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Using Folders to Organize Your Email

Working With FoldersCreating FoldersMoving MessagesChanging the Message ViewRenaming and Deleting Folders

Changing a Folder’s Message View

You can view messages in a mail folder in the following ways:

  • Sorting by column name lets you view all of the messages in your folder in a way that makes sense to you. For example, you can sort the messages by the date you received them (the default) or by who sent them.

  • Restrict your view of a folder so that you see all of a folder’s messages (the default), only those that are unread, or only those that are flagged. After choosing a view option, you can then sort the columns to further help you find a specific message.

 

Here’s How

To sort a folder by column name:

  1. Open a folder by clicking its name in the folder list.

    A folder is always sorted in descending order by the Date column the first time you open it.

    A folder is initially sorted by the Date column.

  2. To sort the messages by a different column, click the column title.

    Click a column title to sort messages on that column's values.

    Mail highlights the title of the selected column and sorts the messages based on the values of that column.

    Messages sorted in ascending order by the From column.

  3. To change the sort order of a column (An up-pointing arrow indicates ascending order and A down-pointing arrow indicates descending order), click the arrow to the right of the title.

    Click the arrow button to change the sort order.

    The direction of the arrow changes, and Yahoo! Mail displays the contents of the folder in the opposite order.

    Messages sorted in descending order by the From column.

 

To restrict a folder’s message view:

  1. Open a mail folder by clicking the folder name on the left side of the Mail page.

  2. Above the list of messages, select a View option: All, From Contacts, Unread, or Flagged.

    Select a View option.

    Yahoo! Mail displays only those messages that match your selection.

 

What’s Next

If sorting a mail folder doesn’t help you find a specific message, use the Yahoo! Mail search feature, as explained in the Searching Your Email Messages tutorial.

 
 
 

Words to Know

  • Ascending order: from smallest to largest; for alphabetical sorting, from A to Z; for date sorting, from oldest to most recent.
  • Descending order: from largest to smallest; for alphabetical sorting, from Z to A; for date sorting, from most recent to oldest.
  • Folder: a container that holds individual elements specific to the context; for example, email messages in Yahoo! Mail.