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Take Control of Apple Mail in Leopard
Go under the hood with new (and old) features in Apple Mail in Leopard!
Are you using Apple Mail in Leopard effectively? In this book, author Joe Kissell provides comprehensive guidance, with a focus on features that were new or updated in the Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard version of Mail.
You'll learn how to use and customize the Mail window, control the size and styling of incoming messages, and make rules to move messages into different mailboxes automatically. The book covers outgoing mail, showing you smart ways to address messages, send attachments, and send HTML-based messages. But, that's not all! You'll also find advice about setting up accounts, solving account connection problems and other bug-a-boos, handling spam, managing attachments, making backups, searching, signatures, notes and to-do items, Data Detectors, and more.
- More Info
- Contents & Intro
- What’s New
- FAQ
- Blog
You'll find answers to questions such as:
- What are the most important changes in Leopard Mail?
- How can I read my email on more than one computer?
- How do I set up my Gmail account to work with Mail?
- What should I do if my email won't come in? What if it won't send?
- How do I use Mail as an RSS reader?
- How can I make the text of an incoming message larger?
- Is there a way to force Mail to display only plain text?
- How can I automatically sort my messages into different mailboxes?
- How do I read, save, and delete incoming attachments?
- I made a note, but where did it go?
- Are there third-party tools that extend Mail's capabilities?
"I love this ebook! It's easy to read, easy to navigate, and darned informative. I thought I knew everything about Mail but I've already found several tips that help me use it better." -Katie Weller (writing about the previous edition)
Book Info
iPad & KindleAn EPUB is available to purchasers of this ebook; log in to your account to download it. More info... A Mobipocket file is available to purchasers of this ebook; log in to your account to download it. More info... |
About the Author
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Book Reviews
Reviews of Previous Editions
Author Interviews
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Joe Kissell has written numerous books about the Macintosh, including many popular Take Control ebooks. He's also Senior Editor of TidBITS and a Senior Contributor to Macworld, and previously spent ten years in the Mac software industry.
Table of Contents
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Read Me FirstMail, Apple's full-featured email application, is the most popular way for Mac OS X users to send and receive email. This book helps you get more out of Mail by explaining its most important features, providing useful tips, and solving problems. This book was written by Joe Kissell, edited by Tonya Engst, and published by TidBITS Publishing Inc. |
Introduction
Back in the days of Mac OS X 10.3 Panther, I noticed that a lot of people were having trouble with Mail, Apple's descriptively named email program. I liked Mail, but I also realized that it had some significant bugs and missing features, and was poorly documented. So I wrote Take Control of Email with Apple Mail to try to help people make the most of Mail. (I also wrote a companion volume, Take Control of Spam with Apple Mail
, which dealt solely with junk mail; it's still available separately.) When Tiger came out, it featured an entirely new version of Mail with many new features—and a long list of problems to match. So I once again got busy writing, this time producing Take Control of Apple Mail in Tiger.Now Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard is available, and along with it, the latest and greatest incarnation of Mail, version 3.0. And guess what? Once again, it has some significant bugs and missing features, and is poorly documented. What a surprise! Don't get me wrong: I still like Mail a great deal, and I rely on it for my personal use even though I've tried every other Mac email program. It's just that I've had to spend far too many hours figuring out how to do things that Apple didn't bother to explain in the user interface itself, in the online help, or on the Web. So I've written this book in the hope of saving other people all that time and effort.
This book is a no-nonsense guide to help you take control of a powerful email program without getting lost in extraneous information. I've worked hard to make it more compact and concise than Take Control of Apple Mail in Tiger, but without omitting any crucial information. To accomplish that, I've focused on the most important things that I think you need to know about Mail 3.x—I give little attention to either obvious, self-explanatory features or highly advanced topics (such as encrypting email and working with non-Roman alphabets). I do, however, occasionally refer you to articles elsewhere on the Web for more details about things I can only touch on here.
Tip: To keep up-to-date with Mail-related tips and news, see Tim Gaden's Hawk Wings blog. The site also includes a long list of third-party Mail add-ons.
Quick Start to Apple Mail in Leopard
You can read this book in any order you wish, though I recommend reading the background information listed under "Manage Mail setup" before proceeding with the rest of the book.
Manage Mail setup:
- Start on the right foot as you Learn What's New in Leopard Mail and Learn about Email Protocols.
- Get Mail up and running in Set Up Your Accounts.
Read email:
- Get mail into your Inbox; then sort it, read it, and work with it. See Read Incoming Messages.
- View RSS posts in Mail. See Read RSS Feeds.
Create email:
- Make sure your messages get to the right destinations by reading Address Addressing.
- Get your message across with style (or even with plain text!). Read Compose and Send Messages.
Get organized:
- Get a grip on the organizational tools Mail provides. See Manage Your Mailboxes.
- Track your tasks. See Keep Track of Notes and To Do Items.
- Find any message in a jiffy. See Find Your Messages.
- Keep your email consistent across Macs. See Synchronize Mail Data Using .Mac.
- Let Mail do tedious filing and sorting for you! See Automate Mail with Rules.
Make Mail work better:
- Having problems sending, receiving, or searching email? Find a solution in Fix Mail Problems.
- Make sure you don't lose your valuable email. Learn how to Back Up and Restore Your Email.
Learn What's New in Leopard Mail
The version of Mail included with Leopard (3.x) looks superficially much like the version that shipped with Tiger, but it has many changes. Among them are these:
- Data Detectors: Automatically put contact and schedule info to use. See Use Data Detectors.
- Quick Look for attachments: Open many attachments instantly. Read Deal with Incoming Attachments.
- Junk mail filtering changes: Change when the Junk Mail filter runs. See Set Mail's Junk Mail filter correctly.
- RSS support: Read RSS Feeds right in Mail.
- Forward as Attachment: Forward Messages as Attachments rather than as text.
- Stationery: Use Mail Stationery to create template-based messages such as newsletters.
- Rich text improvements: Read about new formatting options available in Handle Message Formatting.
- Photo browser: Attach photos from iPhoto. Read Learn attachment basics.
- Re-orderable sidebar: Move certain items up or down in your sidebar. See Arrange Your Mailboxes.
- Notes and To Dos: Keep track of all your reminders in Mail. Read Keep Track of Notes and To Do Items.
- Improved Spotlight searching: Find Your Messages more easily than before.
- SMTP server options: Read Pick a server (just one) to learn about Mail's new SMTP options.
- Time Machine support: Never lose a message! Read Back Up and Restore with Time Machine.
- Archive Mailbox command: Archive a Mailbox for long-term storage outside Mail.
Do you have an ebook about a newer version of Mail?
Yes, we do! Take Control of Apple Mail in Snow Leopard discusses Mail 4, the version that comes with 10.6 Snow Leopard.
How about ebooks that cover older versions of Mail?
Yes, we have those too. If you're still using 10.3 Panther, see Take Control of Email with Apple Mail. For 10.4 Tiger, see Take Control of Apple Mail in Tiger.
Will this book help me solve my spam problem?
A three-page section in this book offers three core suggestions for zapping spam. For most readers, those suggestions should lead to a reasonably spam-free email existence. However, because some curious or overly spam-ridden readers will want more than three pages of information, Joe has, in fact, written a whole 'nother book about the topic, called Take Control of Spam with Apple Mail. You can buy it along with this one in a bundle for $15 (see the left sidebar of this Web page).
Can I read this ebook on an iPad, iPhone, iPod touch, or Kindle?
There are lots of great ways to read our ebooks on these devices. For more details, please read our latest Device Advice.
Ask a Question
Feel free to ask us or post on our GetSatisfaction site if you have a question about this book!
Send Us Your Comments!
How could we not publish such kind words? If you'd like to send us your comments (good or bad, though we hope they're all good), just click the Feedback link on the cover of your copy of the ebook. Be sure to let us know if we can publish your comment. Thanks!
Update Plans
May 2010 -- This ebook covers Mail 3, the version of Mail that Apple shipped with Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard. We do not plan to update this ebook again for Leopard. A Snow Leopard edition of the ebook, however, is available. See Take Control of Apple Mail in Snow Leopard.
—Tonya Engst
What to Do If A New Email Message Is Completely Black
July 1, 2010 --
Apple has posted a Knowledge Base article detailing a problem with generating Mail messages after installing Safari 5 on a system running the latest version of Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard or 10.6 Snow Leopard. When you start an email message in Mail using some other program to get the ball rolling, the new message may have black text on a black background, rendering it unreadable.
[This problem was fixed in Safari 5.1. —Tonya 27-Oct-2010]
For full information see Apple's article about the problem.
—Doug McLean
Mail Tips and Musings from Joe Kissell
May 11, 2010 --
Find out what Joe thinks about changes in the Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard version of Apple Mail and with the topic of email generally. In MacVoices #1076, Joe joins host Chuck Joiner to chat about what's new in the world of handling spam, how to use Google Apps to manage multiple email addresses within a single Gmail account, compromises and changes that Apple made to Mail in order to turn it into an app for an iDevice, and more.
Joe also talks about what's new in his Mail-related ebooks that were released in May of 2010—Take Control of Apple Mail in Snow Leopard, Take Control of Spam with Apple Mail, and Take Control of Mail on the iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch.
—Tonya Engst
Read Your Email on Multiple Computers
March 24, 2010 --
In MacVoices #1065, Joe Kissell talks with host Chuck Joiner about two core email concepts - the POP and IMAP protocols. In particular, he explains how IMAP makes it possible to work with your email messages from more than one computer in a fluid, sensible manner. He also gives tips for switching from POP to IMAP and for using IMAP in popular email systems, including Gmail and MobileMe accounts, the Mail program on a Macintosh, the Mail app on an iPhone or iPod touch, and he discusses how the Gmail approach to storing, searching, and labeling email messages can sometimes be "hyper-weird." Joe also talks about how spam filtering can work with IMAP accounts.
—Tonya Engst
New Features in the Snow Leopard Version of Apple Mail
January 14, 2010 --
The Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard version of Apple Mail has been out for a while. Here's a quick look at what's changed between the 10.5 Leopard version and the Snow Leopard version:
- Mail now natively supports Microsoft Exchange Server 2007.
- You can re-arrange items in the sidebar.
- Performance has been improved significantly, especially when displaying the contents of mailboxes, searching, and moving messages.
- Data detectors can now recognize flight numbers.
- HTML message editing has been improved in several respects.
—Tonya Engst
SpamSieve 2.7.7
October 28, 2009 --
C-Command Software has released a maintenance update to its powerful Bayesian spam filtering software, SpamSieve. Changes include improved compatibility with pre-release versions of Mac OS X, enhanced filtering accuracy, modernized program code, an updated version of the Vietnamese localization, and an updated version of the Apple Mail script for discarding spam. Also, a bug that prevented the Apple Mail command Train as Good from moving Exchange messages back to the Inbox has been fixed, and encoded HTML mail is no longer recognized as spam in the default settings.
—Doug McLean
Mixing Gmail with Apple Mail
May 6, 2009 --
If you've ever thought that a great way to reduce spam would be to redirect email that you receive from your primary email address (or all your email addresses) through a Gmail account, you're not alone. And, if you've struggled with sometimes wanting to use Gmail, but sometimes wanting to use Apple Mail, you're in good company, particularly the company of Joe Kissell. To learn much more, check out Joe's exceptionally detailed TidBITS article, Achieving Email Bliss with IMAP, Gmail, and Apple Mail. The first part of this article has background information about the IMAP method of retrieving email from a mail server, while the second details how to make your email work like Joe's does.
—Tonya Engst
Using a MobileMe Email Address in Mail
July 23, 2008 --
Apple has posted a KnowledgeBase article about setting up Mail to use a me.com email address. The article tells you to upgrade to Mac OS X 10.5.4 and to install the Mac OS X Update for MobileMe. It then details what to expect in Mail with respect to any old .mac email addresses and new .me email addresses.
—Tonya Engst
Switching to Mail from Eudora
May 14, 2008 --
Switching to Mail from another email client is slightly out of scope for "Take Control of Apple Mail in Leopard," but if you are interested in migrating from Eudora to Apple Mail, check out my recent TidBITS article, Reluctantly Switching from Eudora to Apple Mail.
—Tonya Engst
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