you are the controller of the conference you can usually delete only the messages that were sent by you. (This depends on the permission granted you by the controller.) Items deleted directly from a conference are not part of your account and will not appear in your trash can. Your personal copies of messages addressed to conferences are stored in your mailbox and will not be deleted if you delete the copy that is in the conference.

All conferences have default expiry periods that can be set by the controller. To find out how many days a message will be in the conference, select it and File > Properties (Windows) or File > Get Info (Macintosh). If the message was sent by you, you can change the expiry period causing the message to automatically delete when you choose.

If you want to temporarily remove a message from a conference so that you can make a change to it or send it again at a later time, you can unsend the message:

1. Open your mailbox and find your copy of the message addressed to the conference. (If you have deleted the message from your mailbox you won't be able to unsend it.)
2. Select the message and Message > Unsend. The message in your mailbox will be marked with a white flag indicating that it is an unsent message.
3. You can edit the message if you like and keep it in your mailbox until you are ready to send it again.

Sorting/Grouping

Sorting of messages can be done directly in the list by clicking the heading of the appropriate column. For example, if you want to sort the messages by date, click this column heading: . A second click on the same column heading will reverse the order.

Grouping (sometimes called threading) of a list of messages can be done by CONTROL-clicking (Windows) or OPTION-clicking (Mac) on the heading of the column you want to group by. For example if you want to group messages by Subject, CONTROL-click or OPTION-click this column heading .

If you want to make several changes at once you can use the View Properties dialog box.

1. From the View menu choose Change View Properties
2. Click the Lists tab.
3. After making your selections, click Apply. Click OK.

The Sort on field lets you choose any of the column headings for sorting. The Reverse sort box can be checked if you like.

The Group items on field lets you choose any of the column headings so that messages that have the same information in that field (for example the same last modified date) will remain grouped together even while sorted. If you choose Subject in the Group on field, messages that are replies to one another will be grouped regardless of whether the subject text was changed.

Sorting conference messages

If you are a conference controller, be aware that your sorting and grouping selections in the conference may affect other users. See the Controller's Guide for more information.

If you are not the conference controller, the sort order you select will probably revert to the default after you close the conference. This depends on the permissions set up by the controller. To set a default view that will apply to conferences where there are no set preferences:

1. Open a conference that has a controller who is not you, such as Official Announcements or System Notices. Do not choose an open forum that has no controller.
2. Set the list view preferences as you choose - columns and their order, sort order, grouping, font.
3. Close the conference window.

Selecting multiple messages

You can select multiple messages in the following ways. To select:

• all messages in a folder or mailbox - Click in the area where your messages are displayed. Edit > Select All.
• adjacent messages in the list (for example, the first ten messages) - Click the first message, hold down the SHIFT key, click the last message then release the SHIFT key.
• any number of messages that may not be adjacent in the list - Hold down the CTRL (Windows) or APPLE (Macintosh) key while you click each message you want to select.
• messages with the same sender or date - Hold down both the SHIFT and CONTROL keys (Windows) or SHIFT and APPLE keys (Macintosh) while you click on the part that you want to match. For example, if you want to select all the messages from Wendy Wellesley click on Wendy Wellesley's name on one of the messages.
• all messages in a thread - Close the thread and click the closed thread.

Be careful when selecting messages - especially those you intend to delete or move. If the message you selected has other messages grouped with it, and if the thread is closed, you will have selected the entire thread. Open the thread by clicking the plus sign so that it becomes a minus (Windows) or the right-pointing triangle so that it becomes down-pointing (Macintosh). This allows you to select only the individual message you want to delete or move.

Creating and using folders

If you keep many old messages in your mailbox, sorting them into folders by category makes it easier to find an individual message or group of messages. It also makes the process of backing up your files more efficient.

Creating a folder:

1. Open your Mailbox.
2. From the pull-down menu next to the New button on your toolbar choose New Folder. A blank folder will appear in your mailbox window.
3. To assign a name to the folder, click once on New Folder, then File > Properties (Windows) or File > Get Info (Macintosh). Type a new folder name in the Name field. The name of a folder cannot be more than 63 characters.
4. While you have the properties window open, you can change the icon for your folder. The properties window has a picture of the current icon that is used for the folder in the upper left corner. Click once on this icon. A list of available substitute icons will appear and you can select any one of them by clicking it.
5. Close the window. You will be prompted to save the changes. Click Save.
6. To separate folders from the individual messages in your Mailbox, we recommend that you split your Mailbox window. View > Split > Split Horizontal (or Split Vertical).

 

Protecting a folder from being accidentally deleted or moved:

1. Click once on any folder, then File > Properties (Windows) or File > Get Info (Macintosh).
2. In the Info window for the folder, check the Protected box.
3. You will not be able to delete the folder or move it within another folder while the Protected box is checked.

 

Protecting a folder from being changed:

1. Click once on New Folder, then File > Properties (Windows) or File > Get Info (Macintosh).
2. In the Info window for the folder, check the Read Only box.
3. You will not be able to move anything into the folder while the Read Only box is checked.

 

Moving messages to a folder:

You can either move individual messages or select multiple messages to move together. Selection of a closed thread includes all messages in that thread. You can also move a folder inside another.

1. Select the message(s) or folder you want to move.
2. Drag to the destination folder. If several messages are selected, they will move together.
3. To view the list of messages contained in a folder, double-click the folder.

Saving and archiving messages

Every user should back up important messages and attachments on a hard drive or other media such as a CD, DVD, or USB drive in case of accidental loss of the original message in FirstClass. This also allows you to delete many messages and attachments from your FirstClass account to free valuable space. Messages saved in text format can be easily searched, stored and shared with other users.

There are two general methods to choose from, described below, depending on how you want to use your saved messages. If you want to save several messages together you can either select the group of individual messages or choose an entire folder or conference. Instructions for selecting multiple messages explain how to select messages with the same sender, date or subject. You can sort your messages so that you can easily select a range of dates, or you can simply select any number of individual messages. If you are saving or summarizing many messages together and have trouble, it may be that you are working with too many messages.

Note that whether the saved messages are in .doc, .rtf, or .txt format, they can be opened and read using a word processor such as Microsoft Word.

You may wish to save your attachments to your computer separately without the messages. Or you may want to save several attachments in a folder on your computer along with a summary file containing many messages. If so, use the instructions on the basics page for opening or saving attachments. If you want to save each attachment with its related message, follow the instructions below for Saving messages and attachments together.

Saving messages and attachments together

Messages can be exported together with their attachments. Each message is saved as a folder that contains the message content and attachments (if any). The folder is named this way: _sender name;message subject (for example: _Wendy Wellesley;Meeting Notes;). The message content is saved in three different formats, so your folder will contain files called content.rtf, content.txt and content.XML plus a file for each attachment. The size of the message files is usually small, but if you want to keep only one of the content messages you can delete the other two. There is currently no option to download the message content in only one format. When you want to find a saved message or attachment later, use the Search tool on your Windows computer or the Spotlight on your Mac.

This export procedure can be done with an individual message, several selected messages, or a folder. If you select a folder for export, the result will be a folder on your computer with the same name as the folder that you selected in FirstClass. That folder will contain a folder for each message as described above.

1. Select the message or folder you want to export or select several messages. Each message will become a separate file.
2. From the menu choose File > Export.
3. Navigate to the location where you would like to save your file(s) then click OK.
4. Messages will be saved one per folder as described above.

Saving an individual message with or without formatting:

1. Open the message.
2. To save without formatting, from the menu choose File > Save As, navigate to where you want the message to go and click Save to create a .txt file.
3. To save with formatting, either copy the text and paste it into Microsoft Word, or else save the file as a pdf.

Saving multiple messages with or without formatting:

If you give careful thought to choosing messages that you want to save together, this method is useful for organizing your messages and also offers the option of saving formatting . Because header information is saved as well as the message text, you will be able to search the resulting file for names, dates and subjects. If your mailbox folders are already be organized, you will need to do little preparation. Before you use this method for archiving or backing up your messages, we recommend that you distribute messages into folders so that you can summarize the contents of each folder.

This summarizing method also works if, instead of backing up an entire folder, you simply want to select several individual messages to save together. The summary cannot be edited in FirstClass. You must save the summary first, and any needed changes can then be made in a word processing program.

This summarizing method will not include attachments, so attachments must be explicitly saved. We recommend that you save them to the same folder where you are saving the summary. Because the header for each message is included, you can easily see the name of the attachment associated with any message.

1. Open your mailbox, a folder, or a conference containing messages you want to save. Sort the messages in the reverse of the order you would like them to appear in the saved file.
2. Select the messages that you want to save together .
3. Message > Summarize Selected. A new file will open with the summarized messages. (Because most people sort their email so that the most recent is at the top of the list, the Summarize Selected command puts them in the reverse order. This way your file will be chronological - oldest first.)
4. Although this file can be quite large, there is a limit. Check your summary carefully to be sure that it includes all of the messages you want to save. A long summary can take a few minutes to complete, however a very long summary may hang the program. Restart and try again with fewer messages (perhaps 50). It is difficult to suggest an appropriate number of messages because their size and content is a factor.
5. If you would like to keep the formatting (fonts, colors) of your message summary, either copy the text and paste it into Microsoft Word, or else save the file as a pdf. If you would like a simple text file without formatting, from the menu choose File > Export.
6. Enter a name for the file then navigate to the location where you would like to save it. Click Save.
7. A .txt file can be opened with Microsoft Word or any other word processing program. A .doc file will automatically open in Word.

Top of Page | Find It FC

• Becky Atwood, ratwood@wellesley.edu
• Information services
• Modified: 10 November, 2009