Mail OS X Guide

Mail is much more than a simple program to send and receive emails. With its intelligent spam filter, smart mailbox and spotlight technology, Mail is one of the most advance yet simple mail programs to use. Here is what this guide will cover:

  • Setting up your mail account
  • Sending/Receiving mail
  • Junk mail system
  • Creating smart mailboxes

Setting up your mail account

When first launching mail this screen will appear automatically. If you are not at your first Mail use, click on File>Add account. In OS X 10.5 Leopard, Apple added a new feature which will automatically detect POP and SMTP addresses. All you need to do is enter your email address and password.

If Mail doesn't detect your POP and SMTP addresses, here's a step by step guide of that to do:

  • Open mail within the dock or application folder
  • Click on Mail>Preferences
  • Go to the accounts tab
  • Click on the "+" at the bottom left of the screen
  • Enter your email and password
  • If it doesn't know the details of your email provider, a menu will ask you what type of email it is (.Mac, POP, IMAP or EXchange). Choose which one. If you don't know, ask your email provider.
  • Enter a name in the description field. This will be the name you associate to your email.
  • Type in your email provider's incoming mail address in the correct field. If you don't know what this it, check your email provider's website for those details.
  • Type in your username and password in the appropriate fields and click on next
  • Type in your outgoing mail server address in the correct field. If you don't know what this is, check with your email service provider for those details.
  • Mail will verify and test the connection. If you get an error, check the information you entered in all the fields. If you keep having problems, contact your email service provider.

Sending/Receiving mail

Sending:

  • Click on "new"
  • Enter your recipients email in the "to" field
  • If you want to send it to multiple people, type in their address in the "CC" field
  • Type in a subject in the subject field
  • Type your message
  • If you want to add a file or photo to your email, click on the attach button and choose a file to attach. You can also drag a file to the message from finder
  • Click send once your ready to send your email

Receiving mail is as simple as clicking "Get Mail". Mail automatically does that every couple minutes too. You can have mail put all your emails in your inbox or have them sorted out in smart mailboxes explained below.

Junk mail system

Instead of just letting the application choose what is or isn't spam, you train mail. When you receive an email that is junk, click on the junk button. If Mail says an email is junk, click this is not junk. After a while, Mail will start knowing what you consider junk and what you want to keep. After a few weeks, if you find that Mail is fairly accurate with junk mail identification, go to Mail>Preferences and go to the Junk mail tab. Click on the automatically put in junk mailbox. Your spam will all go in a special junk mailbox. Be sure to watch what goes in there for a couple more weeks to make sure you trained Mail well.

Creating Smart mailboxes

In 10.5 Leopard Mail, you can create Smart mailboxes what will automatically direct emails from specific people in their respective mailboxes. You can as an example, keep emails from your girlfriend in a difference place than your emails from work.

To create a Smart mailbox:

  • click on the Mailbox>New Smart mailbox
  • Type a name for the mailbox in the name field
  • In the next section, enter criteria that fits what you want. For example, enter the email address of one person that you want a mailbox for. To add more criteria, click the "+".
  • When you're done, click OK and Mail will automatically forward emails to their respective mailbox depending on your criteria.