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Walkthroughs created with Apple Mail 3.4

These walkthroughs are companions to the product You Are Not Your Inbox: Overcoming Email Overload, an audio program by Stever Robbins. Click here for information about You Are Not Your Inbox.

Jump straight to the topic you’re interested in:

Creating smart mailboxes

  1. Choose Mailbox | New Smart Mailbox…
  2. Enter a name for the Smart mailbox
  3. Select contains Messages from the drop-down list

    Image of New Smart Mailbox menu

  4. Choose a set of conditions to separate out the messages you want to see in the smart mailbox.
  5. If you want a smart mailbox that views messages from your mom, you might choose From contains mom@moms-domain.com

    Image of smart mailbox window setting up for Mom

  6. If you want a smart mailbox that contains only messages from the last 3 days, you might choose Date Received is in the last 3 days
  7. Click OK

 

Using filters / rules to color-code messages

  1. Choose Mail | Preferences…
  2. Click Rules
  3. Click Add Rule
  4. Name your rule. For example, "Make all messages from Boss red."
  5. Choose From contains your-boss’s-email-address
  6. In the Perform the following actions section, choose:
    Set Color of text Red

    Image of rule-adding dialog
  7. Click OK

 

Filter messages from mom or an e-zine into a separate mailbox

First, create the mailbox where you will send the messages.

  1. Choose Mailbox | New Mailbox…
  2. Type in the mailbox name, for example, Incoming EZines
  3. Click OK

Next, create the filter to move messages to that mailbox.

  1. Choose Mail | Preferences…
  2. Click Rules
  3. Click Add Rule
  4. Name your rule. For example, "Move all ezines to Ezines folder."
  5. Choose From contains the-ezine-from-address
  6. In the Perform the following actions section, choose:
    Move message to mailbox: Incoming EZines
    Image of mail rule dialog
  7. Click OK

Stationery/template/autocorrect

Creating stationery

  1. Choose File | New Message…
  2. Enter the subject line and message text that you want to be able to reuse later.
  3. Choose File | Save as Stationery…
  4. Give your stationery a name, for example, Thank you for your business.

    Image of stationery being saved
  5. Click OK.

Using stationery

  1. Choose File | New Message…
  2. Click the Show Stationery button on the toolbar
  3. Select Custom as the stationery category
  4. Select your stationery

    Image of stationery being used

  5. Your stationery will be retrieved. Finish the message and send it as normal.

Turn off "You have new mail"

  1. Choose Mail | Preferences…
  2. Set New mail sound to None
  3. (optional) Set Check for new mail to Manually or to Every Hour
    1. If you choose Manually, you can check for new mail by choosing menu item Mailbox | Get All New Mail
      Image of mail preferences