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Organising emails with Gmail and an email client. Synchronisation possible?

Hi,
In GTD David Allen says to get your inbox empty and create folders such as @ACTION, @WAITINGFOR and Archive. I can't see how to do this on Gmail. 6,000 emails and growing and all of them have to remain in the inbox! I have considered using a client with gmail. I prefer the seperation from the browser,the general feel(seperate windows .etc) and the reminders of incoming email(yes I know you can get gmail notifier but I want more) . Also I have two gmail accounts and since I can only be logged into one gmail at a a time this is inconvenient. While I would like to use an email client such as thunderbird I have a feeling this would make my organisation even more disjointed and unintegrated. I tried out thunderbird today, it downloaded 300 or so of my old emails(even though there are 6000+) and then I deleted them. They are still on the server, what happens when I "Get Mail" again? Those emails pour back onto my client probably. What a mess.

What would be ideal is that if a client could COMPLETELY synchronise with gmail. That is, when mail is retrieved it stays on the server(that can be done easily) but when email is deleted the email is also deleted on gmail. When an email is moved folders(if such a thing can be done on gmail) on the client it happens on the web too. If I can't get the web and the client to mimick each other EXACTLY it seems like it will create more confusion/fustration and the webmail version should be stuck with.

Gmail says: "No need to delete when you have this much space!" or something like that, but I am a minimalist and I don't like that approach. Frankly If I know I'll never need it again and it is no value I'd rather it was gone.

What does everything think?

Cheers,
Joe

genagtd's picture

Joe, Use tags like folders --...

Joe,

Use tags like folders -- for example, have a tag that is Next_action or CallsToMake or whatever. Actually, gmail calls them labels. When something comes in that you would "file" in that folder, use the drop down box at the top of the message to "apply label." If you are on the message listing screen, you can even select multiple messages to apply a label to.

Any message can have multiple labels, so you could also label the messages with the project they are attached to -- though I'd suggest you start out with the smallest number of labels that you can get by with.

To get your inbox to empty, select the message that you are through with for the moment and hit "Archive." They aren't gone - you can bring them all back by going to the All_mail folder -- that's really what your inbox is right now, from your description.

I don't know if I tweaked the appearance of my gmail window, but all of my labels also show up on the side of my screen. I can click on one and automagically be in, say, my Reference folder or my List Info folder.

Gena

 
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