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iOS 8 Mail: Drafts and notifications
Here are a couple more cool new features that you can expect to see in iOS 8 Mail. iOS 8 will be available for download on Wednesday, September 17, so checking our series of iOS 8 new feature articles is a good way to get up to speed on what to expect. Have you ever been part way through writing an email and suddenly realized that you need to copy some text from another email? This happens to me all the time, and with iOS 7 and earlier versions, that meant that I had to stop writing, save an email as a draft, find the other email, copy the necessary text, then open the draft and paste it in. iOS 8 speeds up that process a lot. If you're writing an email and suddenly need to go search in the inbox for another email, just grab the top of the email and drag it to the bottom of your screen. The button bar at the bottom will move up just a bit, and the title of your draft appears at the bottom of the display (see image at the top of this post). Now go off and do what you need to do. When you need to get back to your draft, just tap that draft title at the bottom of the page and it takes over the screen again. The next tip is something that I've wanted for a long time -- notification that someone has responded to an email thread. There are a couple of ways to set up notification. First, you can just tap on the "flag" button at the bottom of an email that you're reading. A pop-up menu appears with several choices, one of which is "Notify Me...". Tap that item to select it, and the following button appears: Tapping that button sets up the notification that will arrive in Notification Center whenever someone responds t the thread. The other way to set up notification is to use one of the new swipe gestures covered in another iOS 8 feature post. When you swipe just a little to the left on a message in the Mail inbox, three buttons appear: More, Flag, and Trash. Tap More, and Notify Me... is one of the choices that you can select.
iOS 8 Mail: New swipe gestures
Hopefully you've been keeping track of our iOS 8 feature articles, which provide tips on how to make the most of Apple's latest version of its mobile operating system. iOS 8 will be available on Wednesday, September 17, so it's a good time to start learning about the features of the new OS. In this post, I'm taking a look at iOS 8 Mail and some new swipe gestures that make organization of your emails a lot easier. First up is swipe to right. What this does in your iOS 8 inbox is bring up a button to either mark an email as read (if it hasn't yet been read) or unread (if it has been read previously). You can see this gesture in action in the image at the top of this post. I often find myself reading an email and then marking it as unread so I'm sure I take action on it later. This swipe gesture is a fast way to do that. Next, swiping to the left partway across an email in the inbox is bring up three buttons: More, Flag, and Trash. Tapping More brings up a menu that can contain quite a few entries -- Reply All, Forward, Flag, Mark as Unread/Read, Move to Junk, Move Message..., Show Related Messages, and Notify Me.... That last selection on the menu is quite useful, as it will provide a notification whenever someone replies to that specific mail thread. Tapping the Flag button is similar to reading a message and tapping on the Flag button to set a flag on an email. The Trash button will show the number of messages you'll be throwing away if you tap on it, as you might be tossing all of the entries in an email thread into the trash. Finally, if you happen to swipe an email all the way to the left, it will be deleted immediately. While this can speed up deletion of emails in iOS 8, I found that I accidentally deleted some messages when I meant to flag them, so be careful.
The TUAW Daily Update Podcast for July 16, 2014
It's the TUAW Daily Update, your source for Apple news in a convenient audio format. You'll get some the top Apple stories of the day in three to five minutes for a quick review of what's happening in the Apple world. You can listen to today's Apple stories by clicking the player at the top of the page. Be sure that your podcast software is set up to subscribe to the new feed in the iTunes Store here.
Netflix already stopped mailing DVDs on Saturdays, but you probably didn't notice
The USPS may not have gone forward with its plans to kill Saturday mail delivery, but Netflix isn't waiting. A few customers have noticed it's no longer processing shipments on Saturdays, opting for a five day schedule instead. Company spokesman Joris Evers tells Engadget that it's been transitioning in that direction over the past year and ended Saturday processing (usually a low volume day) entirely in early June. Longtime subscribers may remember that originally Netflix was a five day operation, and it only shipped or received DVDs and Blu-ray discs on the weekend over the past five years. These days, most of us are streaming so with all those options there's less pressure to get an item in the mail, but of course not everyone is happy. When weekend mail delivery came close to ending last year (various government committees have opted to keep it going), an AP article noted that it could actually save Netflix money by reducing the number of deliveries for heavy users -- because of its flat rate, they're actually less profitable. Now that competitors like Blockbuster are out of the way, there aren't many other options which is probably also a factor. Of course, we can't blame Saturday deliveries (or the lack thereof) for this Hot Rod DVD that's been sitting on the coffee table for as long as we can remember. [Image credit: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg via Getty Images]
iOS 8 Mail supports reply notifications for designated emails
One of the great new features Apple added to the iOS 8 mail app is the ability for users to receive push notifications anytime a reply is added to a designated email thread. Users expecting an important email will undoubtedly find this feature useful as it allows them to remain in the loop without having to check their email incessantly. To enable the feature, simply swipe to the left on a particular email and three buttons appear. Tap on the "More" button and the following menu presents itself. Tap "Notify Me" and you'll then be prompted with a verification message indicating that you're on board with receiving a notification anytime someone replies to the specified email thread. Upon doing so, any email with notification replies enabled will have a little bell icon located on the left. A pretty simple, and yet useful, new feature. As one would expect, disabling reply notifications for a specific email is just as easy. Simply access the "More" menu once again and select "Stop Notifying."
Apple takes on Dropbox with iCloud Drive
Apple's slowly improved iCloud since it transitioned from MobileMe, but this year, it's getting a serious upgrade. On stage at WWDC 2104, Apple's SVP of Software Craig Federighi introduced us to a better way to manage files with the new iCloud Drive. With Drive, all of your iCloud files are available right inside Finder, letting you access documents and media wherever you are on your Mac. Because they're on iCloud, they're automatically auto-synced across devices and are fully searchable and taggable. You will, of course, need OS X Yosemite to take advantage of Finder support, but Apple hopes you'll ditch Dropbox's and Google's services in favor of Drive's deep OS support. As expected, iOS 8 will also include iCloud Drive functionality, letting you to work with a single version of a document on all of your devices (which surprisingly includes Windows machines).
Exclusive: Apple email service glitch means you aren't getting certain emails
A TUAW reader reports (with evidence) that if you use @me.com, @mac.com or @icloud.com services for your email, you could conceivably never see certain emails in your inbox. If you are getting mail from a "mail merge" service, like Constant Contact, Direct Mail, MaxBulk Mailer, MailChimp or Sailthru you might not see emails sent via those services or any similar product. It could conceivably be affecting services as well, but our tipster wasn't able to test every one of them. Note that the emails are not bounced, which would alert the sender, they are simply deleted entirely without notification to sender or receiver. Also, this only impacts HTML emails -- plaintext emails seem to go through without a problem. This is a big deal and Apple needs to fix it immediately. Mail merge services can of course be used to send junk mail, but they are typically used to send newsletters and other mass emails that customers have specifically asked for. In this case it appears that the headers are causing Apple to delete the emails before they can be delivered. The problem seems to have been going on for at least a couple of weeks now. Businesses send all kinds of emails to serve their customers. For example, confirmations on orders, information on accounts, event information and basically anything you're trying to send to more than a few dozen people at once wind up going through mail merge systems. If you signed up for something or ordered something and you still don't see an email about it, even in junk mail, it could very well have simply been deleted on Apple's end. Personally, I get a ton of spam through Apple's servers to my @me and @mac email addresses. I also get a lot of stuff tagged junk that isn't, despite repeated training, thus I've never been too impressed with spam controls from Apple. But if you use Apple's mail service, you should still be allowed to sign up for emails and not expect them to be obliterated before reaching you. Here's hoping a fix is in the works ASAP. If you've seen this issue yourself, please let us know in the comments. Some updates: Arnold Kim from Macrumors points out this article from Macworld on the dangers of silent filtering on Apple's end, which had already caused some issues for some users. (Yet I still get a ton of gross spam I'd really rather not see, go figure.) And Direct Mail for Mac tweeted to me: directmailmac @superpixels thanks for shining some light on the iCloud email issue! FYI, sending to iCloud via our built-in e3 Delivery Service works. 5/1/14, 5:02 PM directmailmac @superpixels...we were able to find a workaround. Users sending via their own SMTP servers will have trouble until Apple addresses the issue. 5/1/14, 5:02 PM
Mailbox's Auto-swipe archives and deletes on iOS so you don't have to
When Mailbox hit Android earlier this month, it came with a new feature called Auto-swipe that wasn't on the iOS version -- until now, that is. Yes, iOS users who just can't be bothered to wrangle those cluttered inboxes anymore: Mailbox for iPhones and iPads can now learn what kind of emails you usually archive or defer until later, so it can eventually do all the dirty work for you. All you need to do to activate Auto-swipe is to link Mailbox to a Dropbox account after you've updated the app. Once that's done, the email app will also use Dropbox to remember your preferences and sync them across Android and iOS devices. While it sounds like a tool for the lazy at first blush, we hope it ends up great for nuking spam and preventing unread missives from piling up.
Elder Scrolls Online downtime prepares for launch day [Updated: The game is back, and we are go for launch]
Early access to Elder Scrolls Online is ending, and as such the team has taken both of the megaservers offline in preparation for launch day tomorrow. The downtime for the game, store, and account services is estimated at a few hours. Once ZeniMax plugs everything back in, players will see a few big changes in the game's store. The updated store will offer subscription billing, upgrades to the Digital Imperial Edition, and the Palomino horse mount. In-game mail will also be restored. [Thanks to Space Cobra for the tip!] [Update: The game is back up and ZeniMax has officially declared it a launch!]
Dark Age of Camelot eyes mail system
Grab bag Q&As are special, because you never know what you'll get. Dark Age of Camelot has a new one up on the site with seven pressing questions from the community. One big revelation is that the team is strongly considering adding a mail system to the game: "It's (high) on our list of priorities! Mail opens up the possibilities for many many other things so we definitely want it in the game sooner rather than later." The topics covered include the devs' speculation on how upcoming changes to RvR conflict will play out, gear with specific bonuses, improvements to the server list screen, and titles for crafters.
EverQuest Next Landmark going into closed beta next week [Updated]
SOE announced today that EverQuest Next Landmark will be transitioning out of alpha next week and into closed beta on Wednesday, March 26th. During the transition, all progress on the alpha servers will be wiped except for saved templates, character names, and Founder's Pack purchases. Landmark also got an important update today, the biggest part of which is the addition of a party system. While there is no specific UI for it yet, players can invite friends to a group through slash commands, via a friends list, or by right-clicking on them in the world. Groups earn a 20% bonus to harvested loot. The update also added in-game email, social media integration, and the ability to teleport to the continent hub or to your friends. [Update: The Landmark team has also posted to explain the differences between time-limited beta keys and founder packs.]
Gamefly tries adding movie rentals to its disc-by-mail service
Netflix may have flinched at the prospect of maintaining its disc-by-mail service, but GameFly seems to be embracing it. On April 4th, the company will begin shipping DVD and Blu-ray discs to customers with a 2-game (or higher) GameFly subscription. The program is a test, Gamefly CEO Dave Hodess told VentureBeat, launched in the wake of subscriber pleas for film rentals. It's free for now -- piggybacking on the company's existing game distribution network -- but Hodess says that Gamefly will monitor the test and tweak the program as needed. While we don't know how large the company's film library is just yet, the beta presents an interesting alternative for folks who miss the duality of Blockbuster's defunct disc service.
How to quickly browse draft emails on your iPhone
Here's a trick I found quite by accident. You can jump directly to a list of your draft emails in Mail for iPhone by pressing and holding the compose button: Just hold your finger down and a list of unfinished drafts pops up. Tap any one to jump right to it. I just happened to press and hold the compose button and there it was. Excellent. As with so many other iOS tips, this also works in Mail on the iPad and iPod touch as well.
US Postal Service plans a Steve Jobs commemorative stamp in 2015
Soon you'll be able to celebrate the life of tech icon Steve Jobs in a new analog way: by sending snail mail. The U.S. Postal Service has approved a commemorative stamp honoring the Apple co-founder to be printed as part of a collectible series next year. Stamp subjects are traditionally kept a secret until just before printing to raise public demand, however, The Washington Post outed a list of upcoming mailbox-honorees Thursday. Other influencers set to be commemorated on your utility bills include Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, "Favorite Desserts," and Barrack Obama (potentially part of an artistic misspelled presidents series?). If you can't handle waiting to see what will show up in your mailbox, hit the source link for three years of salacious details. [Engadget Composite. Image Source: Wikimedia / Matthew Yohe]
TextEdit smart links for fun and profit
I regularly create and update documents in TextEdit using both plain and rich text (RTF) formats. One of my favorite features enables me to use built-in data detectors to automatically convert URLs to clickable links in RTF documents. Data detectors work by constantly scanning the material you're typing. When it sees something it recognizes, like phone numbers and addresses in the Mail app, it provides a way to act on these detected items. In Preview, the "smart links" detector adds a working, clickable link to recognized URLs. To enable this feature, open TextEdit's preferences (Command-comma) and select the New Document tab. In the bottom-right corner, check Smart links. When you next create an RTF document, TextEdit will scan your entered text and automatically convert URLs to links on your behalf. Your RTF document updates with the link (unlike when you use the feature with plain text documents). The embedded link field "{\field{\*\fldinst{HYPERLINK "http://tuaw.com"}}" enables the document to carry that URL with it, even when the file is opened in other apps.
Apple publishes awkward workaround for OS X Mail issues plaguing users, and other news for Feb. 4, 2014
Apple has published a rather awkward workaround for users who are experiencing Mail troubles in OS X 10.9 Mavericks. Many users have reported trouble with Mail since 10.9 shipped, like misbehaving Gmail accounts, issues with moving and deleting messages and retrieving new messages. The last issue -- being unable to receive new messages -- is particularly annoying as those affected must force-quit the app and then relaunch it to check for new Mail. Now, Apple says those users can simply take the following steps to get new mail: OS X: New email messages not received until Mail is quit and reopened Symptoms For some email providers, new email messages in Mail may only appear to arrive when Mail is first opened. No new email arrives until Mail is quit and reopened. Resolution Quitting and reopening Mail forces it to re-establish a connection to the email server. You can use these steps to receive new mail messages without quitting Mail: Choose Mailbox > Take All Accounts Offline. Choose Mailbox > Get All New Mail. As a shortcut, you can also add the Take All Accounts Offline and Get Mail buttons to your Mail toolbar. Choose View > Customize Toolbar. Drag the Take All Accounts Offline button to the Toolbar if it is not there already. Drag the Get Mail button to the Toolbar if it is not there already. Click Done To receive new mail messages, click the Take Offline button, then click the Check Mail button. Beside the cumbersome steps above, there's no further word on Mail's widespread problems. Hopefully Apple will sort this all out when OS X 10.9.2 is released. In other news: Google Maps has been updated for iOS. The new version allows users to get notified when a faster route becomes available in navigation mode. It also includes your usual bug fixes. World Wrestling Entertainment has announced that the company's WWE Network will be launching on the Apple TV on February 24th. The news came when a WWE employee answered a fan's question on Facebook as to whether the WWE will come to the Apple TV, who confirmed that it will. That Facebook answer has since been removed. Tim Cook has met with the Turkish president today, according to meeting notes on the president's public calendar. There's no word what the meeting will be about, but many speculate Turkey's US$4.5 billion tablet education initiative will be discussed. With it, Turkey plans to give up to 15 million tablets to school children.
Cross-realm account-bound mail now live, mailing rules
It's time to roll that new alt! Those of you playing on multiple realms -- or those of you who want to -- have reason to rejoice today, because with patch 5.4.2 you can now mail account-bound items between realms. This is at least true on North American realms and Oceanic realms -- European realms can expect the feature to pop up tomorrow after the patch. The process isn't much more complicated than sending items on a single server: just send your mail to "charactername-servername" -- without the quotation marks, of course. If your server name has spaces in it, skip the spaces. (So "The Venture Co" server would be "theventureco" for mailing purposes.) Bashiok explains the syntax: 5.4.2 is live and brings true account-bound items. Cross-realm mailing syntax is name-nospaceserver. Ex.: joeyjoejoeshabadujr-theventureco - Bashiok (@Bashiok) December 10, 2013 Like any mail you send to yourself, once you've clicked "send," the item immediately appears in your mailbox. And though heirlooms are the most obvious items to mail from character to character, there are a number of items that fall into the account bound category, including archeology items, Timeless Isle armor tokens, and more. However, you still can't send cash or non account-bound items, so your gold stash is tied to your server.
Inbox Cube is a promising new mail client for iOS
Apple provides a pretty efficient mail app for iOS, but third parties are always trying to be better and some users are always looking for more. Inbox Cube is a free iPhone app (it's not universal, but will work on the iPad) that makes some improvements on the basic Apple Mail app. Inbox Cube supports iCloud mail, AOL, Yahoo and Gmail. One feature I think is very strong: the ability to just see photo, video or document attachments in a single click. That includes attachments you have sent as well as received. The on-screen display is attractive, and it is easy to navigate. You get notifications of new email just as fast as you would with the Apple mail client. I had them both activated and heard the mail alerts at the same time from both. Search for content in mail is very fast. In addition to global search, you can also search by subject, text in the body of the email or the from / to fields. When emails are listed, each has a colored icon with the first letter of the senders name, which makes for a quick visual way to sort. Each letter is a different color. You can swipe through mail and attachments. You can also assign favorites for mail you want to get to easily. I don't see any support for POP or explicit support for Outlook. So, if you are outside what is supported, beware. It should be easy to set up with most IMAP-compatible systems. Outlook does support IMAP clients, but I was unable to test it. You can have multiple accounts, for example, on Gmail or the other supported mail protocols, and view them separately. In my testing, the app was solid, although I've seen some reports of crashes. Moving to a new email app is always unsettling. Nothing is ever where you expect it to be, and only by staying with the app for a while did I get comfortable. Inbox Cube is simple enough to not be intimidating. It has some good ideas that Apple should emulate, and if the features appeal to you, it is certainly worth the free download. Your mail will still come in on the Apple client, so you're not going to lose anything. I think the only question about any new email client would be about support. It's hard to get used to something and have it go away. Hopefully, Inbox Cube is here for a long ride. Inbox Cube requires iOS 6.1 or later. It's optimized for the iPhone 5. If you're looking for something with some fresh ideas, try it and see what you think. You can find some videos showing Inbox Cube in action at this link.
How to set up Comcast IMAP email on iOS 7, OS X Mavericks
For years, POP (Post Office Protocol) email has been a thorn in my side. Apple's email service uses the IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol) protocol for email, as do many other email services. What's the big difference between POP and IMAP? Well, if you're connected to a POP account and delete emails that have come into your Mac, when you get onto your iOS devices you'll find that those deleted emails are still there and you have to delete them again! With IMAP, delete once, and an email is deleted from all inboxes. There are some other benefits to IMAP, but for most people, the constant need to make multiple deletions if they have more than one device is the main reason they detest POP3 email servers. The only POP3 account that I still had as of last week was one from my ISP, Comcast. For some reason, Comcast seems to be stuck in the 1990s and wants to retain those stupid POP3 accounts. Well, I found out that they've been providing IMAP accounts on a ask-and-ye-shall-receive basis, so I quickly signed up for one. After receiving notification that my IMAP account was live, I tried setting it up, only to run into issues. What I found is that you need to fool the Apple email clients for OS X and iOS 7 into believing that you're NOT connecting to a Comcast server initially, because if you tell those clients you have a Comcast account, they decide to set your email client up with -- you guessed it -- a POP3 account. Here are some instructions on what you other Comcastic customers can do to sign up for IMAP and set up your OS X and iOS devices (note that images and instructions below are written for OS X Mavericks and iOS 7). Request a Comcast IMAP account By default, you're still stuck with a Comcast POP3 account if you sign up for their service. Should they decide sometime in the 21st Century to actually move everyone to IMAP, I'd be shocked. So to get on their "beta" IMAP service -- which apparently has been around for a while -- you need to ask for it. Fortunately, there's no need to call Comcast; you can make your request at https://xcsignup.comcast.net/onboardingapps/imap (see image below). You will need to know your current account credentials, those being your account user name and password. For some odd reason, probably for provisioning of the IMAP server, they also ask you what state you're in (maybe it's just for validation that you are indeed who you say you are...). Please note that Comcast has not, to this point, made this ability to get an IMAP account widely known. One of two things will happen at this point: You'll either get a message that says that your account will be migrated to an IMAP server within 72 hours, or if you're a secondary email user on an account that's already asked to move to IMAP, you'll get a message saying that your account has been migrated. In either case, wait until you know for sure that your account is ready for IMAP love. Setting up a Comcast IMAP account in iOS 7 Since iOS 7 devices have an incredible level of popularity right now, let's first talk about what you need to do to set up a Comcast IMAP account for Mail.app. Realize that if you just go into Settings and try to set up a new Comcast email account, it's going to assume that you are trying to connect to a POP3 server. So we'll need to confuse Mail and iOS 7 temporarily to get this account set up. Start by launching Settings, finding and tapping "Mail, Contacts, Calendars", and then tapping the Add New Account link. When you're asked what kind of account to create (choices include iCloud, Exchange, Google, Yahoo!, AOL, Outlook.com and Other), select Other. Once you're into that, select "Add Mail Account." A screen similar to that seen below appears. Type in the name you want mail recipients to receive, and then type in a totally bogus email account name. Remember, we're trying to fool iOS into NOT automatically setting up a Comcast POP3 account. I ended up using some random letters for the domain name -- in this case lkjklkj.net instead of comcast.net. Once you've entered your name, the fake email account, your password and an account name (I used Comcast IMAP for the account name), and then tap Next, you'll see the New Account screen. The first thing you want to do is make sure that this is showing IMAP as the account type, and the second is to go in and replace your fake domain name with comcast.net. Next, type in the incoming mail server host name -- imap.comcast.net -- and your user name (the first part of your comcast.net email address). For outgoing mail server, type in smtp.comcast.net as your host name, and type in both your user name and password again. Tap Next, and Mail will attempt to verify your account. Once it has, you get the opportunity to select which accounts you wish to sync with comcast.net -- my iOS devices suggested Mail and Notes. I turned off Notes and just synced Mail, then tapped Save. Now you'll see the Comcast IMAP account in your list of email accounts, but we're not done yet. We need to make sure that our settings are correct for the servers. Tap on the Comcast IMAP account you just created while you're in the Mail, Contacts, Calendar page, then tap on the IMAP account listing on the next screen to bring up account details. Tap on the smtp.comcast.net under Outgoing Mail Server, tap on it again under Primary Server on the next screen, and then make sure that the settings look something like this with Use SSL turned on, password authentication turned on, and Server Port 465 entered in. Once that's saved, go back a few screens and tap Advanced on the account data screen. Here we also want to make sure that Use SSL is turned on, that password authentication is enabled, and that Server Port 993 is entered. At this point everything should be set up properly and you can try a few tests, like sending and receiving email from that account. I had to set this account up on three different iOS 7 devices (iPad Air, iPad mini and iPhone 5s) separately, but it's fun to know that it works! I can finally read transcribed voice mail from my home phone (Comcast, naturally), delete those messages, and know that they're deleted from every device. Setting up a Comcast IMAP account in OS X Mavericks Now let's do the same thing in OS X Mavericks. Once again, we need to fake out Mail so that it doesn't try to set up a Comcast POP3 account. To begin with, launch Mail and then select Mail > Preferences. Click the account tab. See that plus sign (circled) below the list of accounts? Click on it. You'll be asked what mail account to add -- select "Add Other Mail Account," then click Continue. You'll be asked for your full name, the email address, and your password. As before, enter in a fake email address but your proper full name and password. Click the Create button, and the system responds with a message that the account must be manually configured. Click Next. Enter imap.comcast.net as your mail server, your user name (first part of your comcast.net email address) and your password, then click Next. For the outgoing server, enter smtp.comcast.net as your server, your user name, and your password, then click Create. This places the Comcast IMAP server into the list of accounts for Mail. We're not done yet, though -- we need to make sure the correct server ports are set up, and we still have that fake email address to contend with. The first thing to do on the screen above is to put in my real Comcast email address in the Email Address field, the name I want to use as Full Name, and put Comcast IMAP as the description for the account. Now I need to set up the incoming server. Click the Advanced tab on this window, make sure that Use SSL is checked, and put 993 in the port field. Next, click on the Account Information tab again, and click on the Outgoing Mail Server (SMTP) field. Select Edit SMTP Server List. Select your Comcast.net server name, type 465 next to Use custom port, make sure the Use SSL box is checked, and enter your user name and password in the appropriate spots before clicking OK. Now there's only one thing left to do -- save all of the settings. Click on any other account or tab in the Account screen, and you'll be asked to save the changes to the IMAP account. Click Save, and you should be up and running with your Comcast IMAP account. Conclusion Sure, it's a lot of little steps to take, but you'll be quite happy with the results. Note that if you run into any issues with setting up these accounts, it's probably that you're using the wrong ports. Just remember that you need to have SSL enabled for both incoming and outgoing email, that the port for outgoing mail is 465 and for incoming mail is 993, and that the server names are imap.comcast.net for the incoming email, smtp.comcast.net for the outgoing email.
Apple fixes Gmail bug in latest Mail update for Mavericks (update: and MacBook Pro issues too)
Mavericks may have brought a number of notable improvements to OS X, but Gmail integration was certainly not one of them. Users of Google's email service might've encountered an unpleasant surprise when they upgraded their operating systems to Apple's latest, as the changes to Apple Mail appeared to be incompatible with how Gmail worked. For background, Gmail apparently has a rather unorthodox method of using IMAP, so you needed to set up a roundabout method that prevents Mail from downloading every single message from Gmail twice (Basically, you had to tweak your Gmail settings so that "All Mail" is hidden from email programs). Mavericks, however, broke that workaround, so users of both Gmail and Apple Mail ended up suffering from bloated inboxes. There were other issues too, like the inability to organize mailboxes and unread message numbers that are totally off. Thankfully, however, Apple has just released an update that fixes all that. The release states that it "fixes an issue that prevents deleting, moving, and archiving messages for users with custom Gmail settings" and "addresses an issue that may cause unread counts to be inaccurate." So for those who've bitten the Mavericks bug and want a Mail app that plays nicer with Google's email, you should definitely hit that update button right about now. Update: Also, remember that keyboard and trackpad glitch on the 13" MacBook Pro? Well, Apple's apparently fixed that in an update as well. Get to downloading, everyone!