[If you're waiting for a reply from me on something, I promise I haven't forgotten you. I'm still re-installing and it's going to take me a few more days to dig my way out.]

While I don’t subscribe to nearly as many newsletters as I used to — most of my news-ish stuff comes in the form of RSS feeds these days — I still subscribe to a few. Here are some tips if you’re writing a newsletter that will decrease the odds that I’ll delete it without reading it:

• Don’t change your “from” address. I white-list only those newsletters I want. If you change your address without telling me first, your newsletter will be deleted as spam and I won’t even know it.
• If you must change your e-mail address, tell me before you change it. Sending me a “we’ve changed our address” message from your new address is an instant FAIL. I’ll miss it because your new address isn’t white-listed. I can’t believe how many people don’t think about this one.
• A unique per-user ID in the subject line helps me tell your newsletter apart from phishes that look just like it. If I get too many phishes impersonating your newsletter, I’ll probably just unsubscribe it. I know it’s not your fault, but I don’t have the time to spend sorting out the fakes. A unique per-user ID in the subject is a very fast, easy way to make it obvious which messages are probably real and which are almost certainly fake.

To use this macro, copy and paste the code below into ThisOutlookSession. (Careful! Don’t overwrite other stuff that might already be in there.) You can access ThisOutlookSession from Tools > Macro > Visual Basic Editor. You must have Visual Basic for Applications installed; this is normally installed as part of Office.

Download the source code.

Function GetEmailsMarkedForFollowUp(myOlFolder As Outlook.Folder)
Dim objTable As Outlook.Table
Dim objRow As Outlook.Row
Dim strFilter As String
Dim strReturn As String
Dim myObjSubFolder As Outlook.Folder
Dim intCurrent As Integer

‘ ignore certain folders in the interest of having outlook return sometime in the foreseeable future
If (myOlFolder.Name = “Trash”) Or (myOlFolder.Name = “Archive”) Or (myOlFolder.Name = “Junk”) Or (myOlFolder.Name = “Junk E-mail”) Then
GetEmailsMarkedForFollowUp = “”
Exit Function
End If

‘ clear string
strReturn = “”

‘ Define a DASL filter that finds items marked for follow-up
strFilter = “@SQL=” & Chr(34) & “http://schemas.microsoft.com/mapi/proptag/0x0E2B0003” & Chr(34) & ” = 1″

‘ construct a table of items using the filter
Set objTable = myOlFolder.GetTable(strFilter)

With objTable

‘ Add task-related columns to the table.
.Columns.Add (“TaskDueDate”) ‘ this always seems to be blank in imap, but might be useful if you use exchange
.Columns.Add (“Subject”)
.Columns.Add (“Categories”)
.Columns.Add (“SenderName”)

‘ add flagged e-mails to the formatted task string
Do Until .EndOfTable
Set objRow = .GetNextRow

strReturn = strReturn & “<div style=”"margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 100%; font-size: .85em; font-family: Verdana; background-color: #EDEDED;”">”
strReturn = strReturn & objRow(“Subject”) & “</div><div style=”"margin: 0; padding: 0;”">”
strReturn = strReturn & “<span style=”"font-size: .75em;”"><b>From:</b> ” & objRow(“SenderName”) & “</span><br/>”
strReturn = strReturn & “<span style=”"font-size: .75em;”"><b>Category:</b> ” & objRow(“Categories”) & “</span><br/>”
strReturn = strReturn & “<br/></div>”
Loop
End With

‘ clean up
Set objRow = Nothing
Set objTable = Nothing

‘ check subfolders
intCurrent = 1
While intCurrent < myOlFolder.Folders.count
strReturn = strReturn & GetEmailsMarkedForFollowUp(myOlFolder.Folders.Item(intCurrent))
intCurrent = intCurrent + 1
Wend

‘ return the result
GetEmailsMarkedForFollowUp = strReturn
End Function

Sub CreateToDoMail(strAccountName As String)
Dim myOlApp As New Outlook.Application
Dim myOlNameSpace As Outlook.NameSpace
Dim objTaskFolder As Outlook.Folder
Dim myObjTask As Outlook.TaskItem
Dim myObjMail As Outlook.MailItem
Dim strEmailBody As String

‘ get the task list
Set myOlNameSpace = myOlApp.GetNamespace(“MAPI”)
Set objTaskFolder = myOlNameSpace.GetDefaultFolder(olFolderTasks)

‘ add each task item to an html-formatted list
strEmailBody = “<h3 style=”"font-family: Verdana; padding: 0: margin: 0″”>Tasks</h3>”
For Each myObjTask In objTaskFolder.Items
If Not myObjTask.Complete Then
strEmailBody = strEmailBody & “<div style=”"margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 100%; font-size: .85em; font-family: Verdana; background-color: #EDEDED;”">”
If myObjTask.Importance = 2 Then
strEmailBody = strEmailBody & “<span style=”"font-weight: bold; color: red;”">!</span> ”
End If
strEmailBody = strEmailBody & myObjTask.Subject & “</div><div style=”"margin: 0; padding: 0;”">”
strEmailBody = strEmailBody & “<span style=”"font-size: .75em;”"><b>Date due:</b> ” & myObjTask.DueDate & “</span><br/>”
strEmailBody = strEmailBody & “<span style=”"font-size: .75em;”"><b>Category:</b> ” & myObjTask.Categories & “</span><br/>”
strEmailBody = strEmailBody & “<br/></div>”
End If
Next

‘ also add mail items that have been marked for follow-up
strEmailBody = strEmailBody & “<h3 style=”"font-family: Verdana; padding: 0: margin: 0″”><br/>Mail Items Marked for Follow-Up</h3>”
strEmailBody = strEmailBody & GetEmailsMarkedForFollowUp(myOlNameSpace.Folders(strAccountName))

‘ create a new html e-mail message
Set myObjMail = myOlApp.CreateItem(olMailItem)
myObjMail.Subject = “My To-Do List: ” & Date
myObjMail.BodyFormat = olFormatHTML
myObjMail.HTMLBody = strEmailBody
myObjMail.Display
End Sub

After you have added the macro, you can assign it to a button by right-clicking within Outlook and selecting “Customize”. This macro is designed to handle multiple e-mail accounts, so you’ll need to add a stub function for each account if you want to add it to a button, like so:

Sub ExportMyToDoList()
CreateToDoMail “yourname@yourdomain.com” ‘ fill this in with your e-mail address
End Sub

THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS “AS IS” AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPYRIGHT OWNER OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.

I was beginning to suspect that I had tried every known e-mail client on planet earth, when today I ran across one I hadn’t tried before. Without really reading what it was other than “e-mail client I haven’t tried” I eagerly downloaded it. To my surprise, this is what I saw when I ran it:

Yes, the readme did say “LCARS interface” before I downloaded it, but somehow I didn’t put two-and-two together.

Now that wasn’t what I was expecting! Unfortunately, it doesn’t support IMAP.