WideMail moves your preview pane to the right of the message list.
Other email programs (cough, cough--Microsoft’s) let you display the preview pane to the right of the message list instead of underneath it. WideMail (donations accepted, daneharnett.com) and Letterbox (free, harnly.net) let you move Mail’s preview pane to the right as well, making more efficient use of your display.
MiniMail's Lilliputian interface actually lets you see and reply to all of your messages.
If you enjoy using iTunes’ Mini Player to keep your music handy without taking over your entire workspace, you’ll want to check out MiniMail ($13, indev.ca). It’s just like the Mini Player but for Mail instead.
Unlike Entourage and Outlook, Mail follows its own guidelines for whether an attachment should display inline (as in, you see the entire attachment right in the message) or as an icon (as in, you have to double-click the attachment to view it). To toggle an attachment’s display method, right-click the attachment within your unsent message and choose View As Icon or View In Place. To force attachments to always display as icons, use this Terminal command:defaults write com.apple.mail DisableInlineAttachmentViewing -bool yes
You can finally get a handle on your attachments with Mail Attachments iconizer.
For even greater control over your attachments, Mail Attachments Iconizer ($15, lokiware.info) lets you specify whether your files should always display as icons or only after they exceed a specific size. It also fixes Mail’s behavior of always trying to render PostScript files (which can freeze Mail), and forces Mail to respect the “content disposition” that a sender’s email client requests.
Rocketbox is the most powerful search utility that we've found for Mail.
Mail can search your messages with its built-in Spotlight tool, but Rocketbox ($15, getrocketbox.com) is even better and faster. Rocketbox gives you suggestions as you type (think Safari’s search field), and it also filters your searches, restricting your queries to a specific time frame, person, or flag (replied, forwarded, flagged, and so on). Inline previews of your search results even highlight the matching search term. Best of all, Rocketbox features an advanced query language so you can easily find things like “cat OR house NOT dog”.
Auto-correction is one of the many features that Typinator adds.
Entourage automatically corrects commonly misspelled words while you type. You can enable this feature in Snow Leopard’s Mail (Edit > Substitutions > Text Replacement), but Mail uses the text substitution library in Mac OS 10.6’s Language & Text system preference, which shockingly ships with no words in it! Tidbits has an AutoCorrect Dictionary for Mail (free, db.tidbits.com/article/10567), but it’s tricky for the average user to install. Typinator (20 euros, ergonis.com) and Spell Catcher ($30, rainmakerinc.com) are user-friendly utilities that offer AutoCorrect functions.
AMCarter3
March 14, 2012 at 3:56pm
I highly recommend Mailhub. I've used it for more than a year now and could not live without it. If you store emails in your own folders, Mailhub is THE tool to have. It not only stores incoming email easily and intuitively for you, but it also stores out-going email too! No other email client or add-on offers this capability. Despite Apple Mail's weaknesses, with Mailhub added on it is a superior choice over Outlook and any other email program.
emmettmclaulin
March 07, 2011 at 8:01pm
I think some of these apps are pretty cool. I have 2 exchange accounts and a mobile me account. Generally apple mail has been very good. But there is a lot of functionality you can't access without Outlook 2011 or Entourage. My beef is that many of these apps get wiped out when apple makes changes.
For example letterbox was one that I used to like that now resides in the disabled plugins folder...
My opinion is that Apple being so well known for it's thoughtful products (meaning well engineered.) should build a great deal more functionality into core native apps. Especially since they are really seeking to extend into business community.
You can build functionality and simplicity together.
Out of this batch I have tried mail tags. It is pretty solid. It just seems silly to spend 30 on an app plugin. You could purchase Outlook and all it's functionality for $30-50. BTW, I am not an outlook lover. It's just a financial comment.
Cheers
wheatenwade
January 03, 2011 at 10:26am
I would highly recommend Herald as a Snowy compatible replacement for Mail Appetizer. Erik, the developer, does a great job of keeping it up to date.
http://erikhinterbichler.com/software/herald/
pipower
November 13, 2010 at 7:05pm
I don't know why you're recommending Mail.Appetizer. It's not compatible with Snow Leopard.
29Mac
November 09, 2010 at 10:20am
You didn't mention the best of all Apple's built-ins:
While in Mail, click command-i to see what mail is on your ISP's server. Can delete inbox garbage directly without ever downloading it.
bradleydad
November 09, 2010 at 8:48am
Does anyone else attach photos to their mail?
If you use iPhoto you can't browse to your pictures very easily.
Previously, one could send photos directly from iPhoto, which was a good reason to use mail. But with the new version of iPhoto, you can only send dumb looking post cards which only allow 4 lines of text. (And are larger image files.)
Is there any workaround to Apple's stupidity except dragging them over? (So now you have either full size or very small pictures.) And, if you are using spaces, mail and iPhoto need to be on the same space.
rlscharf
January 03, 2011 at 2:57pm
bradleydad,
The latest update to iphoto 11 allows you to chose mail as the default for sending pictures, just like before. I changed my preferences to that and now am a happy camper again. Go to: iphoto>preferences>general>email photos using (choose your poison). Have a good one.
jvputten
November 08, 2010 at 5:51pm
So, $177 dollars in shareware fees later, this is going to fix all my problems.
Pass.
MrFuzion
November 08, 2010 at 5:16pm
I tried so many different times to use Apple Mail, and every time went back to Thunderbird. Mail consistently had issues connecting with mail servers, to the point that I spent more time deleting accounts and readding them than I did actually reading email. Once I went back to Thunderbird...no issues EVER. I'm actually disappointed, as I'd have loved to use a lot of Mail's integration features. Still, Thunderbird works really well with no problems (for me, at least).
skiziks
November 08, 2010 at 2:49pm
Good article about how to soup up Mail.
The decision has been made to migrate to Mail from Entourage.
I would like to see some exact instructions to follow to make a seamless transition to Mail from Entourage 2008.
Importing everything to Mail is not a familiar step for everyone. Some of us need some hand holding.
dbh97
November 07, 2010 at 7:32pm
Your link to TidBITS Auto correct should be
http://db.tidbits.com/article/10567
not
http://www.db.tidbits.com/article/10567
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