The Bottom Line
Pros
- MailTags allows you to assign projects, keywords, notes and deadlines to emails in Mac OS X Mail
- Integrating with Spotlight and smart folders, MailTags keywords and notes can be found fast
- MailTags creates and keeps in sync tasks in Reminders and events in Calendar
Cons
- MailTags lets you assign but one project to each message
- Only Reminders is supported for to-do list integration
- With (uncached) IMAP accounts, MailTags can slow things down a bit
Description
- MailTags lets you assign projects, priorities, due dates and keywords to emails in Mac OS X Mail.
- All MailTags fields are accessible from and can be set via OS X Mail rules.
- Both incoming and outgoing mail can be assigned meta-data, and MailTags can classify replies to tagged mail automatically.
- You can search project titles (picked up from Things, OmniFocus or The Hit List if you like), keywords, due dates and comments using Spotlight.
- Smart mailboxes can be built using MailTags keywords, projects, due dates and priorities.
- Integration with Calendar and Reminders lets MailTags create to-dos and events. Due dates, notes, and other data are synchronized.
- MailTags notes can be displayed as italicized subjects in the mailbox summary.
- MailTags supports Mac OS X 10.5/10.6.
Guide Review - MailTags 3.1 - Mac OS X Mail Productivity Add-On
Usually, but not always. Something is missing from email organization in OS X Mail, and it is precisely nothing to be found anywhere in the messages as you receive them.
Adding tags and keywords is not the ideal solution to information organization, but for organizing emails (temporarily), it does wonders. With MailTags, you can assign a project, a priority and free-form keywords to each message easily, complemented by a due date and a free-form field. In Mail 3 and later, all these can be attached to RSS news feed items and notes, too. If you use Things or OmniFocus to manage your projects, their titles can show up in MailTags automatically.
At this point, Mail's own talents come into play again: using search, filters and, most of all, smart mailboxes, you can organize your emails just the way you want them effortlessly. Create a folder containing all messages about a certain project due today. Set up a filter that, for now, makes all incoming mail due next month. Make a smart mailbox showing all high priority mail.
With the Mail Act-On plug-in, you can even create keyboard shortcuts that postpone the due date or assign a project to a message to help you actually use the newly gained meta-data power.
Automatically created and maintained Calendar events and to-do items in Reminders help you remember. Message's due dates, alongside other MailTags data, can be displayed in Mail's message list. You can even have MailTags color messages as their deadline passes, for example, or employ a dainty color regime picked from the emails' priorities, projects and manually set colors.
While MailTags does work with all account types available in Mail, it may have a slight impact on performance with IMAP accounts. MailTags does keep its data on the server, though, so you can use it from multiple locations.
(Updated August 2012)
