How to Manage All Your Email Accounts with Windows 8 Mail

With the Windows 8 Mail app, Microsoft introduced an application that actually makes managing emails very easy and convenient. The interface is visually pleasing, simplistic, intuitive, and yet the app is surprisingly comprehensive. When was the last time you heard so many good things about a Microsoft product? For those of you using Windows 8 and looking for an application to manage multiple email accounts, give the native Mail app a try and consider the following tips&tricks to save time wile managing your emails.

Managing multiple accounts from one app saves time because you have everything in one central location. Switching between email accounts in Windows 8 Mail is very convenient and more pleasant than jumping back and forth between browser tabs. To add accounts, go to the Mail app, bring up the Charms bar on the right, go to Settings, open Accounts, and Add an account. Select the account and proceed with setting it up. Repeat these steps for any additional accounts.

When you have added several email accounts to the Windows 8 Mail app, it makes sense to individually pin them to the start screen. Each tile will show the number of read emails for the respective account. A large tile will also display sender, subject, and an excerpt of unread emails. The advantage of having separate tiles for each account is that you can go straight to each mailbox from the start screen. To pin a mailbox to your start screen, open the Mail app and look for the list of your email accounts in the bottom left. Select the account you want to add to the start screen, right-click or press & hold to bring up the menu, and pick Pin to Start.

When you use the Mail app on a desktop without a touch interface, there are three keyboard shortcuts you must know to work more efficiently.

• [CTRL] + N to compose a new email
• [CTRL] + R to respond to an email
• [CTRL] + D to trash an email

As you are composing an email, you might want to save the draft, add an attachment, or format the text. You can quickly bring up the Options bar at the bottom of the screen by clicking the [Menu] key — that’s the often neglected key between [ALT GR] and [CTRL] on the right-hand side of your keyboard. The Options bar also comes up when you highlight text. Use the [TAB] key to switch between items.

VIA | makeuseof.com