How to use the Opera mail client

How to use the Opera mail client

Every now and then someone comes here and has trouble understanding how Opera handles emails. I started explaining as a reply to some post, it became a bit more general and lengthy so I decided to start a "tutorial" thread if you so want for all who don't find the mail tutorial in the online help or on the tutorial website ... helpful enough. I hope other experienced users will add their wisdom.

• How is Opera different from other mail clients
  It all boils down to this:
  - In a folder based email client like Outlook, when you receive an email you read it and then say "so where do I put this" and when, months later, you search for your email you say "now where did I put this"
  - In Opera, when you receive an email you read it, then you mark it as read and you're done. When you search for your email months later, you search for it using search criteria that you know, like "who sent it" or "what was it about".
  
  In short, Opera uses a database approach, with full text indexing. If that hint already makes you go 'aaah', have a look at burnout426's excellent post, which is a bit abstract, so I'll incompletely summarize as follows:
  
  In Outlook or Thunderbird, emails are stored like files on your computer. You can move and copy them around from one place to another. In Opera, emails are stored in one long list (a database) of all messages you have ever sent or received. Since noone likes to look at a huge list of mails, filters are used to show only those emails that match the criterion of your filter, like "contains the word 'cat'". Just to be clear: no email is ever moved or copied from one place to another in Opera, and every email exists only exactly once. There's a direct important implication: if you delete a message anywhere, it will be gone everywhere. You get used to this one very fast though
  
  Exaggerating a bit, it doesn't really make sense to copy or move an email to some custom filter of yours in Opera after you received it, because, well, it's really not copied or moved anyway
• Introduction to views and filters
  There are a couple of predefined filters, which are often called "views" here on the forum to differentiate the predefined filters from the custom ones you may set up yourself. The most obvious views are the "received" view, which shows you all the emails you have ever received, and the "sent" view, which shows you all the emails you have ever sent. Other predefined views are the trash, which contains all emails you have removed from your list of messages but not finally deleted from the database yet, the unread view for all messages not yet marked read, etc...
  
  As I'll explain later, the received view is one that you will probably spend least of your time with, but it's good for getting the concept. In the received view, when you have a bunch of emails, hit the "delete" button and the email will disappear in received and it will show up in "trash". It's clear that it will show up in "trash", because by hitting the delete button, you set the criterion "trash" to that email. You may think that the email has been moved, but that's not the case: above the message list in "received", click the "view" button and go to "show" and then click "show trash" as shown in this screenshot viewoptions.jpg.
  
  With the view set to 'show trash', the deleted message is shown again in the "received" view. This is because it was never moved anyway, it was just hidden from the message list. As a default, Opera assumes you don't want to see trash and spam and a couple of other things in your received view. These view options shown in the screenshot are available for all views and filters. It's a bit funny that you can actually make the "spam" view not to show spam, but hey, maybe that's what you want.
  
  One interesting option is the "show filtered" option in that menu, which will help you if you really need something that works a bit like a folder as we'll see next.
• Can I have folders?
  Sort of, pretty much, not entirely, but almost. Create two custom filters without changing the default properties and drag a couple of emails to each of them from the "received" view. Note how these messages do not disappear from the received view, we'll sort that out in a minute. So now you have two custom filters A and B with a couple of messages in each.
  
  * "moving" messages: If you drag and drop an email from A to B, it will disappear in A and appear in B, and vice versa. Reason: Opera removes the criterion "show in A" from the message and adds "show in B" (and vice versa). So this works like moving messages between folders, although the message is actually not moved.
  
  Now why did dragging emails from the "received" view not remove the criterion "show in 'received'" from these messages? This is due to a default setting that just makes sure that you don't accidentily lose messages out of sight. Here's how you can make messages disappear from "received" (or any other view): in the properties of a custom filter tick the little checkbox "mark messages as filtered". Then make the "received" view hide all those messages that have been marked as filtered by going to the view button above the message list, and unchecking the "show filtered" option. Note that the received view is intended to show you all messages you have ever received. If you hide some emails from the received view because you have them in a filter, don't be astonished if you don't find them in the received view later, trivial as that may sound.
  
  * "copying" messages: If you drag and drop an email from A to B while holding the ctrl key on your keyboard, the message is now shown in both A and B. Reason: Opera adds the criterion "show in B" to the message without removing the criterion "show in A" from the message (due to holding ctrl). You can also use ctrl+c and ctrl+v or "copy" and "paste" from the right-click menu. So this works like the copying messages between folders, although no copy is actually created. You can easily check that by deleting an email shown both in A and B from only one of the two "folders" - it will be gone in the other one, too!
  
  * removing an email from one single filter: Don't hit the delete button. Right-click the email and choose "remove from view".
  
  * deleting a filter: if you delete a custom filter, you only delete the filter, not the emails in the filter (i.e., you remove the filter criterion "show in this filter" from all emails in the filter you delete).
• How should I use Opera to get the best out of it?
  I don't think anyone uses a mail client like someone else does. So I'll explain how I use Opera to manage my > 40,000 emails. This is not a small amount of messages, but there are others who use Opera for much larger databases than that (going into the hundreds of thousands of messages).
  
  You receive an email. It appears in the "unread" view. Read the email, and when you're completely done with it mark it as read with the "read" button above the message list or by hitting "k" on your keyboard. If you still have to do something with the email, leave it unread and mark it as read tomorrow or whenever you're done with it. Try to keep the number of emails that are unread below 10, otherwise you'll lose track, and the view loses its purpose. I actually use my unread view as a ToDo list, sending emails to myself like "buy birthday present for wife" and such.
  
  Some people like to use labels like "todo" or "important", but I don't even use those. I can see how labels are useful though, so check them out. But that's it. No sorting, moving, copying at all.
  
  Now if you need some email you have received in the past, you know something about it (otherwise you don't really need it).
  
  * Usually you'll know who sent it to you (or to whom you sent it). So you go to your contacts panel and click on the corresponding contact and you will see all emails ever sent to and from that contact [1].
  
  * You know roughly what the email was about, which means you know possible keywords. Every message list of every view and filter has a quick find field above it. Enter your keywords there and Opera will show you only those that contain the words you type (including the email header) as you type. This works very well also for large email databases.
  
  * You find an email that was in reply to the email you search for, or that the email you search for was in reply to. Right-click that email and choose "follow thread" to see all emails that were sent back and forth (Opera decides what belongs in a thread by the so-called message ID. This is a very long random number created when a new message is composed. If one hits the "reply" button in any email program in the universe, the message ID of the message replied to is copied into the header of the reply. So all messages with the same message ID in the header belong to one thread and the system works as long as everyone replies using the reply function of their email program and starts new emails for new threads.)
  
  * You can create so-called permanent searches using the quick find field above the message panel. Say you searched for "shrubbery", then a filter "shrubbery" will be created in the panel showing all emails containing the word "shrubbery". If you receive a new email with the word "shrubbery" in it, it's also shown there. In fact, also spam and trash are shown there, but you know by now how to turn that off if it bothers you
  
  * If you require more advanced searching, add a custom filter and define some rules like "where to header contains 'tom' AND from header contains 'jerry' AND cc header contains 'narrator'" and RegExp filtering and whatnot. Make sure to tick "apply" filter before you close.
• Doesn't searching take long?
  I don't spend any time at all organizing my email beyond marking them as read when I'm done with it. So that saves a lot of time sorting emails into particular folders in some elaborated folder structure, for every single email that other people would neatly sort away.
  
  Searching works really well with all the tools Opera provides, and the full text search is almost as fast as I type. Only 2-3 keywords is usually enough to narrow down the list of emails down to a level where I can easily spot the email I'm looking for (or one related to it, see following threads some paragraphs above). I tend to find the email I need within seconds. From office experience, I can say that usually I'm faster finding an email in Opera than my colleagues are finding the correct folder in their folder structure (hoping that they actually copied/moved the message they search for there).
  
  Of course there have been (rare) cases where I didn't find an email that quickly. But I've seen my colleagues swearing because they couldn't remember how they filed that one particular email away, and it turned out that they had dropped it into the wrong folder and such. So I guess that evens out regardless what system you use. Do create custom filters to act as folders if you don't want to take any risks.

So I hope this helps with getting the best out of Opera for keeping track of your emails. I actually use Opera primarily because of the great email client and see the browser as a nice addon that doesn't interfere too much (c:=

There's much more to discover, like automatic draft saving as you type, inserting notes, psellhcekc, a very solid spam filter, mailing list and attachment views, views for specific accounts, right-click a filter and choose "show messages from <mailaccount>", ... have fun, and make sure to ask here in the forum if you run into any trouble!


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[1] In the properties of a contact, go to "notes" and add all the other email addresses related to that contact. When you click the contact's name, the message list will show all emails sent to and from all of that contact's email addresses you have added

Great post!

Well constructed and logical post.
Deserving of "Sticky" status, should be mandatory reading: " Before wanting to reinvent the wheel, read this!"
Thank you, WildEnte.

Very nice..... I've bookmarked this thread for future reference.

Yes, let's sticky this!

(Now, if only the Mac version would become a true client and support AppleScript…)

I also think this posting is wonderful for new users. Thank you!

Unfortunately, I, as a new user of Opera mail have run into a problem which I could not find an explanation for. I am still adjusting to the database versus folder differences (Thunderbird) and somehow I cannot see the "Message List" under the "Unread", "All Messages" and "Received" tabs? Instead the message list is missing and only an individual message body is shown.

How can I get the message list to also appear at the top of any individual message?

P.S. There is supposed to be a selection titled "Settings". I cannot find "Settings" anywhere.
go to Settings > Toolbars > Customize, or
go to Appearance > Toolbars

Where is "Settings"?

Originally posted by Denny255:

How can I get the message list to also appear at the top of any individual message?

On the toolbar, click View > Display > List and Message Below

Great topic, WildEnte.

Originally posted by export13:

Deserving of "Sticky" status, should be mandatory reading: " Before wanting to reinvent the wheel, read this!"

Originally posted by burnout426:

Yes, let's sticky this!

+1

One thing I haven't thought about before:

With time, a folder structure will become more and more complex (focus shifts, projects change, new sorting criteria apply). At the same time most of the older messages neatly organized away become more and more obsolete. Complexity is added to be able to access obsolete messages - not a good thing!

So Opera's database approach is conceptionally superior: as no sorting structure is created, no complexity is added to the message management. At the same time, as your old search criteria become less relevant, your obsolete messages - while still there - won't be in your way as you search for the relevant ones.

In short, the database approach scales better.

Originally posted by WildEnte:

* You can create so-called permanent searches using the quick find field above the message panel. Say you searched for "shrubbery", then a filter "shrubbery" will be created in the panel showing all emails containing the word "shrubbery". If you receive a new email with the word "shrubbery" in it, it's also shown there. In fact, also spam and trash are shown there, but you know by now how to turn that off if it bothers you

Hi, In opera 1070 build 3468 I tried the quick search in a mailing list I subscribe to which I have 8450 emails and the search criteria I was searching for never created a filter automatically. Have I done something wrong?? or has opera worked as it should.

John.

I hope this is the place to ask this,

When I send a message to a mailing list I subscribe to I don't see the mail I sent to this list even though I have "show sent mail" ticked. I use Google mail as my main email client and use opera M2 IMAP .

Regards
John.

Originally posted by swl2009:

Hi, In opera 1070 build 3468 I tried the quick search in a mailing list I subscribe to which I have 8450 emails and the search criteria I was searching for never created a filter automatically. Have I done something wrong?? or has opera worked as it should.

There are two quick search fields. The one above the message list (searching "in the mailinglist") doesn't create a permanent filter. The one above the panel does. That one doesn't restrict itself to a certain mailing list though. If you want only mailing list items to appear in the permanent search, enter your search term and the mailing list email address in the search field above the panel (separated by a space). This will pretty much limit the search to the mailing list, as it's unlikely that you have a lot of unrelated emails that contain the mailing list email address.

Originally posted by swl2009:

When I send a message to a mailing list I subscribe to I don't see the mail I sent to this list even though I have "show sent mail" ticked. I use Google mail as my main email client and use opera M2 IMAP .

It's probably best to open a new thread for new problems, otherwise people won't find existing answers when they go looking for them (the first question was directly related to something of the original post, so it's making sense to ask that question here). Anyway, in this case, I'd look in the properties of the google account, go to the "outgoing" tab and see if the IMAP sent folder dropdown is correctly showing the IMAP sent folder. Google is a bit quirky though. If that doesn't work, others may have better suggestions.

Ingenious!! Thank you for the explanation. Might I add that I have found the filters especially useful for those emails that come from many different sources but deal with a common subject. In this case, it might be difficult to find a keyword or a sender to use for the quick find, so a filter works best, imo.

One quick question, is there any way to show all messages sent from me (my email address) in the Sent view? The problem is that I am importing from Windows Live Mail, and Opera does import all sent messages into the Sent view. However, occasionally I sent an email to a large number of recipients, larger than the recipient limit for Gmail's POP. So I have to use the browser interface in Gmail to send the email, b/c the limit is higher. But, when I check the email in M2, the message that I sent is shown in my Received view. I don't know how to 'move' it to the Send view (make the Sent view display it) and remove it from Received view, where it does not belong. Any ideas?

Adam

Googles IMAP implementation is a bit quirky... try the following: go to menu - mail and chat accounts - edit the google account, switch to the "outgoing" tab and then choose the Gmail sent folder in the dropdown at the bottom.

If that doesn't sync Opera's sent filter with gmail's IMAP sent folder, you should ask in a new thread.

I added this post to <http://operawiki.info/HowM2ViewsWork> too.

Thanks for that. I would love to be able and edit the post to get the formatting fixed (it broke during the forum update) but I can't. Same is true for updating the post whenever Opera update M2 to work slightly different. ('Labels' instead of 'filters'...)

Originally posted by WildEnte:

I would love to be able and edit the post to get the formatting fixed (it broke during the forum update) but I can't. Same is true for updating the post whenever Opera update M2 to work slightly different. ('Labels' instead of 'filters'...)

Same here for lots of posts. I can never get anyone else to fix things either. All my requests are ignored. So, I just use the wiki (that anyone can add edit). The wiki software sucks atm though, but it's usable.