Organizing and Using Email Effectively

• Minimize the number of messages in your inbox.
  This helps free up system storage space. Create folders to hold important emails. Archive email messages to disks for future reference and easy, safe storage. If you have Webmail, see http://help.ncsu.edu/services/getsoln.pl?id=3065 for archiving instructions. Print a message ONLY if it is important enough to be kept as a hard copy.
  
  
• Conserve paper.
  Don't print out email messages unless absolutely necessary. One of the main purposes of the email medium is to cut down on paper usage.
  
  
• Be cautious when sending email attachments.
  Most email programs make it easy to send a binary file such as image or word processing document as an attachment to an email message. However, attachments don't always transfer successfully, and the recipient must have appropriate software in order to see them.
  
  
• Keep email attachments small
  The size limit for an email message at NC State is 15 megabytes (MB). This includes the email's text, any attachments and the necessary encoding, which increases the size of the message by approximately one-third. For example, a 3 MB message would increase to 4 MB. If your attachment is more than a few MB, you should seriously consider a more dependable and efficient transmission method, such as putting the file on a Web site or sending it by secure file transfer. File transmission by email is convenient, but it's also the most bandwidth-wasting and least reliable method.

Last modified January 10, 2007 by cawalker