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43 Folders shares 4.5 ways to master Mail.app
These 4.5 tips aren't ways to help you manage your email more effectively, rather they are ways to get you to stop noticing how much email you are receiving. The thought behind this is that if you aren't worrying about your email you can actually concentrate on the task at hand.Turning off notifications, hiding the Dock, and actually quitting Mail.app are all offered up as ways to help you spend less time in email and more time being productive.
DockStar updated to v1.1
We posted about DockStar last December, but for those who might not remember: it's a simple little app that offers extra badges on the Mail.app dock icon to display unread counts of other mailboxes and folders. This seemingly minimal point update actually packs quite the new feature wallop, including the ability to count mail in subfolders/nested mailboxes, badge opacity control, and the ability to simply display an unread count for all unread messages in every folder/mailbox you have.DockStar costs a mere $8 USD, and its demo lasts for seven days.[via Hawk Wings]
Immediately delete messages from Mail.app with a hotkey
Sure, you can simply hit the delete key in Mail.app to send a message to the Trash, then empty the trash or go in and manually delete the message again to remove it for good. Or, you could use a simple, handy little tip that MacOSXHints tracked down to immediately and permanently delete any message from any folder in Mail.app. You simply need to use the cut command (cmd-x) on any number of messages to permanently remove them from Mail, no Trash middle-man required.Of course, a mild word of caution might be needed here: bypassing the Trash means you're bypassing the trash. That message is gone for good if you use this command, so use it wisely, young Mail.app padawan.[via Hawk Wings]
iPhoto Mailer Patcher hack for iPhoto 5
If you aren't happy with the small selection of email clients that iPhoto 4/5 can export to, Hawk Wings has found a handy little applescript by the name of iPhoto Mailer Patcher that can add quite a few clients to the list. Mailsmith, Outlook Express, PowerMail and more can be set as iPhoto's default email client, with one exception: there's some extra work you'll have to go through to get this to work with iPhoto 5. Fortunately, it isn't hard work, so check out the Hawk Wings post for a short how-to. iPhoto 4 users, however, can skip ahead and simply use the applescript as is.
Pod2go 1.6 released
That beta version of Pod2go we mentioned last year (ok, a month ago) has gone official. The new version boasts a wealth of upgrades to the way it handles lyrics, Mail, iCal information, backup, news and apps, as well as support for multiple iPods. A number of usability enhancements are present as well, such as holding down the option key to change the "Sync" option in the menu bar icon to "Sync and Eject." Check out the lengthy list of release notes to catch up on the massive amount of changes in this unassuming point upgrade.[via Hawk Wings]
Ask TUAW: how to sync between Address Book and Gmail
Hawk Wings has an interesting roundup post covering a number of individuals who are dumping Apple's Mail in the name of Gmail for various reasons. While I've been experimenting with the same thing over the last couple of weeks, I've run into a hangup that I felt worthy of an Ask TUAW post. Since more and more of us are adopting web services for daily operations, I thought y'all might have some thoughts on my situation: I love web services, especially ones like Gmail, but now that I own a Motorola RAZR that can sync contacts and events with OS X, I'm on the hunt for an easy way to keep my contacts synchronized between Address Book and Gmail. I know there are basic export apps that are handy for that initial dump from Address Book to Gmail, but I don't know if using that same method a second time will simply double-up all my Gmail contacts. A two-way solution would be ideal, allowing Address Book, Gmail and my RAZR to dance in perfect geeky harmony.So what say you, TUAW readers? Have any of you found a way to keep all this software in sync?
YAMTT - Yet another Mail theme for Thunderbird
Hawk Wings has tracked down another Mail theme for Thunderbird by the name of TigerMail. While I know we've blogged one before, I can't track it down. From what I remember though, TigerMail is a much more accurate reproduction of the Tiger Mail look and feel. But if Panther Mail's look and feel is more your style, CrossOver might just be the Thunderbird theme for you.
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.
Fix for .Mac sync errors with Mail and random signatures
I recently set Mail on both of my Macs to chose a random signature. From time to time during a .Mac sync, I'll receive an obnoxious sync error claiming that a 'default' signature on one Mac is conflicting with the other. No matter which signature I choose to resolve the conflict, the sync process will lock into a loop, repeatedly offering me a sync error with new choices on either end for resolving the conflict. Obviously, this has lead to an increase of Advil in my regular diet.If you're nodding your head right now, you'll be happy to know we all can cut back on the pain killers. For the first time in a while, I actually received a helpful message from Apple's email support that said something more than "try rebooting." Turns out that, unfortunately, if you enable Mail's random signature feature on one Mac, Mail can't be running on other registered Macs for the first sync after this new feature. I replied to the support rep's email to find out what is up with such an odd quirk, but I didn't receive a very useful answer.Nevertheless, after getting back to square one by resetting my signature data on both Macs, I can verify that this fix works. Hopefully, this issue is on the list of updates coming in 10.4.4.
Give your .Mac aliases a name
I love my .Mac aliases, but Apple really dropped the ball on allowing users to add unique names to each alias in Mail.app. By default, a message from a .Mac alias doesn't have a sender name or anything - the sender is simply the alias itself; kinda ugly if you ask me.Fortunately, MacOSXHints has done it again and discovered that you can simply edit Mail's preference file to add a unique name for each alias. Their post recommends using Property List Editor, but on my PowerBook the file opened in OmniOutliner Pro, which made finding the right part of the file to edit a breeze.No matter how you do it, this simple trick makes those .Mac aliases a bit more valuable and aesthetically pleasing. However, Apple really should listen up here and create an easier way to do this for the typical .Mac customer.
DockStar
We all love the little red badge on Mail.app that tells you how popular you are (ok, it actually tells you how many unread emails you have, but that's the same thing, right?). However, if you have more than one account in Mail the icon is almost useless to you.Enter DockStar, this clever little program allows you to have up to 5 badges, displaying email from 5 different email accounts, in the Mail icon. The best part is that you can pick different colors and shapes for the badges.Thanks to everyone who sent this one in.
Skin Thunderbird with a Mail look
Apparently someone by the name of "Riz" has a love-hate relationship with Apple's Mail, for Riz has gone and created a pretty darn accurate Mail theme for Mozilla's Thunderbird. While I don't have a copy of Thunderbird to test this, it seems the look, feel and most of the icons are all present, offering a bit of a home away from home if you prefer Thunderbird's functionality, yet miss Mail's good looks.[via Hawk Wings]
Useful tech notes for Mail 2.0
Hawk Wings is a blog all about Mail that I'm finding more and more informative every day. A mid-august post I'd like to point you towards rounds up the most useful tech notes Apple has released on the in's and out's of Tiger's shiny new Mail 2.0. Backing up mailboxes and addresses is always a good trick to have up your sleeve, and how to remove unneeded files after importing mail from Panther into Tiger is a must-have for all you upgraders out there. Check out the full post and the rest of the blog for more Mail optimization and customization goodness.
Safari trick: Email url's via the address bar
Here's a cool trick I was unaware of until today. Mac OS X Hints describes how to email a URL from within Safari's address bar. When you're at the website you'd like to share (like, say, this one), replace the address with "mail-link:" (minus the quotes) and hit return. A new message will be created in your default email client, with the site's title as the subject and URL in the body (as if you had selected "Mail Link to This Page" from the File menu). Cool. I've made "mail-link:" into a Safari bookmark, so now it's just a click away.Anyone else know of some cool Safari tricks?[Via MacIT.org]
