25 January 2010

toRSS: Turn Your Incoming E-mails Into A RSS Feed

torss.net

toRSS is a very good solution to make sure that you keep track of your E-mail and also serves as a way to have more than one way to remind yourself of that. The way toRSS does that is by letting you take all your incoming E-mails from your inbox and convert them and list them into a RSS feed. This way you can read your mails as you read the news for your favorite sites and services.

Why would i want to do that?

One reason would be so you do not forget to answer your E-mails and another because you can keep a better track of your E-mail this way. While i don’t use toRSS myself. I use a desktop-to-web solution to archive the same thing. Unless you are using Outlook or Evolution, you usually cannot set e-mail handling rules. These can be handy because you can set that all incoming e-mail has to be seen twice to be considered “Read” or you can set a timer so every amount of hrs all e-mails are declared “Read” but never before that time even if you have seen them already.

So if you are not using a E-mail Desktop Client you have to rely on your preferred web E-mail provider. Having a RSS feed of your E-mail allows you to read your E-mail before you hit your actual inbox if you like me prefer to read the news first that E-mail. So if you have already read your E-mail in your FeedReader, once you do see all the incoming E-mails in your actual inbox. You will already know which ones you want to read again, reply, delete or disregard but keep. I think it makes for a better E-mail workflow and if you agree with me, then toRSS is a good way to check if it also works for you.

In my case i can also harvest all my E-mail via the IE8 Feed Reader. Given the IE8 Feed Reader can be tweaked and enhanced with Plugins, you are able to keep and save all your e-mail that way and even back it up and export it to different file formats if you desire it.

How do i use toRSS?

It could really not be simpler. You only have to fill up a service form. Clicking on the icon of your web E-mail provider in that form will actually pre-fill the form with the settings needed for your provider, so you only have to add your Username and Password.

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                (Example showing common settings for Windows Live Hotmail)

 

Once you have filled up the form, just click “Generate Feed” and you will be given a RSS Feed for your incoming E-mail. Just don’t share that feed publicly or lose sight of how you are using it. If you do, then just change your  E-mail password and that feed will just stop working.

Conclusion

I think toRSS is a great solution given it eliminates the learning curve and technicalities of having to maintain a Desktop to Web solution of the same like i do and because of the possible benefits it can bring to your E-mail handling. The only actual price to use it. Is that you need to trust toRSS  with your E-mail account credentials and to have clear that you must use it with care. Even then i still Recommend it.

Linkage

toRSS

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2 comments :

Kelly said...

Interesting, but this would not be useful for me, as I do things the other way around. I always check my inbox first and many times throughout the day, so it's better for me to get important feeds there.

But I will pass this along for others who can use it. :)

Avatar X said...

@kelly

Yeah, this is not for everybody. Still thought it worthwhile to post on it.

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