Mac OS X Mail Tips, Tricks and Secrets

Get the most out of Mac OS X Mail with tutorials delivered right to your Mail inbox. The tips come in weekly doses, to nurture and amuse without overwhelming stomach or attention span.

A simplistic name and unpretentious interface cannot fool the connoisseur or the enthusiast — or you. Mail, which comes with Mac OS X, is one powerful email program. Now make good use of all that power put at your finger's tips. Let's start with the tips, strategies and tutorials others have found helpful: the most popular Mail tips, tricks and...

You want to access all your email accounts — including a free Windows Live Hotmail account — in Mac OS X Mail? Here's how to set that up with MacFreePOPs, a smart little webmail tool.

Populate your Mac OS X Mail Address Book with a handy keyboard shortcut that doesn't ask any unnecessary questions.

Add recipients to an email easily, comfortably and without having to worry about typos in Mac OS X Mail by point and (double) click.

Mac OS X Mail can show a picture to the email address for known senders.

Keep your "Trash" folder clean by having Mac OS X Mail remove very old mail from it automatically.

The Mac OS X Mail Dock icon not only shows you how many new messages are in your In folder, you can also check for new mail on the server quickly from its context menu.

The Dock icon not only shows you how many new messages are waiting in Mac OS X Mail, it also lets you create new ones quickly.

Mac OS X Mail's parental controls allow you to make sure your child is communicating only with trusted people via email. If somebody new mails them or if they want to send an email to someone not yet trusted, you see the message first and can choose to approve or ignore it.

Apply your favorite text formatting easily to multiple parts of your emails by copy and paste in Mac OS X Mail.

Collect all members of your sales team, your soccer team or any other group in a Mac OS X Address Book mailing list so you can email them all at once and with ease.

Make your dream Mac OS X Mail toolbar.

The Mac OS X Trash is not picky about what to delete. Here's another way to delete messages in Mac OS X Mail.

Prevent Mac OS X Mail from opening the next message automatically when you delete the current one.

It's easy to move the drawer showing your mailboxes to the other side of Mac OS X Mail's main window.

Tell Mac OS X Mail where to look for email addresses.

Two keys to recovered disk space and a clean, empty trash. Here's how to empty your Mac OS X Mail trash quickly with a keyboard shortcut.

If you're ready to let go of the messages in your trash forever, here's how to do it fast and painlessly in Mac OS X Mail.

Make Mac OS X Mail look at more than just subjects, senders and recipients when filtering mail.

Taking advantage of Yahoo! Mail's great anti-spam filters, you can have Mac OS X Mail move spam that comes through your Yahoo! Mail account to a special folder automatically.

To find out whether you have already replied to an email and what you wrote, you don't have to search for your answer. Here's how you can have Mac OS X Mail do the searching for you.

Keyboard! Fast forward! Mac OS X Mail! Quick!

Forward many, send just one! Here's how to combine multiple messages to one forward in Mac OS X Mail.

Get it all: read your GMX Mail messages on the web and in Mac OS X Mail, too — with seamless access to all online folders.

Doubly elegant: Gmail and Mac OS X Mail work together blissfully. Here's how to set up Mac OS X Mail to receive mail from your Gmail account and send through it.

Mac OS X has an application for that: here's how to set up seamless access to your AIM Mail account in the powerful Mac OS X Mail desktop app.

You can either have Mac OS X Mail download only new messages or get seamless access to all your online AOL folders.

You want to access all your email accounts — including a free Windows Live Hotmail account — in Mac OS X Mail? Here's how to set that up with MacFreePOPs, a smart little webmail tool.

Web-based or desktop email? It's great to have the choice, and with Yahoo! Mail, IzyMail and Mac OS X Mail you do have the choice. Here's how to set up a free Yahoo! Mail account in Mail.

Web-based or desktop email? It's great to have the choice, and with Yahoo! Mail, IzyMail and Mac OS X Mail you do have the choice. Here's how to set up a free Yahoo! Mail account in Mail.

Fetch and read and reply to Hotmail messages from within Mac OS X Mail.

Download mail from your Inbox.com account into Mac OS X Mail with style and ease.

Fetch and read and reply to Windows Live Hotmail messages from within Mac OS X Mail.

Would you like to access your email not only from the computer at home or work but also remotely from any place and computer with an internet connection?

Download mail from your Zenbe account in Mac OS X Mail or even access the Zenbe inbox seamlessly so that what you do in OS X Mail is reflected on the web automatically.

Don't want to read or even open links in an email now but still be done with the message? Save the links for later. It's easy with the Safari Reading List and Mac OS X Mail.

You know how to add a Reply-To header to an email you write in Mac OS X Mail — and you know how cumbersome this is if you have to do it for every outgoing message. Here's how to have Mail append your Reply-To line to all emails automatically and in the background.

Mac OS X Mail has dutifully remembered the recipients of all your emails. Here's how you can use that list to build your address book.

Carbon copy your messages blindly with Mac OS X Mail and send copies of emails to recipients who remain anonymous to all others.

Like the "Archive" button in Mac OS X Mail but wish there was a keyboard shortcut? Here's how to set up a key combination for archiving in Mac OS X Mail.

Insert a text link to your site into your Mac OS X Mail signature — or link images even.

Save Mac OS X Mail folders outside Mail in a remote storage location. You can always bring them back easily.

Drag'n'attach your files. Here's a quick, easy, fast and cool way to send files around the world with Mac OS X Mail.

Mac OS X Mail can automatically mail a copy of every message you send to a particular email address.

To protect your contacts when you start synchronizing, to copy them to another account or computer, or for general comfort: here's how to create a backup copy of your Mac OS X Mail address book.

If you have trained the spam filter in Mac OS X Mail to spot junk mail perfectly, there's no need to teach it all anew when you get a new Mac. Here's how to transfer the training data to a different computer.

Get rid of annoying mail in Mac OS X Mail by blocking and trashing all messages from certain senders automatically.

Make it look as if a mail to you could not be delivered. Here's how to bounce a message back to its sender in Mac OS X Mail.

Want to write not on white but on black, blue, yellow, green and just about any other color? Here's how to change the background color of a message you are composing in Mac OS X Mail.

Select a custom font for text in an email in Mac OS X Mail quickly with this handy keyboard shortcut.

Want the most recent emails on top or sort by message size? Here's how to change a folder's sort order in Mac OS X Mail.

Want to change the tune played by Mac OS X Mail when a message has been sent, or when checking for new mail has delivered none? Here's how to dig into the Mail app to do customize other Mail sounds.

Choose your favorite font (and adequate size) for composing and reading emails in Mac OS X Mail.

Choose your favorite font (and adequate size) for composing and reading emails in Mac OS X Mail.

Want to give Mac OS X Mail a new, a different, a custom and creative face? Changing Mail's Dock icon is easy.

Alter the way new mail sounds in Mac OS X Mail.

Arrange the columns in the Mac OS X Mail mailbox summary the way you like best.

If you compose an email in Mac OS X Mail and want replies to it not at your normal email address but sent to a different address by default (to out-smart a spam filter, for example), it's easy to change the "Reply-To" header field.

Download new mail in a rush with this handy Mac OS X Mail keyboard shortcut.

If you make spelling mistakes as you type (and not sometime afterwards), you can have Mac OS X Mail check your spelling in real time, as you type, too.

Maybe it even makes Mac OS X Mail faster: here's how to rid the auto-complete list of previous recipients from old and stale entries you haven't used in years.

Get a visual clue for quoted text in Mac OS X Mail.

Can you copy the email address easily in Mac OS X Mail but always seem to miss the sender's name? Here's how to copy "Heinz Tschabitscher <sender@example.com>" instead of just "sender@example.com".

Collect all members of your sales team, your soccer team or any other group in a Mac OS X Address Book mailing list so you can email them all at once and with ease.

If the email address of one of your contacts has changed or if you want to remove an email address from the auto-complete list in Mac OS X Mail for another reason, here's how to undo a bit of history.

Mac OS X Mail lets you set up multiple outgoing mail servers. Here's how to get rid of those that you've mistyped, that don't work any more, or that you don't like any more.

It just keeps adding more unwanted messages. If you're highlighting messages in Mac OS X Mail using the "Shift" key and your arrow keys, here's how to remove emails from the selection if you've gone too far — in either direction.

Mac OS X Mail annoys you with every email by zooming windows into and sliding them out of view as if it was all a humungous effort? Here's how to turn off window animations in Mac OS X Mail.

Read your mail more comfortably in larger letters with Mac OS X Mail.

Want to change the subject of or maybe fix a link in an email you have received? Here's how to edit messages in place in Mac OS X Mail.

Don't keep deleted messages forever. Have Mac OS X Mail take out the trash when you quit instead.

Want to save a folder in Mac OS X Mail or just some messages in a format that many another email program can import? Here's how to export from Mac OS X Mail to mbox files.

Need your contacts from Mac OS X Mail in CSV format? Here's how to export all your Mac OS X Address Book data to a CSV contacts file.

If you have Mac OS X Mail automatically sort the mail you get, why not have it do the same for the mail you send, too? Here's how to make Mail file and delete outgoing mail automatically, or do anything else a rule can &mdash; automatically.

What have they said before? What have I said before? In Mac OS X Mail, it's incredibly easy to get all previous email exchanges with a person in an instant.

Look up the New Oxford American Dictionary definition (or definitions) of a word as you read it in an email, or get synonyms (or antonyms) from a thesaurus as you write an email — right in Mac OS X Mail and right where your mouse pointer is.

How about never checking for new mail in vain? How about all new messages popping up in your Mac OS X Mail Inbox instantly, as they arrive in your account?

Don't get lost in a crowded inbox. Here's how Mac OS X Mail can make it easy to follow discussions by displaying messages that belong together in a logical order.

Mac OS X Mail detects spam by analyzing any email's contents. To make sure it has the same opinion about what is spam and what is good mail, teach it when it makes a mistake.

Want to get an overview of your messages? Here's how to hide the preview pane in Mac OS X Mail and maximize the display of the messages list — and delete suspicious emails without having to open them.

Quickly change any message's background color in Mac OS X Mail to highlight, organize &mdash; or reset the color set by a rule.

The OS X Address Book application can import Outlook contacts for use in Mac OS X Mail.

Turn text in your Mac OS X Mail emails into clickable links the way web sites do.

Want images you send to appear in the message text and not just as an attachment? Make sure Mac OS X Mail understands your message contains rich formatting.

Don't type, at least not everything. Let type instead, with automatically expanding text snippets in Mac OS X Mail.

Want Mac OS X Mail to forget an email account's password? Want to clean up old and defunct accounts now needlessly stored in your keychain? Here's how to delete individual email account's passwords in Mac OS X Mail and any email program using the Mac OS X keychain.

Prefer clean, easily legible plain text emails and newsletters? Make Mac OS X Mail prefer them, too, with this hidden setting.

Don't like to start reading at the end? For less jerky reading, here's how to set up Mac OS X Mail to show conversations in chronological order: the first message on top and the most recent at the bottom.

Mail organized in folders is good; organizing faster is better. Want to file faster in Mac OS X Mail? Here's how to use keyboard shortcuts for your favorite folders.

Messages, get moving! Mac OS X Mail, follow them! Here's how to move messages easily and quickly using your mouse.

Go to your most frequented folders without going through a long list. Here's how to set up favorite folders in Mac OS X Mail, and how to open them with keyboard shortcuts.

Want to see attached photos or documents up big and with exclusive focus? Here's a fast way to open attachments as full-screen slideshows right from Mac OS X Mail.

Is that link and LOLthing worth a longer look? You can take a quick glance at linked pages right in Mac OS X Mail. Here's how.

Show me more. Here's how to have two folders open at the same time and side by side in Mac OS X Mail.

Hit "Reply" when you meant "Reply All"? You don't have to retype anything or copy and paste: here's how to turn a reply into a reply to all easily in Mac OS X Mail (and vice versa).

Do people complain that the links in your emails are not working? Here's how to make sure Mac OS X Mail does not mess with your URLs.

Mac OS X Mail can print more messages on less paper. Here's how to do it.

Read alerts from all your favorite web sites in Mac OS X Mail — whether they come in the form of email newsletters or via an RSS news feed.

Why rename folders to get them into the desired order when you can get the same result with some mouse flicking in Mac OS X Mail?

Do you like to highlight messages with colorful flags in Mac OS X Mail? Would you like to give the flags meaningful names to go with their colors? Here's how to rename the seven colored flags in Mac OS X Mail.

If you have recently filed a message to your "archive" folder, moving another message to the same destination is particularly easy and fast with this keyboard shortcut.

Normally, Mac OS X Mail does not attach the original message's files when you start a reply. Here's how to insert them easily and send an answer including original attachments.

Have you ever wondered what happened to an email you sent? In Mac OS X Mail, you can request a read receipt for all messages and get notified when your mail is opened.

Syncing went wrong? Contacts are lost? Not, of course, if you have created a backup copy of your Mac OS X Mail address book. Here's how to bring back your contacts, or import an archive to a different account or computer.

There is no need to re-invent the same message over and over again. Misuse Mac OS X Mail a bit instead and save messages as templates for later use (over and over again).

More than one email but just a single file on your Mac. Here's how to save multiple messages to one combined text file in Mac OS X Mail.

Recipients of blind carbon copies you send are hidden, but you should be able to find out who you bcc:ed. In Mac OS X Mail, you can.

No mouse needed to send a message in Mac OS X Mail. Here's a keyboard shortcut to deliver mail quickly.

Type but one recipient — a group recipient — and have Mac OS X Mail deliver a message to all the group's members.

Mail a group of people in Mac OS X Mail, but so that all the recipient's email addresses are hidden.

Start with neatly designed stationery, add your own photos, and send really enticing, rich emails with Mac OS X Mail.

Want Mac OS X Mail to reply for you while you're not there, but without including the attachments and the complete text of the original message? Use this script instead of Mail's own "reply" rule.

Reply without moving a finger. Here's how to set up an auto-responder in Mac OS X Mail that generates and sends replies to incoming mail automatically.

Peter's message is bigger than Mary's, and I can see it clearly in my Mac OS X Mail mailbox list.

Any messages from Andy? From Sue? Mac OS X Mail can show you mail from important senders immediately and easily.

Make Mac OS X Mail try to send mail through a specify outgoing SMTP mail server first.

Make the account you use most often the default. It's easy as drag and drop in Mac OS X Mail.

Mac OS X Mail just crashed or is acting up? Here's how to submit a Mac OS X Mail bug report and let Apple know about the problems you've encountered in Mac OS X Mail so they'll most likely get fixed.

Contacts in Mac OS X Mail and contacts in Gmail, updating each other? Here's how to set up Mac OS X Address Book and Google Gmail contact synchronization.

You can teach an old spell checker new tricks. If you have inline spell checking enabled in Mac OS X Mail, adding new spellings to the dictionary is particularly easy.

Track actionable text as to-do items easily in Mac OS X Mail and iCal.

Why some mail (from Apple) is highlighted in blue automatically in Mac OS X Mail, and how to turn that off easily.

Search and find and read or delete messages with search intelligence in Mac OS X Mail and be happy.

Way too many search results? Here's how to use Mac OS X Mail and Spotlight search operators to find just the mail you want fast.

You have as many email addresses as you want. Here's how to use multiple email addresses with an email account in Mac OS X Mail.

Forget text styles. Here's how to insert bulleted or numbered lists as well as tables in your emails with Mac OS X Mail.

Want some color, choice of font and maybe an image or animation in your Mac OS X Mail email signature?

See it all. In Mac OS X Mail, looking at the source of an email message is easy.

Mac OS X Mail lets you exclude individual email addresses from spam filtering. Here's how to protect all mail from a domain in one swoop, too.

A little signature surprise for every new message in Mac OS X Mail.

Have a backup read on the server, read mail at multiple locations, and avoid having your mailbox blocked by old mail. Here's how to do all this and not more in Mac OS X Mail.

Find out what causes Mac OS X Mail to display certain PDF file attachments in place while others are only shown as icons.

Could you check the mbox, please? Mac OS X Mail uses the mbox format to store mail, a safe and portable format used by many other email programs as well.

Type a letter, and Mac OS X Mail will suggest (quite intelligently, too) words you might be about to type, ready to be completed with a simple "Enter".

Open all the interesting links from a newsletter unobtrusively in the background and read them later in a concerted action, for example, instead of constantly switching between your browser and Mac OS X Mail.

Mac OS X Mail ate your messages? Probably not, but it may fail to display them, showing you an empty folder instead. Here's what to do, and how to prevent that from happening.

Mac OS X Mail can keep HTML emails from infringing your privacy and security.

Help Mac OS X Mail's spam filter avoid mistakes by telling it who you know — and never to treat messages from these senders as junk.

In addition to printing full messages, Mac OS X Mail lets you print summaries (sender, subject, date) of multiple emails in a concise format.

Open, edit and send a message again in Mac OS X Mail.

Search all your mail once fast in Mac OS X Mail. Save the search criteria to a folder and get all mail, old and new, conforming to them even faster.

My screen is too precious for icons, even if they're Mac OS X Mail's.

Get to the messages you need fast with Mac OS X Mail's toolbar search.

If you want to be quick, delete, print, forward multiple messages at once in Mac OS X Mail. If you want to be real quick, select multiple messages swiftly with your mouse.

See what Mac OS X Mail is doing when it thinks you're not looking.

Any group in the Mac OS X Mail Address Book will show you its members, but how can you find out to which groups a contact belongs? It's easy, and it requires no more than pressing a key.

Mac OS X Mail lets you decide who (or what) is in the From: line of the messages you send.

If all your recipients see is gibberish, you can make sure Mac OS X Mail sends a message as pure plain text — certain to be received properly by everybody.

After you have typed an email with your keyboard in Mac OS X Mail, here's how to send it using a shortcut on your keyboard, too.

If you send plain text emails often in Mac OS X Mail, why not make it the default? Here's how to do it.

Different accounts, different needs, different signatures. Mac OS X Mail can choose the default signature based on which account you use to compose a message.

Clean up your Mac OS X Mail toolbar by removing redundant text.

Want Mac OS X Mail to reply for you while you're not there, but without including the attachments and the complete text of the original message? Use this script instead of Mail's own "reply" rule.

There's nothing wrong with being a lazy replier, and here's how to set up Mac OS X Mail so that your replies will look good, too.

This email is long, but seems to lack all substantial content? Here's how you can make Mac OS X Mail extract the essential info from an email message to help you get to the important points fast.

Combine search terms and commands to form complex expressions finding exactly the messages you want in Mac OS X Mail.

Do you send similar messages often? Here's how to use the "Drafts" folder in Mac OS X Mail to hold message templates that you can use and reuse easily.

Receive mail through a secure and encrypted channel by enabling SSL for an email account in Mac OS X Mail.

If plain text is all you need, Mac OS X Mail can remove the extraneous formatting.

Have you opened a file from Mac OS X Mail, edited it and saved the changes? While the original attachment is still the same, your changes are not lost.

Know where to look when you want to back up your Mac OS X Mail mailboxes. Here's (how to find out) where Mac OS X Mail stores your emails.