How to Summarize a Long Email Message in Mac OS X Mail

Operas are long, arias are short. Historic novels are long, haikus are short. Quick emails are short, diary-like, extensive emails are — short. Any email can be short if you make use of a cool Mac OS X Service in Mac OS X Mail.

The aptly named SummaryService summarizes text. The next time you get an overly long email that leaves you in the dark about its essential points, try auto-summarizing it. If it doesn't help at least it does no harm (and it's always interesting to see what a machine deems important).

Summarize a Long Email Message in Mac OS X Mail

To get a summary for a long email message in Mac OS X Mail:

• Highlight the complete message text or the portion you want to shorten.
• Select Mail | Services | Summarize from the menu.

Now, you can tweak the SummaryService's settings to fit your needs and save the summary to a text file.