Do you find it productive to have an email folder categorization system?

Question

I was wondering if you find it productive to design folders and apply rules to each folder. e.g. IF I receive an email from John >>> THAN that email will go to John folder. So the end-goal is to multiple folders based on your peers' names.

gregjor · Accepted Answer

No, because I can search my emails for sender, recipient, words in the subject/body, etc. When I get an email that I think I may need to find later but it doesn&rsquo;t include relevant keywords (for example, the project or client name) I forward it to myself with the keywords added. I haven&rsquo;t used email folders for a decade, I rely on searching. I use GMail.Sometimes email messages have information that belongs somewhere else, like a bug report or a task. I transfer those to the relevant system or document when I receive them.

illuminated · Answer

I do find it useful if the separation is made by project or by such a topic that cannot be found through search.
A folder for each sender is redundant, you can filter your mail and get the same result.
Best is if you can apply the GTD methodology and sort the incoming email in what needs immediate attention, what can wait a bit, etc... I use this with work emails. For my private emails I have a topic based tagging/folder technique.

mtmail · Answer

I have plenty of subfolders in my IMAP account and use them all the time. But they're an archive for me. New email automatically going in there will never be discovered.