Chapter 2: Using Apple Mail

In This Chapter

Adding and configuring Mail accounts

Receiving, reading, and sending e-mail

Filtering junk mail

Opening attachments

Configuring and automating Apple Mail

Okay, how many of you can function without e-mail? Raise your hands. Anyone? Anyone at all?

I suppose that I can function without my Internet e-mail, but why should I? Mac OS X includes a very capable and reliable e-mail client, Apple Mail (affectionately called Mail by everyone but Bill Gates).

In this chapter, I discuss the features of Apple Mail and show you how everything hums at a perfect C pitch. However, you have to sing out, “You’ve got mail!” yourself. Personally, I think that’s a plus, but I show you how you can add any sound you like.

Know Thy Mail Window

To begin our epic e-mail journey, click the Mail icon in the Dock. Figure 2-1 illustrates the Mail window. Besides the familiar toolbar, which naturally carries buttons specific to Mail, you find the following:

♦ Title bar: This heading at the top of the Mail window displays information about the current folder — typically, how many messages it contains, but other data can be included as well.

♦ Message list: This resizable scrolling list box contains all the messages for the folder that you’ve chosen. To resize the list larger or smaller, drag the handle on the bar that runs across the window. You can also resize the columns in the list by dragging the edges of the column heading buttons.

To specify which columns appear in the message list, choose View⇒Columns. From the submenu that appears, you can toggle the display of specific columns. You can also sort the messages in the message list from the View menu; by default, messages are sorted by the Date Received. (Alternatively, use Lazy Mark’s method: Just click the column that you want to sort by.)

♦ Mailboxes: The column at the left of the main Mail window is the Mailboxes list. You can click any of the folders to switch the display in the message list. The Mailbox list can be hidden or shown from the View menu by clicking the Show Mailboxes item, or you can press the Ô+Shift+M keyboard shortcut to hide or show it. To widen or narrow the Mailboxes list, click the divider at the right side of the list. Your mouse cursor turns to a line with double arrows — and drag it in the desired direction.

♦ Preview box: This resizable scrolling list box displays the contents of the selected message, including both text and any graphics or attachments that Mail recognizes.

Mail uses the following folders (some of which appear only at certain times):

♦ Inbox: Mail you’ve received already.

♦ Outbox: Messages that Mail is waiting to send.

♦ Drafts: Draft messages waiting to be completed.

♦ Sent: Mail you’ve sent already.

♦ Trash: Deleted mail. As with the Trash in the Dock, you can open this folder and retrieve items that you realize you still need. Alternatively, you can empty the contents of the Trash at any time by pressing the Ô+K shortcut or by choosing Mailbox⇒Erase Deleted Messages.

♦ Junk: Junk mail. You can review these messages or retrieve anything you want to keep by choosing Message⇒Move To. After you’re sure nothing of value is left, you can delete the remaining messages straight to the Trash. (Junk mail filtering must be enabled from the Junk Mail settings in Preferences before you see this box.)

♦ RSS: Messages from an RSS news feed that you’ve subscribed to. You find out more on RSS later in this chapter.

♦ Notes: This folder displays notes that you’ve made. I discuss how to create a new note later in this chapter.

♦ To Do: Ah, don’t forget those all-important reminders about washing the car, paying taxes, and picking up dog food on the way home. The To Do folder displays your To Do items, which I cover later in the chapter.

You can add new personal folders to the Mailbox list to further organize your messages. Choose Mailbox⇒New Mailbox and then type the name for your new folder in the Name box. Click OK to create the new personal folder.

Messages can be dragged from the message list and dropped into the desired folder in the Mailbox list to transfer them. Alternatively, you can move ’em from the Message list by selecting the messages that you want to move, choosing Message⇒Move To, and then clicking the desired destination folder.

Also note that Spotlight has staked its claim with the Search box at the upper right in the Mail toolbar.

Setting Up Your Account

By default, Mail includes one (or more) of these accounts when you first run it:

♦ The account that you entered when you first installed Mac OS X: Go to the beginning — literally, Book I, Chapter 1 — to read about the first-use assistant that I discuss at the beginning of this book. If you entered the information for an e-mail account, it’s available.

♦ Your MobileMe account: If you registered for a MobileMe service account, it’s included.

♦ Upgraded accounts: If you upgraded an existing Mac OS system, your existing Mail accounts are added to the Accounts list in Mail.

Speaking of the Accounts list, choose Mail⇒Preferences and click the Accounts button to display the Accounts pane that you see in Figure 2-2. From here, you can add an account, edit an existing account, or remove an account from Mail. Although most folks still have only one e-mail account, you can use a passel of them. For example, you might use one account for your personal e-mail and one account for your business communications. To switch accounts, just click the account that you want to use from this list to make it the active account.

Adding an account

To add a new account within Mail, choose File⇒Add Account to open an Accounts assistant that leads you through the process. ’Nuff said.

However, I’m a manual kind of guy — at least, that’s what I’m told — so I should describe the process. For our demonstration, I’ll add a typical ISP POP account from the Preferences dialog, which displays the same Accounts assistant.

Open the Preferences dialog by clicking Mail and choosing Preferences; then click the Accounts button on the Preferences toolbar. Follow these steps:

1. Click the Add button at the bottom-left corner of the window, which carries a plus sign.

2. On the General Information pane, type your full name in the Full Name field — or, if this is to be an anonymous account, enter whatever you like as your identity — and then press Tab.

Messages that you send appear with this name in the From field in the recipient’s e-mail application.

3. Type the e-mail address assigned to you by your ISP.

4. In the Password field, type the password supplied by your ISP for login to your e-mail account.

5. Click Continue.

Here’s a great feature: If Mail recognizes the type of account you’re using, the assistant may offer to automatically complete all the required settings for you! (If the account is recognized, the Continue button switches to a Create button. Smile proudly and click Create, and you’re done.) If your account isn’t recognized by Mail, it’s no big deal — just continue with Step 6.

6. Click the Account Type pop-up menu and choose the protocol type to use for the account.

You can select an Apple MobileMe account, a Post Office Protocol (POP) account, a Microsoft Exchange 2007 account, an Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP) account, or a standard Microsoft Exchange IMAP account. If you’re adding an account from an Internet service provider (ISP), refer to the setup information that you received to determine which is right. Most ISP accounts are POP accounts.

When you select an Account Type, the fields may change on the Accounts assistant, but they’ll still follow the same general order I give in this POP account demonstration. (In fact, there are fewer fields to fill out for IMAP accounts!) Keep the account information provided by your ISP handy because that data should include everything covered in the assistant.

7. In the Description field, name the account to identify it within Mail and then press Tab to move to the next field.

For example, Work and Mom’s ISP are good choices.

8. In the Incoming Mail Server text box, type the incoming mail server address supplied by your ISP.

If your ISP requires a login for security, you need to enter your server username and password.

9. Click Continue.

10. On the Incoming Mail Security sheet, click the Authentication pop-up menu and choose the authentication scheme used by your incoming mail server.

Unless you’re told differently by your ISP, the default choice — Password — is very likely correct already.

11. Click Continue.

12. On the Outgoing Mail Server sheet, type a description for the server and press Tab.

I typically enter the ISP name.

13. In the Incoming Mail Server text box, type the incoming mail server address supplied by your ISP.

14. If your ISP requires your e-mail application to authenticate the connection, select the Use Authentication check box and type the username and password supplied by your ISP into the corresponding fields.

15. Click Continue on the Account Summary sheet.

16. Click Done on the Conclusion sheet.

You’re done! The new account appears in the Accounts list.

You can specify advanced settings for an account. I cover those in the section “Fine-Tuning Your Post Office,” later in this chapter.

Editing an existing account

Need to make changes to an existing account? Choose Mail⇒Preferences and click the account that you want to change. Mail displays the same settings that I explain in the preceding section.

Deleting an account

If you change ISPs or you decide to drop an e-mail account, you can remove it from your Accounts list. Otherwise, Mail can annoy you with error messages when it can no longer connect to the server for that account. Display the Mail Preferences dialog, select the account that you want to delete, and then click the Remove button (which is graced by a minus sign).

Naturally, Mail requests confirmation before deleting the folders associated with that account. Click OK to verify the deletion or click the Cancel button to prevent accidental catastrophe.

Receiving and Reading E-Mail Wisdom

The heart and soul of Mail — well, at least the heart, anyway — is receiving and reading stuff from your friends and family. (Later in this chapter, I show you how to avoid the stuff you get promising free prizes, low mortgage rates, and improved . . . um, performance. This is a family-oriented book, so that’s enough of that.)

After you set up an account (or select an account from the Accounts list), it’s time to check for mail. Use any of these methods to check for new mail:

♦ Click the Get Mail button on the toolbar.

♦ Right-click the Mail icon in the Dock and choose Get New Mail from the menu that appears.

♦ Choose Mailbox⇒Get All New Mail or press Ô+Shift+N.

♦ Choose Mailbox⇒Get New Mail and then choose the specific account to check from the submenu.

This is a great way to check for new mail in another account without going through the trouble of making it active in the Preferences window.

Mail can also check for new messages automatically; you can find more on this topic in the “Checking Mail automatically” section, later in this chapter.

If you do have new mail in the active account, it appears in the Message list. As you can see in Figure 2-3, new unread messages appear marked with a snazzy blue dot in the first column. The number of unread messages is displayed next to the Inbox folder icon in the Mailboxes list.

Mail also displays the number of new messages that you’ve received on its Dock icon. If you’ve hidden the Mail window or sent it to the Dock, you can perform a quick visual check for new mail just by glancing at the Dock.

Reading and deleting your messages

To read any message in the message list, you can either click the desired entry (which displays the contents of the message in the preview pane) or you can double-click the entry to open the message in a separate message window, complete with its own toolbar controls.

To quickly scan your mail, click the first message that you want to view in the list and then press the down-arrow key when you’re ready to move to the next message. Mail displays the content of each message in the preview pane. To display the previous message in the list, press the up-arrow key.

Mail also allows you to read your messages grouped within threads. A thread contains an original message and all related replies, which makes it easy to follow the flow of an e-mail discussion (without bouncing around within your Inbox, searching for the next message in the conversation). Choose View⇒Organize by Thread, and the replies in the current folder are all grouped under the original messages and sorted by date. To expand a thread, click the original message to select it; then press the right-arrow key (or choose View⇒Expand All Threads). To collapse a thread, select the original message and press the left-arrow key (or choose View⇒Collapse All Threads).

Hey, why not let Mail read you your mail? (That is, if you can drive and listen to your MacBook speak at the same time!) Simply select one message or a group of messages and then choose Edit⇒Speech⇒Start Speaking. Wowsers!

To delete a message from the message list, click the desired entry to select it and then click the Delete button on the toolbar (or press the Del key). To delete a message from within a message window, click the Delete button on the toolbar.

Replying to mail

What? Aunt Harriet sent you a message because she’s forgotten where she parked her car last night? If you happen to know where her priceless ’78 Pinto is, you can reply to her and save her the trouble of retracing her steps.

If Aunt Harriet isn’t in your Address Book yet, this is a good time to add her. With the message entry selected in the list, choose Message⇒Add Sender to Address Book or just press the convenient Ô+Shift+Y keyboard shortcut. The person’s name and e-mail address are added automatically to your Address Book. To add more information in the Address Book, however, you have to open that application separately. (Read through Book I, Chapter 6 for the skinny on the Address Book.)

To reply to a message in Mail, follow these steps:

1. To respond to a message from the message list, click the desired message entry and then click the Reply button on the toolbar.

To respond to a message that you’ve opened in a message window, click the Reply button on the toolbar for the message window.

If a message was addressed not just to you but also to a number of different people, you can send your reply to all of them. Instead of clicking the Reply button, click the Reply All button on the Mail window toolbar. (This is a great way to quickly facilitate a festive gathering, if you get my drift.)

You can also add carbon copies of your message to other new recipients, expanding the party exponentially; more on carbon copies later, in the section “Raise the Little Flag: Sending E-Mail.”

Mail opens the Reply window that you see in Figure 2-4. Note that the address has been added automatically and that the default Subject is Re: <the original subject>. Mail automatically adds a separator line in the message body field that reads On <day><date>at<time>, <addressee> wrote:, followed by the text of the original message; this is done so that the addressee can remember what the heck he or she wrote in the first place to get you so happy/sad/angry/indifferent. The original text is indented and prefaced by a vertical line to set it apart. If you like, you can click in the Subject line and change the default subject line; otherwise, the cursor is already sitting on the first line of the text box, so you can simply start typing your reply.

To choose the text from the original message that you want to include in a reply, select the desired text in the original message before you click the Reply button.

2. After you complete typing your reply, you can select text in the message body and apply different fonts or formats.

To change your reply’s formatting, click the Fonts button on the message window toolbar. From the window that appears, you can choose the font family, the type size, and formatting (such as italic or bold) for the selected text. Click the Close button on the Fonts window to continue. (If you like menus, you can also choose Format from the menu and make changes from there.)

To apply color to the selected text, click the Colors button on the message window toolbar and then click anywhere in the color wheel that appears to select that color. You can also vary the hue by moving the slider bar at the right of the Colors window. After you find the color that expresses your inner passion, click the Close button on the Colors window to continue.

To create a bulleted list in your reply, click Format⇒Lists and choose either a bulleted or a numbered list. Mail thoughtfully prepares your first bullet item for you. Press Return to add another bullet item. Click outside the bullet formatting to complete the list.

Care to chat directly with the recipients of your message? Just click the Chat button on the toolbar, and Mail automatically opens iChat and attempts to connect! (Note that this will work only with the recipients who have an instant messaging address in their Address Book card.) This Chat feature also appears on the New Message window toolbar, which I discuss in a page or two.

3. To add an attachment, click the Attach button on the toolbar.

Mail displays a familiar Open dialog. Navigate to the to-be-attached file, select it, and click the Open button to add it to the message. (More on attachments in the “Attachments on Parade” section, later in this chapter) If the recipient is running Windows, make sure the Send Windows-Friendly Attachments check box is enabled — this results in a slightly larger e-mail message size but helps ensure that PC e-mail programs, such as Outlook and Outlook Express, can correctly open your attachments.

Because most folks end up sending photos through e-mail, Apple includes a Photo Browser button on the toolbar. Click this button on the Reply or New Message window toolbars and you can choose a photo from your iPhoto library to insert directly into your message. Heck, you can even take a quick candid shot using Photo Booth! Naturally, your Mac will need an iSight camera (or other compatible video camera) to use the Photo Booth feature.

4. When you’re ready to send your reply, you have two options. You can click the Send button to immediately add the message to your Outbox folder or you can click the Save as Draft button to store it in your Drafts folder for later editing.

After a message is moved to the Outbox folder, it’s sent either immediately or at the next connection time that you specify in Mail Preferences (more on this in the section “Checking Mail automatically,” later in the chapter). However, saving the message to your Drafts folder doesn’t send it. Read the following section for the skinny on how to send a message stored in your Drafts folder.

When you reply to a message, you can also forward your reply to another person (instead of the original sender). The new addressee receives a message containing both the text of the original message that you received and your reply. To forward a message, click the Forward button on the Mail toolbar instead of Reply or Reply to All.

If you don’t want to include the text of the original message in a reply, choose Mail⇒Preferences. Click the Composing button and disable the Quote the Text of the Original Message check box.

By default, Mail checks your spelling while you type and also underlines any words that it doesn’t recognize. (Very Microsoftian.) I personally like this feature, but if you find it irritating, you can turn it off or set Mail to check the spelling just once (when you click Send). Just choose Mail⇒Preferences, click Composing, and click the Check Spelling as I Type pop-up menu to choose the desired option.

Raise the Little Flag: Sending E-Mail

To compose and send a new message to someone, follow these steps:

1. Click the New Message button on the Mail toolbar or choose File⇒New Message (or avail yourself of the handy Ô+N keyboard shortcut).

Mail opens the New Message window that you see in Figure 2-5.

2. Enter the recipient’s (To) address by

• Typing it in directly.

• Pasting it in after copying it to the Clipboard.

• Dragging an e-mail address from your Address Book.

or

• (My favorite) Clicking the Address toolbar button, which shows you the scaled-down version of the Address Book (the Addresses window) that you see in Figure 2-6.

Figure 2-5: An empty Mail message, waiting to be filled.

Figure 2-6:Select an e-mail address from your Address Book.

From the Addresses window, click the address that you want to use and then click the To button. To pick multiple recipients, hold down the Ô key while you click the multiple addresses. Click the Close button on the Addresses window to close it; then, press Tab.

If you have a huge number of entries in your Address Book, use the Search field on the Addresses window toolbar, which operates just like the Finder window Search box.

3. When Mail highlights the Cc field (the spot where you can send optional carbon copies of the message to additional recipients), you can type the addresses directly, use the contents of the Clipboard, or display the Addresses window.

If you use the Addresses window, select the addresses that you want to use and click the Cc button. Then click the Close button on the Addresses window and press Tab.

Looking for the Blind Carbon Copy (Bcc) field? To display it, choose View⇒Bcc Address Field. (A blind carbon copy is a message sent to multiple recipients, just like a regular carbon copy, but the recipients aren’t listed when the message is displayed — that way, the other recipients don’t know who else got a copy of the message.) You can also click the small Field Display pop-up menu at the left side of the Subject field to toggle the display of the Bcc Address Field. Oh, and there’s also a Bcc button on the Addresses window — go figure.

4. In the Subject field, enter the subject of the message and then press Tab.

Your text cursor now rests in the first line of the message text box — type, my friend, type like the wind! It’s considered good form to keep this line short and relatively to the point.

5. Click the Show Stationery button on the toolbar to display the Stationary strip above the message text box (as shown in Figure 2-7), where you can choose one of many backgrounds that Apple supplies.

Stationery isn’t required, but it really packs a visual wallop! Double-click a thumbnail in the strip to add it to your message; to display a different category of stationery, such as a Greeting or Invitation, click the category buttons on the left side of the Stationery strip.

This one will really knock your socks off: If you choose a Photo stationery background for your new message, you can even drag an image from the Photo Browser, the iPhoto window, or a Finder window to fill the “placeholder” images on the background. (Which, when you think about it, kind of makes sense . . . after all, why send an e-mail from sunny Italy that has stock photos of a strange couple at the top? Add your own travel shots instead!) Figure 2-7 illustrates a Photo stationery background.

Figure 2-7: Adding visual impact to my e-mail message with a Photo stationery background.

Not all e-mail applications on other computers correctly display a message with a stationery background. For the whole scoop, see the “Hey, what does MIME mean?” sidebar, earlier in this chapter. Also, remember that a message with a stationery background is going to be much larger than a simple text message, especially if it contains a number of photos. (And, as you guessed, that also means that it takes longer to send and receive, which is very important for those using a dial-up analog modem connection.)

6. After you type your message, select any of the text that you’ve entered and use the toolbar features I describe in the earlier section “Replying to mail” to apply different fonts or formatting.

Click the Fonts button in the message window toolbar to open a window of formatting choices. (Click its Close button to continue.) If you like menus, you can also click Format and make changes from there.

7. Add color to any selected text, if you like.

Just click the Colors button in the message window toolbar and make choices in the Snow Leopard Color Picker that appears; when the hue is perfect, click the Close button on the Colors window to continue.

8. To add an attachment, click the Attach button on the toolbar, navigate to the to-be-attached file in the dialog that appears, select the file, and then click Open to add it to the message.

Remember, if you’d like to include photos in your message, just click the Photo Browser toolbar button to select images from your iPhoto library, or take a photo with Photo Booth.

9. When your new message is ready to post, either click the Send button to immediately add the message to your Out folder or click the Save as Draft button to store it in your Drafts folder (without actually sending it).

To send a message held in your Drafts folder, click the Drafts folder in the Drawer to display all draft messages. Double-click the message that you want to send, which displays the message window (you can make edits at this point, if you like) and then click the Send button on the message window toolbar.

If you don’t have access to an Internet connection at the moment, Mail allows you to work offline. This way, you can read your unread messages and compose new ones on the road to send later. After you regain your Internet connection, you might need to choose Mailbox⇒Go Online (depending on the connection type).

What? You Get Junk Mail, Too?

Spam — it’s the Crawling Crud of the Internet, and I hereby send out a lifetime of bad karma to those who spew it. However, chucking the First Amendment is not an option, so I guess we’ll always have junk mail. (Come to think of it, my paper mailbox is just as full of the stuff.)

Thankfully, Apple Mail has a net that you can cast to collect junk mail before you have to read it. The two methods of handling junk mail are

♦ Manually: You can mark any message in the message list as Junk Mail. Select the unwanted flotsam in the message list and then click the Junk button on the Mail window toolbar, which marks the message, as shown in Figure 2-8. (Ocean-front property in Kansas . . . yeah, right.) If a message is mistakenly marked as junk but you actually want it, display the message in the preview box and then click the Not Junk button at the top of the preview box.

♦ Automatically: Apple Mail has a sophisticated Junk Mail filter that you actually train to better recognize what’s junk. (Keep reading to discover how.) After you train Mail to recognize spam with a high degree of accuracy, turn it to full Automatic mode, and it moves all those worthless messages to your Junk folder.

You customize and train the Junk Mail filter from the Preferences dialog (available from your trusty Mail menu); click Junk Mail to show the settings. I recommend that you first try Mail in Training mode, using the Mark as Junk Mail, But Leave It in My Inbox option. Junk Mail then takes its best shot at determining what’s junk. When you receive more mail and mark more messages as junk (or mark them as not junk), you’re actually teaching the Junk Mail feature how to winnow the wheat from the chaff. In Training mode, junk messages aren’t actually moved anywhere — they’re just marked with a particularly fitting, grungy brown color.

Figure 2-8: “Be gone, sludge demons of Junk Mail!”

After you’re satisfied that the Junk Mail filter is catching just about everything that it can, display the Mail preferences again and choose the Move It to the Junk Mailbox option. Mail creates a Junk folder and prompts you for permission to move all junk messages to this folder. After you review everything in the Junk folder, you can delete what it contains and send it to the Trash folder. To save a message from junkdom, click the Not Junk button in the preview window and then drag the message from the Junk folder message list to the desired folder in the Drawer.

Finally, you can create a complete set of custom rules for your Junk Mail filtering by clicking Perform Custom Actions — the Advanced button displays your Junk Mail rule set and allows you to edit your rules. I explain rules in more depth at the end of this chapter.

If you don’t receive a lot of spam — or you want to be absolutely sure that nothing gets labeled as junk until you review it — click the Enable Junk Mail Filtering check box to disable it. (And good luck.)

By default, Mail exempts certain messages from Junk Mail status based on three criteria: if the sender is in your Address Book, if you’ve sent the sender a message in the past, or if the message is addressed to you with your full name. To tighten up your Junk Mail filtering to the max, you might want to disable these check boxes as well.

To reset the Junk Mail filter and erase any training that you’ve done, visit the Junk Mail settings in Preferences again and click Reset. Then click the Yes button to confirm your choice.

Attachments on Parade

Attachments are a fun way to transfer files through e-mail. However, it’s imperative that you remember these three very important caveats:

♦ Attachments can contain viruses. Even a message attachment that was actually sent by your best friend can contain a virus or malevolent macro — either because your friend unwittingly passed one along or because the virus actually took control of your friend’s e-mail application and replicated itself automatically. (Ugh.)

♦ Corpulent attachments don’t make it. Most corporate and ISP mail servers have a 2–4MB limit for the total size of a message, and the attachments (and any Photo stationery background you might have added) count toward that final message size. Therefore, I recommend sending a file as an attachment only if it’s less than 2MB (or perhaps 3MB) in size. If the recipient’s e-mail server sends you an automated message saying that the message was refused because it was too big, this is the problem.

♦ Not all e-mail applications and firewalls accept attachments. Not all e-mail programs support attachments in the same way, and others are simply set for pure text messages. Some corporate firewalls even reject messages with attachments. If the message recipient gets the message text but not the attachment, these are the likely reasons.

With all that said, it’s back to attachments as a beneficial feature. Follow these steps to save an attachment that you receive:

1. Click the message with an attachment in your message list.

Having trouble determining which messages have attachments? Choose View⇒Columns and then click the Attachments item from the submenu that appears to toggle it on. Now messages with attachments appear with a tiny paper-clip icon in the entry.

If Mail recognizes the attachment format, it displays or plays the attachment in the body of the message; if not, the attachment is displayed as a file icon.

2. To open an attachment that’s displayed as a file icon, click the file icon and then choose Open Attachment from the pop-up menu that appears.

If you know what application should be used to open the attachment, click the Open With button and choose the correct application from the submenu that appears.

3. To save an attachment, right-click the attachment (however it appears in the message) and then choose Save Attachment from the pop-up menu.

In the Save dialog that appears, navigate to the location where you want to save the file and then click Save.

Fine-Tuning Your Post Office

As is all other Apple software, Mail is easily customized to your liking. In this section, I discuss some of the preferences that you might want to change.

Adding sound

To choose a sound that plays whenever you receive new mail, choose Mail⇒Preferences and click the General button. Either click the New Messages Sound pop-up menu and choose one of the sounds that Apple provides or choose Add/Remove from the pop-up menu to choose a sound file from the Sounds folder (which, in turn, is located within your Library folder). Choose None from the pop-up menu to disable the new mail sound altogether.

Checking Mail automatically

By default, Mail automatically checks for new mail (and sends any mail in your Out folder) every five minutes. To change this delay period, display the General pane in the Preferences dialog, choose the Check for New Messages pop-up menu, and then choose one of the time periods. To disable automatic mail checking, choose Manually; you can click the Get Mail toolbar button to manually check your mail any time you like. (For example, those folks using dial-up analog modem connections may not fancy Mail taking control of the telephone line every 5 minutes.)

Automating junk mail and message deletion

If you like, Mail can be set to automatically delete sent mail and Junk messages (as well as permanently erase messages that you relegate to the Trash). To configure these settings, display the Accounts pane in the Preferences window, click the desired account, and then click the Mailboxes Behaviors tab.

To delete Sent messages automatically, click the Delete Sent Messages When pop-up menu and choose the delay period or action. You can choose to delete mail after a day, a week, a month, or immediately upon quitting Mail. Alternatively, you can leave this field set to Never, and Mail never automatically deletes any messages from the Sent folder.

To delete Junk messages automatically, click the Delete Junk Messages When pop-up menu and choose the delay period or action. (They’re the same as the options available for Sent mail.)

To delete messages from the Trash, click the Permanently Erase Deleted Messages When pop-up menu and choose the delay period or action — again, the choices are the same as those for Sent messages.

Adding signatures

To add a block of text or a graphic to the bottom of your messages as your personal signature, follow these steps:

1. Choose Mail⇒Preferences and click the Signatures button.

2. From the Signatures pane that appears, click the Add Signature button (which carries a plus sign).

3. Click the signature name to open an edit box and then type an identifying name.

Press Return to save the new name.

4. Click inside the text entry box at the right to move the cursor.

5. Type the signature itself in the text entry box or copy the signature to the Clipboard and paste it into the text entry box.

Because downloading a graphic in a signature takes longer — and because some folks still use plain-text e-mail — avoid the temptation to include graphics in your signature.

6. If you have multiple signatures, click the Choose Signature pop-up menu to choose which one you want to use or to use them all randomly or in sequence.

If you prefer the signature to appear above the quoted text in a reply, select the Place Signature above Quoted Text check box.

Changing the status of an account

Sometimes you can’t reach one of your accounts. For example, maybe you’re on the road with your laptop and you can’t access your office network. Apple Mail allows you to enable and disable specific accounts without the hassle of deleting an account and then having to add it again.

To disable or enable an account, open the Preferences dialog, click the Accounts button, click the desired account, click the Advanced tab, and then select (or deselect) the Enable This Account check box as necessary.

If you disable an account, you should also deselect the Include When Automatically Checking for New Mail check box to make sure that Mail doesn’t display an error message. You can always check any account for new mail by choosing Mailbox⇒Get New Mail and then choosing the desired account name from the submenu.

Automating Your Mail with Rules

Before I leave the beautiful shores of Mail Island, I’d be remiss if I didn’t discuss one of its most powerful features: the ability to create rules, which are automated actions that Mail can take. With rules, you can specify criteria that can perform actions such as

♦ Transferring messages from one folder to another

♦ Forwarding messages to another address

♦ Highlighting or deleting messages

To set up a rule, follow these steps:

1. Choose Mail⇒Preferences and then click the Rules button on the toolbar.

Mail displays the Rules pane.

2. To duplicate an existing rule, highlight it in the list and then click the Duplicate button. (For this demonstration, however, create a rule from scratch by clicking the Add Rule button.)

3. In the Description field, type a descriptive name for the new rule and then press Tab to move to the next field.

4. Click the If pop-up menu to specify whether the rule is triggered if any of the conditions are met or if all conditions must be met.

5. Because each rule requires at least one condition, click the target pop-up menus to set the target for the condition.

These include whom the message is from or to, which account received the message, whether the message is marked as junk, and whether the message contains certain content. Select the target for the condition.

6. Click the Criteria pop-up menu to choose the rule’s criteria.

The contents of this pop-up menu change depending on the condition’s target. For example, if you choose From as the target, the criteria include Contains, Does Not Contain, Begins With, and so forth.

7. Click in the expression box and type the text to use for the condition.

For example, a completed condition might read

Subject Contains Ocean-Front

This particular condition is true if I get an e-mail message with a subject that contains the string Ocean-Front.

8. Add more conditions by clicking the plus sign button at the right of the first condition.

To remove any condition from this rule, click the minus sign button next to it. Remember, however, that every rule needs at least one condition.

9. To specify what action is taken after the condition (or conditions) is met, click the first Perform the Following Actions pop-up menu to see the action that this rule should perform. Then click the second pop-up menu and select the action for the rule.

Choices include transferring a message from one folder to another, playing a sound, automatically forwarding the message, deleting it, and marking it as read.

Each rule requires at least one action.

10. Depending on the action that you select, specify one or more criteria for the action.

For instance, if I select Set Color as my action, I must then choose whether to color the text or the background as well as what color to use.

As with the plus button next to the conditions, you can also click the plus button next to the first action to perform more than one action. To remove an action, click the minus button next to it.

11. When the rule is complete, click OK to save it.

Here’s an example of a complex rule:

If the message was sent by someone in my Address Book and the Subject field contains the text FORWARD ME, forward the message to the e-mail address fuadramses@me.com.

This is a good example of an automated forwarding rule. With this rule in place and Mail running on Mac OS X, any of my friends, family, or co-workers can forward urgent e-mail to my MobileMe account while I’m on vacation. To trigger the rule, all the sender has to do is include the words FORWARD ME in the message subject. And if the sender isn’t in my Address Book, the rule doesn’t trigger, and I can read the message when I get home. Mondo sassy.

Each rule in the Rules dialog can be enabled or disabled by toggling the Active check box next to the rule. You can also edit a rule by selecting it in the Rules pane and then clicking the Edit button. To delete a rule completely from the list, select it and then click the Remove button; Mail prompts you for confirmation before the deed is done.

If you decide to create a custom Junk mail processing rule, the process is the same, but you get to it from a different place. Click the Junk Mail button on the Preferences dialog toolbar and click the Perform Custom Actions radio button to select it. You see that the Advanced button is now enabled — click it and you can set up the custom Junk mail rules that handle stuff from any conceivable junk mail source!