Cyndicate offers another organizational tool that’s similar to the filters features talked about in the last article, smart folder. Smart folders work like filters except that filters move the article to a different folder while smart folders show all messages that match the conditions without moving the articles. The articles will automatically appear and disappear from the smart folder as they meet the conditions of the smart folder.

The biggest, and I’d say the best, use of smart folders is for a temporary alternate view of your articles. Keep regular folders for the long term structure and smart folders short term viewing. A couple common uses it to have a smart folder that shows unread articles from today or one that displays all articles that you have flagged.

Another use of smart folders, and a really powerful one that sets Cyndicate apart from the other news readers, is to make a smart folder that displays articles that are unread and have a rating of 4 or 5. Since articles are being automatically rated as they are received, the smart folder will display the new articles that are most likely to be of interest to you. This is great for the times when you’re running short on time and want to catch up with the news that’s most important to you, leaving the rest of the articles for later when you have more time to read through them.