Mere Dictum…

Like many attorneys, I am constantly dealing with large volumes of email. For more than a year now, I have been trying to keep my emails organized by using a series of folders for each of my active and archived case files. I put these folders into a personal file folder in Outlook, mainly to reduce the space they occupy on my firm’s email server. Still, this sort of sorting takes time when you have more than a handful of active matters. When you add to that a variety of other folders for personal and topical emails, the fix can become as bad as the problem.

Enter my new favorite plug-in: Claritude Software’s Speed Filer. This wonderful little add-on allows you to automatically organize your email as you go with just a few keystrokes or mouse clicks. It integrates directly into both Outlook 2003 and 2007, and adds buttons to aid in navigation, and overrides the Outlook keystrokes for filing emails. It is readily configurable to your own email filing style, and is effortless to use. I have tried other trial versions of email sorting software, but never liked them enough to actually buy them. I consider Speed Filer to be the best $24.95 I have spent on software in recent memory. What’s more, there is a free trial to see if you like it.  You can also learn more about it at the Speed Filer Blog.

The genius of this program lies in the interface which automatically pops up when you click send.

As soon as the Speed Filer window pops up, all you have to do is type a few letters of the name of the folder (or in my case the name of the case) which the email needs to be associated with, and it hones in on the correct folder and filters out all the others. A simple tap on the return key, and the email is both sent and filed in the correct folder.

Speed Filer “File Message In Folder” Menu

As for emails in your inbox, you can simply use the standard keystrokes for moving emails to another folder (ctrl-shift-v) which gives you the same interface used for sending emails, or click on the menu bar added into Outlook and select the folder where the email should be filed.

Speed Filer Toolbar for Outlook 2007

If you are looking for a particular folder, once again, the Speed Filer toolbar allows you to effortlessly navigate without having to scroll through Outlook’s folder menu until you find it.

I really have nothing bad to say about Speed Filer, and at $24.95 per license it is a steal. If you deal with constant emails, you really should do yourself a favor and give the free trial a shot. A wonderful little tool to help make your inbox much more orderly, and save you a little time in the process.

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