Email Tip for Newbies

[mommalina]

Here's a good tip for newbies from PC Mechanic July 21 newsletter. I learned it the hard way. :)

PC Mechanic Tip of the Day

Add the Recipient's Address Last

Sometimes when you're working on a somewhat lengthy email, you may accidentally hit the "Send" button, or hit the "Send" hotkey, firing off your email into cyberspace. If the email was important enough, you may get that sinking feeling about poor working, incomplete thoughts, or quick notes that only you were supposed to see before you re-wrote them.

To avoid accidental sends, leave the To/Cc/Bcc field blank and leave it as the last thing you do before actually signing your name and sending it off. If the address is one you're not familiar with or had just received, simply paste it at the top of the message so you can cut and paste it to one of the recipient fields when you're ready to send it.

Lina

[Terry Hanushek]

Lina

Good tip. Pretty simple but something that never occurred to me. Thanks.

Another bit email advice that my wife gave me is to never send an email when you are mad or upset. It is a better to save it and come back in an hour or day to reread it before sending it. It may save you from being :sorry: later.

Terry

[PeteF]

Sometimes when you're working on a somewhat lengthy email, you may accidentally hit the "Send" button, or hit the "Send" hotkey, firing off your email into cyberspace.

Some Email programs have an option/feature to help overcome this problem.
For example, the Eudora email program allows you to confiigure it such that
clicking to send does not immediately send out the email. Instead, it places
it in the out box "queued" to be sent later. The only way any queued email
will go out is if you hold down the SHIFT key while clicking to send it.

Even with Eudora's queuing feature enabled, I can still see the value
in Lina's TIP to leave the recipient field blank until the message is
completed and ready to be sent. Be extra safe and use both.

---pete---

[dale@fcg]

Good one, Lina.

[Tortanick]

Nice tip :)

[mommalina]

Just remembered another gimmick I use for a belt-and-suspenders approach to prevent prematurely hitting the Send button.

I use Outlook Express and no longer type in addressees directly into the To, CC, or BCC boxes. I always go to the address book, choose my addressees from there, go back to the email, double-check to see that only those I intended are being addressed, and then hit the Send button.

This will prevent accidentally hitting the Send button before you have filled in all your addressees and double-checked them..

Only takes a few seconds once you get programmed to do this.

As I said earlier, I learned the hard way!:hurt:

Lina

[Guest117]

Oh, the horror of it all just came back after reading these posts/replies.
I was mad as hell at someone, on a forum, and a friend sent me a mail telling me what this evil doer said about me. Well, I fired off a quite nasty mail but unfortunately sent it under 'reply' (from my friend) and she got the msg.
How 'in bear skin'. I talked myself out of that after about a week.
Never again. Was my face red.:doh: