If you are using a mail client like Outlook Express then you know that Message Rules are probably the most versatile and helpful feature. We've told you how to use them for blocking unwanted email, whitelisting, automatic forwarding, and sorting into folders. This new trick is great for helping you easily identify the good stuff when wading through a mountain of email.

How would you like to just look at your inbox and be able to recognize email from business contacts, friends, or family just by the color? This really comes in handy for me—since I get over 500 emails a day from readers, I set mine up so that email from my co-workers is in another color. You could set it up so that business contacts are green, family comes in blue, your spouse comes in red, etc. Enough talk, let's get into it...

In Outlook Express, follow the usual procedure for Message Rules: Go to Tools / Message Rules / Mail, then click "New".

Now comes the fun part: for this example, I will select the condition "Where the From line contains people", but you could use any of the options. For the action, select "Highlight with color".

Under "Rule Description", click on "contains people". You can type in addresses or domains then click "Add", or click on the Address Book and select names from there. When finished click OK.

Next we want to choose a color. Click on "color" and a little box will appear. Click the arrow and a palette will appear, from there just choose a color.

Now give the Message Rule a name.

Netscape Mail 7 uses a slightly different approach for this, so tune in tomorrow for details.

There is so much you can do with this trick. You could even make one for "worldstart.com" so you can find our newsletters easier (whether we change the sender display name or not!)