Easy Mac OS X Lion - Kate Binder [37]
If you’ve set up multiple email accounts, choose the one from which you want to send in the From pop-up menu.
Type a subject in the Subject line and your message in the message area. Click Send.
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Tip: Jazzing Up Your Emails
To attach a file, click the Attach button in the message window’s toolbar and navigate to the file you want to attach. To make your email text colored, click the Colors button and choose a color in the Colors panel.
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Receiving Email with Mail
There’s nothing quite like that friendly chime (or beep, or other sound) from your computer indicating that you, yes you, have email. By default, Mail drops all of your new, unread email into your Inbox each time you check for new messages.
Click Get Mail.
Click a message listing in the Inbox to see the message’s contents.
Click Reply to answer the current message.
Click Delete if you want to send the message to the Trash.
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Tip: I’ve Got Mail?
Mail can retrieve your email messages automatically on a schedule you determine. Choose Mail, Preferences and click General. Choose a time interval from the Check for New Mail pop-up menu.
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Tip: More Ways to Reply
To answer an email message, click Reply to send your answer to just the original sender. Click Reply All to send it to everyone who originally received the email. Click Forward to send it to another recipient.
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Organizing Mailboxes
If you get a lot of email, you’ll quickly find your Inbox filling up. Creating a system of mailboxes in which you can file all that email will save you time in the long run because it makes finding what you want when you need it easier. You can nest mailboxes within other mailboxes to set up as complex a system as you need.
In Mail, select View, Show Mailbox List if mailboxes are not visible.
Click the + button at the bottom-left corner of the window and choose New Mailbox to create a new mailbox.
Enter a name for the mailbox and click OK.
To create a mailbox inside another mailbox, click a mailbox name and then click the + button.
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Tip: Like Parent, Like Child
If a mailbox is selected when you click the + button, the new mailbox is created as a child of the selected mailbox—in other words, it is within the selected one.
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To move a mailbox inside another mailbox, drag and drop it into position.
Control-click a mailbox and choose Rename Mailbox from the contextual menu to change its name.
Control-click a mailbox and choose Delete Mailbox from the contextual menu to remove it.
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Note: You Can’t Go There
You can’t add mailboxes inside the default mailboxes (In, Out, Drafts, and Sent). However, Mail automatically creates mailboxes within your Inbox to segregate mail received at different email addresses.
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Tip: Another Way to Get There
The same commands you see in the contextual menu are available in the Action menu at the bottom of the Mailbox drawer—click the gear button to see the menu.
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Creating a Smart Mailbox
Like smart groups in Address Book, smart mailboxes in Mail are maintained by your Mac. After you determine the criteria for a message’s inclusion in a smart mailbox, the Mac takes over to sort messages into that mailbox as you receive new mail. Because messages can exist in both a regular mailbox and a smart mailbox, smart mailboxes don’t interfere with your usual filing scheme.
Choose Mailbox, New Smart Mailbox.
Type a name for the mailbox.
Choose criteria for which messages should be sorted into the mailbox.
Click + to add more criteria.
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Note: What’s It Good For?
Use smart mailboxes to track messages related to a particular project or from people who share a company or ISP. For example, you can have Mail sort all messages about your upcoming Flamingo Party into a smart mailbox.
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Select any or all from the pop-up menu to determine whether messages must meet all the criteria or any single criterion.
Click