If you’re like many people today who are using the Internet to communicate with friends and business associates, you probably have piles of information (names, e-mail addresses, phone numbers, etc) that you need often. Unless this information is in one convenient place, and can be accessed immediately, the information becomes ineffective and you become unproductive. Apple’s Mail application solves these problems by integrating management and organization tools into one simple system. Mac OS X Snow Leopard includes Mail 4.0, a powerful application for managing electronic mail (known as e-mail), and contact information like names, and e-mail addresses.

Using Mail with an Internet connection allows you to accomplish several tasks:

Whether you want to exchange e-mail with colleagues and friends or join news feeds to access ideas and information, Mail provides you with all the tools you need. When you install Mac OS X, an icon for Mail appears in the Dock. The first time you start Mail, you need to set up an e-mail account by simply entering your e-mail address and password and letting Mail do the rest. If you are switching from another e-mail application to Mail, you can import your mailboxes and e-mail messages into Mail by answering a few questions. You can set Mail as your default e-mail application so that whenever you click an e-mail link on a Web page or select the mail command in your Web browser, Mail opens.

Before you can set up an e-mail account, you need your account name, password, e-mail server type, and the names of your incoming and outgoing e-mail servers from your ISP or network administrator. You can use Add Account to help you set up an e-mail account by answering a series of questions, which is available in the Accounts pane in Mail preferences. Mail allows you to send and retrieve e-mail from different types of e-mail servers (including MobileMe and Microsoft Exchange 2007 (New!)), which are the locations where e-mail is stored before you access it. MobileMe is an IMAP mail server type, while Microsoft Exchange is a POP or IMAP mail server type. MobileMe and Exchange allow you to have all your messages (in Mail), meetings (in iCal), and contacts (in Address Book) in one place. You can set up Mail to receive e-mail from multiple accounts where each one can have multiple e-mail addresses.

You can set up Mail to receive e-mail from multiple e-mail accounts and from different computers. As you work with multiple accounts, you can use the Accounts pane in Mail preferences to change the order, rename, or delete accounts. Account order indicates the mailbox list order and helps determine which account (if not specified) Mail uses to send an e-mail message. If an account changes, or you no longer need it, you can rename or delete it. If you’re using an IMAP or a MobileMe account, mail stays on the mail server so you can access it from any computer. If you’re using a POP account, mail downloads to your computer unless you select an Accounts pane option to keep a copy on the mail server.

E-mail is becoming the primary form of written communication for many people. E-mail messages follow a standard memo format, with fields for the sender, recipient, date, and subject of the message. To send an e-mail message, you need to type the recipients e-mail address, type a subject, then type the message itself. You can send the same message to more than one individual, to a contact group, or to a combination of individuals and groups. If you type multiple addresses, you must separate the addresses with a comma (,). If you have multiple accounts, you can select which account you want to use to send the e-mail message.

Mail gives you several ways to address an e-mail. You can type the address manually by typing it in the To or Cc field, or you can select or drag an address from your Address Book. When you begin to type an e-mail address, Mail looks up the name and address in your Address Book, followed by your Previous Recipients list, and then followed by names in the LDAP database (typically for corporate use if specified in the Composing pane of Mail preferences). If Mail finds a match, it automatically completes the recipients name. If you type multiple addresses, you must separate the addresses with a comma (,). You can make addressing easier to view by using Smart Addresses, which displays the recipient name only without the e-mail address for those in your Address Book and Previous Recipients list. You can display the Previous Recipients list to remove addresses you misspelled or don’t need anymore, or add addresses to your Address Book.

Select Names Using Address Complete

1. In the New Message window, type the first few letters of a name, address, or group.

   Mail suggests possible matches.

2. Click the name you want to enter.

   

Did You Know?

You can use Smart Addresses to show names. Smart Address are names and addresses in your address book, Previous Recipients list, or any LDAP server. Any names not found in your Address Book or Previous Recipients list still appear in full. To enable it, click the Mail menu, click Preferences, click Viewing, select the Use Smart Addresses check box, and then click OK.

See Also

See “Creating an Address Book” on page 138 for information on creating a group of recipients.

Instead of using a standard white background for your e-mail, you can spruce it up with some stationery. If you want to send an e-mail message for a special occasion, such as a birthday, thank you, get well, or just for fun, you can quickly create the look you want by applying stationery templates with professionally designed layouts, fonts, and colors. If you want to use your own photos, you can use the Photo Browser in Mail to find photos in your iPhoto library, Photo Booth or Aperture, and insert them into your e-mail messages.

You can specify a file format for message text. The Plain Text format is one that all e-mail programs recognize, but it doesn’t support text formatting. The Rich Text format allows text formatting, but it’s not always supported. However, most programs that don’t recognize Rich Text, convert the message to plain text. When you use Rich Text, you can use formatting tools, such as bold, italicize, underline, numbered and bulleted lists, indentations, and color text and backgrounds, on the Format menu and in the Fonts and Color dialogs to help draw the reader’s attention to key words and emphasize the meaning of your message.

Format the Message Text

1. Open the message you want to format.

2. Click the Format menu, and then click Make Rich Text, if available.

3. Select the text you want to format.

4. Click the Colors button on the toolbar, use the dialog color wheel to select a color, and then click the Close button.

5. Click the Fonts button on the toolbar, use the dialog settings (font type, size, style, and effects) to format the message text, and then click the Close button.

   

6. Click the Format menu, point to Lists, Style, Alignment, or Indentation, and then select a font formatting option you want.

   

Did You Know?

You can set font preferences. Click the Mail menu, click Preferences, click Fonts & Colors, select default fonts for the message list, message text (Rich Text), and plain text, and then click the Close button.

If you type the same information at the end of each e-mail message, such as Best Regards and your name, then you can automate that task by creating a signature. You can add one signature to all messages or create several and select one when you compose a message. You can customize your signature with a variety of formatting styles, such as font type, size, and color, and you can even include a picture or attach your virtual business card, known as a vCard, from your Address Book.

Instead of jotting notes down on paper, you can use Mail to create notes and then to help you organize and track them as to-do’s so the things you need done, get done. You can include formatted text, graphics, and attachments in a note. After you create a note, you create a to-do item or send the note to another person. You can select content in a note or message to create a to-do, which can include a due date, reminder alarm, and priorities. The to-do items are automatically added to your iCal calendar.

You can receive e-mail anytime day or night—even when your computer is turned off. You can retrieve your e-mail manually or set Mail to do so automatically by setting options in Mail preferences. When you start Mail, the application checks for new e-mail. It continues to check periodically while the application is open. New messages appear in the Inbox along with any messages you haven’t stored elsewhere or deleted. A blue dot appears next to unread messages in the Mail Viewer window. The Message list displays the subject line of a message and other information, such as date received, senders name, attachments, and priority flags, which you can customize to display the information you need.

You can respond to a message in three ways: reply to it, which creates a new message addressed to the sender(s) and other recipients; forward it, which creates a new message you can send to someone else; or redirect it, which creates a new message from the original sender you can send to someone else (useful when you receive a message by mistake). When you reply or forward a message, the original message appears in the message response. You can reply to the sender only, or to all the people who received the original message.

You can easily share a file, such as a picture, document, vCard (virtual business card from your Address Book), sound, or movie by attaching it to an e-mail message. Some ISPs have trouble sending attachments between 2 and 10 megabytes MB, so it’s a good idea to check with your ISP for limits on file size. Upon receiving the e-mail, the recipient can view it with Quick Look, open the file in the application that created it, or save it on a disk for use in other applications directly from the Mail Viewer window. The Message list displays the number and size of the attachments. If you send an e-mail to a Windows user, the attachment is automatically compressed in a standard zipped (gzip) format so it can be read.

A common problem with using e-mail is an overcrowded Inbox. To keep your Inbox organized, you should move messages you want to save to other mailboxes and subfolders (a mailbox inside another mailbox), delete messages you no longer want, and create new mailboxes as you need them. A mailbox can store messages on your computer, within a specific account, or within an existing mailbox. When a mailbox contains both messages and other mailboxes, the mailbox icon appears in blue. You can also organize your e-mail by message threads, which is the chain of replies in an e-mail conversation. You can group threads together or highlight them by color to make them easier to see.

Deleting unwanted messages makes it easier to see the new messages you receive and to keep track of messages to which you have already responded. When you delete an e-mail message, Mail simply moves it into the Trash mailbox. If you want to recover a deleted message, you just have to retrieve it from the Trash mailbox. To get rid of a message permanently, you need to open the Trash mailbox, select the message, and then click Delete. Mail automatically places e-mail messages in the Sent mailbox every time you send them. You’ll want to periodically open the Sent mailbox and delete messages so your mail account doesn’t get too large. You can also set account options to help you delete messages.

If you have not finished composing a message, you can save it in the Drafts mailbox and work on it later. If you quit Mail with an open message, Mail automatically saves it as a draft. If you want to use the text from a message in a word processing application, such as TextEdit, you can save a message as a separate file in the Rich Text or Plain Text format. You can also save one or more messages in the Raw Message Source (mbox) format, which is a standard mail message format; you can import mbox into other mail applications, including Mail.

If you’re looking for an e-mail message with specific information, you can use the Mail search field to search for text in an open message, in all messages in a mailbox, in all messages for a specific account, or in all mailboxes. If you search in the From, To, or Subject fields, Mail finds messages that contain the entire search phrase as typed. If you search in mailboxes or the entire message, Mail only finds messages containing the same beginning letters you typed. To refine your search, use the words “and,” “or,” “not,” and parentheses in the Search field. The results appear in the Message list with rankings indicating the best matches. If you frequently search for the same text, you can create a Smart Mailbox to make it quick and easy to find in the future. In addition to the search field, you can also use Spotlight to find e-mails, as well as other text in Mail, such as to-dos and notes.

You can have Mail handle junk e-mail for you. You can specify what should be considered junk e-mail and how Mail should handle that e-mail. You can ensure that e-mail which might seem to be junk e-mail, but is actually from a person or site that you are interested in, gets to you. You can mark messages as junk mail to help train Mail (set rules) to more effectively distinguish between junk and non junk. If you receive annoying mass mailings, you can bounce, or reject, the message back to the sender (as long as their return address is valid, which isn’t usually the case with spam) and the message appears to the sender as if your address is invalid and the message could not be delivered. Mail also moves the message to the Trash.

Mail can direct incoming messages that meet criteria to other mailboxes in the Mailbox list rather than to your Inbox. You can set message rules to store any messages you receive from a friend in a different folder so they won’t clutter your Inbox. When you are ready to read the messages, you simply open the mailbox and access the messages just as you would messages in the Inbox. You can also set rules to automatically reply to incoming messages, which is useful when you are out of the office, or forward incoming messages with additional message text. You can also color-code the messages that you send to or receive from particular people for quick and easy recognition.

A Smart Mailbox displays e-mail messages or to-do items based on a search criteria in an easy to use folder in the Mailboxes list. The message or to-do items are not moved to the Smart Mailboxes. Each time you select a Smart Mailbox, Mail performs a search to create an up-to-date list of results. A Smart Mailbox is like a Smart Folder for Mail. You can create a Smart Mailbox for RSS articles, specific content, or from a specific sender.

Since e-mail is an important form of communication, you can use Mail to subscribe to RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds and display them in your inbox. A feed delivers frequently updated Web content to your browser on a continuous basis. A feed, is usually offered on a subscription basis and typically free of charge. A feed can deliver text content in the form of news headlines or blogs, or digital content in the form of pictures, audio, and video. When you get feeds in e-mail, a line or two of each articles content and a link to the full article appears for you to quickly and easily view.