Mailbag: Features desired in e-mail

In a recent newsletter, I discussed a few features I’d like to see available in e-mail. In response to that article, a number of readers sent me their desired wish list of features. Here are some highlights.

* “I’d like to have a selective receipt feature. I’d like to request a read-receipt for the primary recipient(s), but not the majority of contacts listed. The only way I know of currently is to send the original mail with the receipt request and then forward it to everybody else without the receipt request. Not only time-consuming, but kind of embarrassing (‘Why didn’t you remember to copy me the first time you sent it?’).”

* “Having just worked for an organization that built their own e-mail client, what a joy it was to come into work each day and simply click on one icon for everything – my corporate intranet, messaging, etc. I’ve landed with a bump again into the real world with another company where I now need multiple apps open – why can’t I simply have my e-mail client running as a drop-down within my corporate intranet?”

* “How about simple ‘search and replace’ in the body of the message?”

* “An easier way to sort on recipient.”

* “To type up an e-mail message to you costs five times more time than to transfer the same info by talking to you. Therefore I would recommend that in an e-mail client there is a button and I should be able to tell the system: ‘new message,’ then click your name from the address list in the To: field, then press the recording button and tell you my story (in any embedded microphone) and then press Send.”

* “Obtaining the settings for a mail client through Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP)” so that nontechnical users don’t have to get technical help in creating their server settings.

Thank you to all who provided me with their thoughts on this issue.