Email: Finding & Handling Mail
✓ CompletedTasks, files and questions will reach you by email every day. Most email trouble at work is about finding things: the email with the file, the reply that went to Spam, the attachment you downloaded and now can't find.
This lesson uses Gmail. Outlook and other email services have the same parts in slightly different places.
Where Your Mail Is
The list on the left side of Gmail shows where your mail is kept:
| Folder | What's in it |
|---|---|
| Inbox | New mail arrives here. |
| Sent | Everything you've sent. Look here to confirm an email really went out. |
| Drafts | Emails you started and didn't send. Gmail saves them as you type. |
| Spam | Mail Gmail thinks is junk or dangerous. Real emails end up here sometimes. |
| Trash | Deleted mail. It's deleted for good after 30 days. |
| All Mail | Every email you have, including archived ones. Click More to see it. |
A personal Gmail account may also sort new mail into tabs above the inbox, such as Primary, Promotions and Updates. An email you're waiting for can land in Promotions.
Kapag may email na hinihintay ka pero wala sa inbox, i-check muna ang Spam, Trash at Promotions bago mo sabihing hindi dumating.
Archive or Delete?
Archive takes an email out of your inbox but keeps it. It's still in All Mail, and search still finds it. Delete moves it to Trash, and after 30 days it's gone.
For work email, archive what you've finished with. Delete only what you'll never need, such as ads and newsletters you don't read. Both buttons appear at the top when you open an email or tick it in the list.
Finding a Specific Email
Scrolling works for today's mail. For anything older, use the search box at the top.
- Search a name or email address to find mail from or to that person: Grace Tan or grace@harborhill.co.
- Search words from the subject or the message: price list.
- Combine them: grace price list.
- To see only emails with files attached, search, then click Has attachment under the search box.
If you want only the emails Grace sent, not the ones you sent her, search from:grace@harborhill.co.
Search doesn't look in Spam or Trash. If an email you're expecting isn't found, check those two folders, and the Promotions tab if you have one. When you find a real email in Spam, open it and click Not spam, so Gmail moves it to your inbox and learns from it.
Getting the Attachment
Attachments appear at the bottom of the email as small boxes showing the file name. Point at one and click the download arrow. The file goes to your Downloads folder like any other download, so move it into your work folder straight away (Computer & Laptop Basics, Lesson 4).
Gmail also offers Add to Drive on each attachment. It saves a copy straight into your Google Drive without downloading it. That saves a step when the file is going into Drive anyway.
If an attachment arrives that you weren't expecting, check who really sent it before you open it (Computer & Laptop Basics, Lesson 7).
Find It in the Inbox
You're Ana, working in ana@harborhill.co. Today is April 25.
Grace writes: "The April price list is in my email from last week." You searched grace. Click the email with the file you need.
You've replied to Grace's April email, and there's nothing left to do on it. What do you do with it?
Mark from the warehouse says he emailed you the stock count an hour ago. You search mark stock and nothing comes up. Where do you look next?
Grace says Luntian Packaging sent a price quote this week, but it isn't in your inbox. You open Spam. Click the email you'd mark Not spam.
You clicked the download arrow on price-list-april.xlsx. Where do you look for the file first?
Grace sent 14 product photos as attachments. They all need to go into the shared Product Photos folder in Drive. What saves you the most steps?
- Search by name, email address or words from the subject. Add Has attachment to find files.
- Search skips Spam and Trash. Check them when an email seems missing.
- Archive finished work email; delete only what you'll never need.
- Downloaded attachments go to Downloads. Add to Drive saves them straight to Drive.