Make the most of your email

Disposable email addresses
Yahoo Mail lets users create up to 500 disposable email addresses. Sign in then click Options followed by Disposable Email Addresses. Now click Add Address and follow the instructions.

Backup Outlook Express
An easy way to back up a few emails from Outlook Express is to simply drag and drop selected messages to a folder on the Windows Desktop.

BCC multiple Gmail contacts
To include several people in Gmail’s blind-carbon-copy (BCC) field, add the contacts to a group and then add this group to the BCC field.

Export Windows Live Mail contacts
In Windows 7, click on Contacts followed by Export. Choose ‘Comma separated values (.CSV)’, type a name and click Next. Select the information to include and then click Finish. The resulting file can be imported into other applications.

Receive read receipts
To request read receipts when sending messages with Windows Live Mail, click on the middle icon on the right of the toolbar (it looks like a menu with a cursor) and choose Options. Click Receipts and select ‘Request a read receipt for all sent messages’.

Check spelling
In Windows Live Mail, click the down-pointing arrow at the top left and choose Options followed by Mail. Now click the Spelling tab and tick ‘Check spelling as I type’ and ‘Always check spelling before sending’.

Backup Gmail
Log into Gmail then click the cog icon and choose Mail settings followed by Forwarding and POP/IMAP. Choose the Enable IMAP radio button and click on Save Changes. Download and install Thunderbird from Portableapps website. Choose Manual Setup and select the Synchronization & Storage option, making sure that the top option is selected.

Purge emails from Thunderbird 3
Click Tools followed by Account Settings and choose Synchronization & Storage. Select ‘Keep messages for this account on this computer’ then click Advanced. Click the arrow to the left to reveal the account’s folders then remove any not required.

Add labels to Gmail messages
Gmail doesn’t offer folders but its Labels feature performs a similar job. Select some emails then click the Labels button and choose an existing label or click Create new.