so, i have all sorts of problems keeping track of my sent mail (IMAP from a Groupwise account). if i send a message on my laptop the 8 times out of 10, i don't see the sent mail when i check on my desktop (and visa versa). when i switched to thunderbird, i discovered the option to have all mail i sent automatically sent to a BCC account i specify. i chose my rarely used gmail account. perfect! all of my sent mail is now automatically archived in gmail. i can access it from anywhere and i don't lose messages. whew!<br><br>the problem is that gmail only gives me the option on their interface to see who the message is from (me . . . always). i would like to have the option to have a column for who it was sent to (the intended recipient). why am i posting this here? because maybe someone has figured this out and i am just not seeing it. <br><br>then again, i could access gmail in thunderbird, but i can't have special columns (e.g., recipient) just for one account and not have it apply to all of my accounts. shucks!<br><br>still, this beats the alternative.<br><br>--<br>"I am mindful that diversity is one of the strengths of the country" --president bush on 9/27/05

<br><br><br>hey, sean, how about if you send a feature request or feedback to the gmail team :) <br><br><br>How can I contact the Gmail Team?<br>To contact the Gmail Team, visit http://mail.google.com/support/bin/request.py, and fill out a feedback form. We love to hear from users, so let us know what's on your mind.<br><br>----<br>:) "In my experience, there's no such thing as luck." - Obi-Wan Kenobi

I just use Gmail for all of my mail, which means every sent and received mail is neatly archived and searchable. You could set up labels by person, so that it automatically filters the results. <br><br>But to answer your question, there's no way to do what you want under the current setup. <br><br>

i could set up labels by person, but i have over 70 students and it'll change to 70 more next semester + 50 some colleagues in my department. and, then there's friends and family and the emails you send to people rarely (e.g., an email asking my web-host for assistance). but, the most common requests i get are various questions from students. sometimes i want to show them what i sent and having it arrive in gmail helps me know that it actually went out. or, i get two similar emails from students so i can go and find the first email i sent and copy it to the second student to save myself time. i can typically remember what student i sent it to, but not what the subject was (it's often "205 question" or something similar and they all look the same in that regard). i can probably use the search tools to find the recipient, so that might work.<br><br>anyway, i am submitting a feature request. i haven't had good luck with requesting features to google. i requested earlier this year to add a time stamp to the news.google.com website. i know they refresh it automatically periodically, but i thought a time stamp would help me know better whether i am seeing the most current or whether the refresh had failed, etc. they thanked me and said that had been considering it, but it's been 8 months with no time stamp. <br><br>--<br>"I am mindful that diversity is one of the strengths of the country" --president bush on 9/27/05

Just conjecturing here, Sean...forgive me if I failed to read your needs carefully enough. The following may be of some help:<br><br>Create a filter in your Google mail account.<br><br>In the field "Has the words":__________________, create a password string. Let's say that string is "[color:"#0000ff"]qwertysean</font>", for example.<br><br>When you go to the next page in the gMail filter set-up procedure set all mail that contains "qwertysean" to be marked with a label you have created to denote these specific emails.<br><br>Next—if you can manage to do this without a huge or confusing hassle—set up a second account on your email server and in Thunderbird. Use this second account to send out all messages you want to have backed up in your gMail account. Add the "[color:"#0000ff"]qwertysean</font>" string as a signature to the bottom of every one of those emails, and when they arrive in your gMail inbox they will be automatically marked with the label you created.<br><br>It's not perfect, but it might help make those emails easier to search through.<br><br><br>

i already do something like that, but much easier. any mail received from me as the sender is automatically labeled as "sent_mail" and archived. i click on the label "sent_mail" and get a list of all of my sent mail that has arrived in gmail. but, there is nothing distinguishing one mail from myself with a subject of "ed 205" from the next mail with the same subject (and, i tell my students to place ed 205 in the subject so it doesn't accidentally end up in junkmail considering all of the weird accounts they use (e.g., AOL, yahoo, gmail, our school, etc.). but, now that i play with gmail more, the searching tools are pretty good. it's not quite the same as being able to eye-ball my sent mail to quickly spot the one i am looking for, but it'll work in a pinch. <br><br>now, i need to create a real gmail account (my current one is one i set up using an alias) and switch to this entirely (hopefully dropping groupwise along the way if the university allows it). i think i have a colleague who switched to his comcast email and dropped the university. <br><br>--<br>"I am mindful that diversity is one of the strengths of the country" --president bush on 9/27/05

I always used to ignore people who said it was best to have a portable e-mail address that wasn't ISP-dependent. But then I tried it...and haven't looked back. <br><br>

<blockquote><font size=1>In reply to:</font><hr><p>"...but, there is nothing distinguishing one mail from myself with a subject of "ed 205" from the next mail with the same subject (and, i tell my students to place ed 205 in the subject so it doesn't accidentally end up in junkmail considering all of the weird accounts they use (e.g., AOL, yahoo, gmail, our school, etc.)"<p><hr></blockquote><p>What about adding a second filter in your gMail account that filters for any mail sent to you EXCEPT those from from own account, and have them labelled as well?<br><br>I dunno, I pretty much understand what you're after—ummmm, I think— and Google would do well to implement a far wider range of capabilities regarding allowing users to create their own folders, to create heirarchical filtering set-ups and to be able to show or hide a wider variety of columns in the gMail UI.<br><br>

the filter i have does the trick to get my sent mail filtered:<br><br><img src="http://homepage.mac.com/jayhawk/.Pictures/gmail_filter.jpg" width="359" height="247"/><br><br>i have emailed gmail folks about this, so we'll see.<br><br>i tried to play with the filter, but it doesn't give me a lot of play:<br><br><img src="http://homepage.mac.com/jayhawk/.Pictures/gmail_archive.jpg" width="254" height="171"/><br><br>i recognize that this is an odd request since most people who get mail want to see who it is from above all else.<br><br>--<br>"I am mindful that diversity is one of the strengths of the country" --president bush on 9/27/05

the only thing that worries me is that i fear there will some day be a charge. then again, i pay for my mac.com so who am i kidding? <br><br>--<br>"I am mindful that diversity is one of the strengths of the country" --president bush on 9/27/05