I can’t find anything on line to help me, but maybe one of the Dopers has the info I need. When I archive or save or deal with mail I’ve sent or received, I am forced to save it with the original subject line. Sometimes, it would be much more helpful to me to be able to re-label the mail so that I can identify it later in a search. I know I can do it when replying or forwarding. What about when I keep the mail? Is that a possibility in G-mail?
I don’t think so. But you can create a label and then archive it.
Yeah, that’s not practical, really. I’d wind up with hundreds of folders. I want to, say, search for mail from a particular person on a particular topic we’ve been discussing. Example: George and I are discussing politics. We exchange a series of e-mails. In one, George comes up with a solution to a problem we’ve been talking about. He may not even use the word, solution, in his e-mail. But if I could archive the mail with “George’s solution” in the subject, I could more easily find what I’m looking for, especially cross-checking for rough dates sent, etc. (That’s the kind of thing I used to be able to do when we used AOL. The most excellent mail system was the reason we hung on to AOL for so long. )
The thing I’ve done when I really wanted to save something like that with a specific subject line is to forward it to myself (or reply all) with the change.
I just looked through the Google Groups for Google Mail and Labs: This is a rather popular feature request, but it is still just a request at the moment. The general concept is adding one-off tags to an email rather than changing specifically the email subject.
I thought about that, but then, I wouldn’t know who sent it originally. I’m hoping Google with figure out an easy fix to a simple issue.
Yes, you would. GMail shows everything in threads.
George sends you his idea for lubricating the meat slicer. His e-mail has the title “My suggestion” and the text is only “Mineral castor oil”. So he doesn’t say “meat” or “slicer” anywhere.
You forward this e-mail to yourself and, in the text, you write “solution meat slicer lube”.
Now, in GMail, you search for “Solution meat” and it gives you the thread containing George’s original e-mail.
(Note: I don’t do this myself, I use labels.)
Nice username / subject combo, BTW!
ETA: I didn’t even know you could change the subject when forwarding. Ya learn something new every day…
I’d love to be able to do this in Thunderbird. I have hundreds of emails in my saved inbox, but it’s a royal PITA when, for example, that really important email or spreadsheet has the subject line Re:No Subject or “Here ya go” or “Hi”. Sometimes searching helps, sometimes it doesn’t. Often times I’ll sort by sender so at least if I know who it came from I’m not scanning hundreds of emails, just a few.
I’ll have to try forwarding it to myself with the ‘correct’ subject, but then I lose the sender’s name.
Also, something I’ve done in the past, when I’ve called someone and asked them to send me something that I know I’m going to store in my inbox I’ll ask them to use a good subject line for just this reason. For example, a few months back a worker’s comp case was closed and the agent told me she was going to send me a letter stating just that. It’s not something I’m likely to need again, I’m not going to print it, I don’t need it saved on my computer, but I was going to keep it saved on Thuderbird, so I asked her to send it with the subject like “[employee’s name] Worker’s Comp Case” or something like that. I told her if she just sent it with the subject like “Here’s that file”, I’d never be able to find it again.
Note, though, that if you have an on-going conversation with several e-mails back-and-forth, and you reply or forward to yourself and change the title, it starts a new separate conversation.