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How Mavericks ruined Apple Mail for Gmail users
Sorry, Mail. My fledging relationship with you was just killed thanks to OS X Mavericks. TidBITS confirmed what I suspected the first time I launched Apple Mail after upgrading to Mavericks on Tuesday -- Gmail and Apple Mail are no longer friends. It was always a tenuous relationship to begin with. As writer Joe Kissell pointed out, you had to do a bit of a runaround to bring Gmail onto your Mac without hogging your entire hard drive. But now Apple Mail is trying to act like Gmail, and in the process is running into numerous syncing issues, ballooning the size of your mailbox and forcing you to activate Gmail's "All Mail" on Apple Mail, lest you want to see your messages constantly reappear in your inbox. While I managed to escape Kissell's issue of having all three of my Gmail accounts download everything again, my smart mailboxes proceeded to break. It kept telling me I had numerous unread messages, but nothing was showing in the mailbox. In the screencap above, you can see the smart mailbox selected but nothing in the mailbox itself. When I checked the rules for that smart mailbox, it had a lot of blank rules that weren't there before. I deleted them, but the smart mailbox still didn't work. Your best solution for now? If you're a huge Gmail user on the Mac, it's worth checking into a third-party client, such as Sparrow, Postbox or Mailplane. I've gone back to the standard web client for Gmail for now, until I can try the beta of Mail Pilot. Sorry, Mail, our brief fling is over. Are you guys seeing issues with Apple Mail in Mavericks? Let us know in the comments.
New Apple patents for iPhone, wide trackpad, Final Cut Pro, and Apple Mail
Patently Apple's got a whole slew of new patent applications from Cupertino today. First up are the actual product designs of the original iPhone and the second-gen iPod shuffle. Apple's moved on from both of these designs to newer and better things, but they're putting the patents in anyway, just in case anyone wants to rip off the rounded iPhone edges or the little shuffle's clip design. There are also two MacBook patents: one for the latch holding the battery in, and another one for an extremely wide trackpad that creates a touchable surface all the way across the bottom of the notebook. I like that idea -- I guess Apple hasn't yet figured out a way to put a touchpad in there without getting in the way of the hard drive, the battery, or whatever else is already in that space, but that's an innovation we could see in a future revision. Finally, Final Cut Pro's scripting engine has gotten a patent application, and there are also two Apple Mail-related patents, for filtering and processing certain email messages. Nothing super groundbreaking, but Apple continues to leave its mark on as many types of computer innovation as it can.
Where's the beep in Apple Mail?
Grazing the Web over the last few days, I came upon a MacFixit piece on trying to get around the Apple mail sound bug. If you're a Mail user, there's a good chance you have run into it. Incoming mail fails to sound a beep, so you finally get a look at mail and see dozens of emails have come in while the Mac remains mute. I complained about this more than a year ago, but still nothing from Apple. There have been dozens of articles talking about this, and the Apple support boards reflect a lot of users that are unhappy about the issue. I think the bug was introduced more than five years ago on OS X, and it remains broken and ignored by Apple. On the Apple boards, the complaints go back many years and are as recent as last week. I've tried several of the suggested fixes, but they never work; I'm not interested in a work around, I want it to work as designed. It's hard to believe that the same company that created a new cell phone that changed the world can't get a simple beep working. I have the issue on both my Macs, and everyone I know has similar issues. My POP mail accounts work fine, but MobileMe has the issue, and I'm told other IMAP accounts are similarly plagued. Mysteriously, it works fine for some folks. Come on, Apple -- think different about this and get mail sounds working.
Apple post server-related updates for Xsan and Mail Services
Apple yesterday posted a few new server-related updates for Xsan and Mac OS X Server. The first, Xsan 2.2.1, improves file system reliability and cvfsck repair utility. This update is available for Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard and Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard. There's also an updated version of the Xsan uninstaller. Next, Mail Services Update 1.0 addresses issues affecting overall mail service reliability and performance. This update is available and recommend for all users on Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard. These updates are available in Software Update, or from Apple's Support Downloads page.
Tired of those winmail.dat files? Letter Opener 3 can help
If there's anything that drives Mac users into a frenzy, it's those winmail.dat files that can show up in Apple Mail when they receive email from colleagues or friends using Microsoft Outlook. Winmail.dat files can either files that are attached to the message, or they can contain information such as embedded documents, meeting requests, address card info, notes, or forwarded messages sent as attachments. Regardless of the content, they're just plain annoying on the Mac. restoroot, a Mac development firm out of Millstatt, Austria, has the solution for you. Letter Opener 3 (€19.99 or €9.99 upgrade for version 2.0 owners) is an Apple Mail plugin that can ease winmail.dat frustrations. Letter Opener has been recently updated for compatibility with Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, and it can: Convert Outlook schedules, appointments, and tasks to iCal Convert Outlook contacts to Address Book Open nested messages in winmail.dat files Translate notes from Outlook Let you read delivery status and read receipt messages Especially for Mac users who are the "lone rangers" in a Windows environment, Letter Opener 3 can make life a little bit smoother. It's great to see that this plugin has been made compatible with Snow Leopard.
MsgFiler 2.0.3: Improvements to an old favorite
Adam Tow's MsgFiler plug-in for Mail.app has been a favorite of many Mac users since it was first released in 2006. In the succinct words of Mr. Tow:"MsgFiler is a plug-in for Apple Mail which quickly files emails into existing mailbox folders. MsgFiler's fast searching means you just have to type a few characters to find the right mailbox. Move selected messages with a click or open a mailbox without having to navigate the mailbox folder pane. MsgFiler is optimized for keyboard-only usage, perfect for Apple Mail power users."Version 2.0.3 has just arrived on the scene, with a new installer app and refinement of the interface being the two big changes. MsgFiler now works properly on HFS+ Case-Sensitve partitions and ignores mailbox directories, and Adam has added a new "Hide mailboxes from inactive and offline accounts" feature for the proverbial icing on the cake.MsgFiler is shareware ($8) and is available from the tow.com web site, Version Tracker, and other shareware distribution sites.
Mail Unread Menu 3.1
We've all been there: you have the Dock set to auto hide and you miss the Mail.app notification telling you there's new mail. Well, don't miss that presidential e-mail again with Mail Unread Menu. This little app sits in your menu bar awaiting your e-mail.This menu bar application can replace right-clicking on the Mail.app icon in the dock. You can check for new mail, compose a new message, and view the new messages broken down by mail boxes. This application did, however, seem a bit laggy in updating the unread mail count. You can download Mail Unread Menu 3.1 for free (donations accepted) by visiting the developer's website.
Two new eBooks focus on Apple's Mail.app
Take Control Books, the digital delivery brainchild of long-time Mac authors Adam and Tonya Engst, has announced the publication of two new ebooks in their Take Control series. Author Joe Kissell has written a 95-page tome titled Take Control of Apple Mail in Leopard that describes the 14 new features in the latest version of Apple Mail, details how to use its hidden power, and provides troubleshooting tips in case things don't work just the way they should. Joe's companion ebook, Take Control of Spam with Apple Mail, helps you to keep the wave of ED pharmaceutical ads in your inbox to a minimum.The ebooks are $10 each and are downloaded immediately for your reading pleasure. In the interest of full disclosure, I have authored two Take Control eBooks -- not this particular pair, though.
MailSteward archiving app for just $34.95 at MacZOT today only
After I realized that I needed to find a way to archive and search the healthy amount of email I deal with in Apple Mail these days, I finally decided on MailSteward. There are indeed a number of email archiving options available (and Hawk Wing's list is probably still as good as any), but MailSteward's powerful array of features and ability to search the archives it creates won me over.If you're looking for a similar solution and MailSteward just might be it, today is a great day to make the jump: software discount site MacZOT is offering the MailSteward for just $34.95. That's a savings of 30% off its normal price of $50, so it's a good opportunity to finally get into the habit of archiving all that mail that you can't entirely delete just yet.
MiniMail: iTunes' mini window makes it to Mail
A while ago, Derek Powazek proposed an idea for a mini Mail window based on the functionality of iTunes' mini option; hit the best fit button - the green one - in iTunes to get an idea, or simply check out Derek's post for an actual screenshot mockup of the concept. Fortunately, John Gruber just caught that OliveToast software literally ran with the concept, releasing - to my absolute delight - a MiniMail plug-in for Apple Mail.As you can see, MiniMail allows users to simply hit Mail's best fit button (or choosing Window > Zoom) to condense it to a 'just what you need' view, offering a customizable preview area and three menu buttons for performing a healthy set of operations. Fortunately, keyboard shortcuts still work fine as well, so ???-n will create a new message. Even using the arrow keys works for moving back and forth in the message list, and thankfully, the list of mailboxes is customizable for this view as well so you can see just what you need.After a few minutes of tinkering with the demo while writing this post, I'm happy to say that the receipt for my $9 license just arrived. MiniMail rocks, and I'm so glad someone brought Powazek's concept to life, as this is the perfect compromise that I've been looking for between constantly hiding and showing Mail while still making it easy to do basic things in it on the fly. Thanks, OliveToast software.
TUAW Tip: Names for .Mac aliases sync to Apple Mail
One of my most significant gripes with .Mac has been in relation to a seemingly minor feature, but one that is (in my experience) fairly unique to Apple's struggling web service: email aliases. When I discovered .Mac a few years ago, I immediately fell in love with the ability to create alternative email addresses that still funnel into one inbox; one address for email lists I'm subscribed to, another for shopping online, etc. These .Mac aliases make it incredibly easy to filter email (for example: a rule that says "move all messages sent to [this address] to [that folder]"), and they also act as a safety net because if one gets caught by a spam bot, it can easily be deleted and replaced with a new one with barely a few clicks in the .Mac mail preferences pane. I also prefer the way .Mac aliases work to Gmail's, because they can be truly unique names: shopping@mac.com can be an alias for steve@mac.com, while Gmail is limited by a username+alias@gmail.com format, allowing any person or bot familiar with Gmail to easily scrape out one's true address.However, my gripe with this wonderful alias feature is that, at least early on, you couldn't apply actual names to any of these aliases; they would simply appear in people's inboxes as being from AliasName@mac.com. Once .Mac introduced the ability to name these aliases some time ago, they were still handicapped by the fact that the names you apply to aliases wouldn't sync down to Apple Mail, and sending email from those aliases would not take on the names you applied. Again, an admittedly minor gripe over an obscure feature, but there are a number of reasons this name + alias thing can be incredibly useful, not the least of which is a professional appearance when corresponding with clients and businesses, as well as simply allowing people to know who you are when you reply to email lists and the like.But the time for griping about minor details that make a big difference in .Mac aliases has been officially retired, for sometime since that big .Mac webmail upgrade last October that we reviewed, Apple Mail has been endowed with the magical goodness necessary to synchronize the names you apply to your aliases. Like I said, I haven't touched my .Mac email in a while for various reasons (this alias issue being one) so I didn't catch it earlier, but after tinkering with it this morning I noticed that Mail was suddenly displaying a few of the names I had given to my aliases (pulldown menu pictured above on right). This should be fantastic news to any .Mac members (or potential members) interested in leveraging the incredibly handy powers of this alias feature. It might take a synchronization or two for Apple Mail to pull down any of the names you apply in the .Mac mail preference pane, but you too can enjoy the wonders of flexible, secure and (if need be) anonymous emailing both online and - finally - with the integrated goodness of Apple's desktop email client.
iGTD 1.4.5: Again with the landslide of new features
It's official: I am developing my own version system to keep track of iGTD updates, because this 1.x.x thing is just not right. The way I see it, this new iGTD v1.4.5 should really be called v3.5, what with yet another batch of major new features being introduced. Included in this update is F-key integration with PathFinder, Yojimbo and MacJournal (so you can send items from these apps to iGTD for task tracking), a Quick Tags feature that allows you to bind tags to shortcuts like Alt + 1 - 9 and a killer new feature that integrates with an Apple Mail rule. Once set up, this rule allows you to email yourself with a subject like "todo: @work spike the water cooler" and Mail will send it on over to iGTD automatically. For anyone who works in an office and away from their Mac at home, this is a killer way to make actual use out of all those todo emails you send yourself all day.Of course, I don't even need to tell you that there are more features in this update. By now it's become par for the course that an iGTD update brings tons of other enhancements, new tricks and bug fixes, so head on over to Bartlomiej Bargiel's announcement blog post to get the full details. To get the new version, simply start up iGTD or head up to the application menu and chose Check for Updates, or simply visit the iGTD downloads page and click the Current Release link to make sure you get the most up-to-date version.
TUAW Tip: Address Book offers a lot of handy contact management
Address Book is one of Apple's apps that might seem too basic at first glance to many a user. While this under-appreciation could largely be due to its unassuming name, Address Book offers a surprising amount of useful features, especially in the contact management department. Of course, there are the typical Apple-esque Smart Groups which you can use to automatically and dynamically round up contacts based on any criteria you want (family last names, employers or even notes you add yourself), but check out the Card menu in Address Book and note two options: Merge Selected Cards and (my personal favorite since I play with way too much synching software in the name of TUAW and Download Squad) Look for Duplicate Entries. Those are two great tools for ensuring your contacts only take up one entry each in Address Book (if you only want one entry for each, that is), and I highly recommend using Look for Duplicate Entries if things get out of hand, as it's saved me countless hours after botched synching sessions and wayward synching software had their way with my contacts. Importing new contacts cards (usually .VCF files) is nothing very special, but Address Book is pretty smart when you import a card for someone already in you contacts list. Typically, Address Book will catch the potential duplication and offer you four options for managing both the old and new cards. A window will be presented with four buttons along the bottom: Keep Old, Keep New, Keep Both and Update, allowing you to ensure that you don't blow away old data you want to keep for the contact while importing anything new you might need. Combine some of these tricks and tools with the Mail + Address Book tips Merlin Mann wrote about back in April, and you have some pretty powerful tools for managing your contacts and organizing the correspondence you have with them.
MailTags 2.0 leaves beta, goes official
Scott Morrison's fantastic MailTags 2.0 is hands-down the best (and not because it is the only) plug-in that brings the wonders of tagging and iCal integration to Apple Mail. We've mentioned it plenty of times here on TUAW, and with good reason: Scott has put this new version of MailTags and its healthy dose of new features through a rigorous beta testing period, and tonight the plug-in makes that coveted leap from 'beta' to 'official release.' While Scott pops some well-deserved bubbly to celebrate his hard work, check out this list of tasty features designed for those who need more from an integrated desktop email client: IMAP support - sync your tags over IMAP servers and use them to keep your mail organized and synced across any Mac you have MailTags installed on A much-improved integrated interface for viewing and editing tags The ability to view tags in Mail's List view (an extra, optional column to let you know a message is tagged) Dynamic coloring of messages based on project, approaching due dates and priorities Integration with iCal, allowing you to create to dos and events right from Mail Including tags in your outbound messages for other MailTags users Better integration with Mail's search tools, allowing you to specify searching only for message tags, projects or even notes you've applied with MailTags (in addition to Mail's default criteria of Entire Message, From, To, etc.) Better integration with Mail's smart mailboxes Applescript compatibility I've been a happy user of MailTags 2.0 since it the early days of the beta, and I tip my hat to Scott for releasing such a great product. You can grab your own demo that runs for 21 days, while a license costs $29.95, with educational and volume discounts available upon requests.
Apple Mail plug-in roundup
Since I solved a number of the issues plaguing my Mail account setup - including a workaround to kinda use Gmail over IMAP (more on that soon) - I have sunk my teeth back into Apple's excellent email client. Now I'm pretty happy with using a few plug-ins like Scott Morrison's stellar MailTags 2 and Stefan Schüßler's Mail.appetizer (which we have previously mentioned at length here and here), though I am continually surprised by the number of plug-ins that endow Mail with everything from better support for Windows Office attachments, to creating events from messages and even more fine-toothed Smart Mailboxes for your Address Book contacts. One only needs to run a search for Mail at MacUpdate to see what I'm talking about, but I figured I could round up a few of these plug-ins just to give you an idea.
TUAW Tip: An easier way to email your logs
Since we play around with a lot of pre-release and beta software in the name of you readers, we often have to email logs to developers to help them iron out quirks that help an app get all growed up from alpha to beta and to the big release version. As any of you who have gone through this kind of testing will know, it aint always the easiest process to deal with. Typically, all this emailing involves lots of copy/pasting, file - saving or juggling at least a few files. Fortunately, I just stumbled upon an easy trick that will hopefully make some of our beta testing lives easier. It turns out you can add a Mail button to the Console app, allowing for a one-click process to embed all the text of the current log you're viewing in a new Apple Mail message (not as a file attachment), ripe for firing off to a developer. Either right-click the toolbar, or go to the View menu, and chose Customize Toolbar to find this button.Unfortunately, this appears to only work with Apple Mail; I tried setting both Entourage as my default email app (I know, I cringed when writing that myself) and even the Google Notifier to see if this would work with Gmail. Entourage created a new message, but the log gets fubarred when automatically pasted into the message, and Gmail simply returns a 'Bad Request' error without creating a message at all. I guess I picked a good time to switch back to using the wonderful Mac OS X integratedness of Apple Mail.
Emailing entire Webpages (not just links)
Here's a little-promoted Safari function that you might find useful. Safari offers the ability to send entire webpages via email. This is a nice feature to have on hand when you want to create a web archive using your gmail acccount or when you know the person receiving your mail won't necessarily click on a link. By selecting File -> Mail Contents of the Page (Command-I), Safari copies the page to Apple Mail and allow you to post it to the recipient of your choice. The always excellent how-to site Murphy Mac offers a detailed video tutorial on using this feature, going beyond the menu selection into how to configure options in mail so that the the media attachments can be viewed. I'm also particularly impressed by his excellent choice of webpage material while demonstrating this trick's functionality.
Top 8 reasons Mail.app sucks
It looks like we here at TUAW are not the only ones who aren't thrilled with Mail.app (I, personally, use Entourage but that's a different post entirely).%uFFFD Someone has posted their top 8 reasons Mail.app sucks. They probably could have pushed their way to 10, but top 10 lists are so 'played,' as the kids say.Flaky IMAP support seems to be the biggest complaint though I have yet to use an email client that does IMAP perfectly.
