Apple (Mac) Mail Series

How to setup a mail account using IMAP

This tutorial assumes you have already set up an e-mail account in your control panel.

Go to File.

Click Add Account.

Type your name as you want it to appear.

Enter your full e-mail address.

Type the password associated with this account.

Click Continue.

Select IMAP for the Account Type.

Type a description.

Enter the Incoming Mail Server as provided by your host.

Note that this can be anything from mail.example.com to just the domain name as shown here.

Type your username.

Click Continue.

In order to send mail from this address, we need to set up the Outgoing Mail Server.

Enter a description in this box.

Type the Outgoing Mail Server here.

If required by your host, check Use Authentication.

Click Continue.

Review the information and click Create.

Here is the mailbox we just set up. All the messages on the server show up here.

How to setup rules (filters) in Apple Mail

Rules in Apple Mail are filters that you can use to sort incoming mail into folders.

Go to Mail.

And click Preferences.

Select Rules.

Click Add Rule.

Enter a description.

Choose to sort if any or all the following conditions are met.

Select a condition.

This condition will sort any mail that contains the word Test.

Click plus to add another condition.

Set the action to be taken when the above conditions are met.

Now when the condition is met, the message will be moved to the Support mailbox.

Click OK.

Click Apply to apply the rule to messages in your mailbox.

That’s it! Now you know how to create rules in Apple Mail.

How to create and manage signatures in Apple Mail

A signature is automatically placed at the end of each e-mail message. Let’s see how to create one.

Go to Mail.

Click Preferences.

Select the Signatures tab.

To delete a signature, select it.

And click the minus sign.

Clicking OK will permanently remove the signature. This cannot be undone.

Let’s add a new signature by clicking the plus icon.

Give this signature a name.

Click in this box and type to edit the signature.

It’s possible to create different signatures for each e-mail address you have added to Mail instead of using the same one for all accounts.

Click an account.

Now add a new signature as we did in the last step.

Set the default signature to use for this account.

That’s it! Now you know how to create and manage your signatures.

An overview of settings and preferences in Apple Mail

In this demonstration, we’ll see where to find the different preferences and settings in Apple Mail.

Go to Mail.

Click Preferences.

The tab that opens by default is the Accounts tab where you can manage the options related to your mail accounts.

Go to Mailbox Behaviors.

This is where you can set how the program treats sent, junk and deleted messages.

The advanced tab shows additional options for the selected mail account. You can also manage the SSL settings here.

Let’s look at General options.

This option sets how often Apple Mail will check for new messages on the server.

The RSS tab is where you can change settings related to your RSS feeds.

Set your default RSS reader, how often to check for updates to the feeds you have added and choose when to remove the articles.

The Junk Mail tab is where you enable or disable junk mail filtering and set how the program reacts when you receive junk mail.

On the Fonts and Colors tab, you can set what the font will look like for mailboxes, messages, notes, etc.

The Viewing options let you change settings related to viewing messages including the header detail and message threading.

The settings on this tab affect message composition. For example, you can change the spell checker, automatically send copies of sent messages to yourself, configure address options, etc.

These last two tabs, Signatures and Rules, will be covered in more detail in other videos in this series.

Rules are basically filters you can set up to sort your mail into folders.

That’s it! Now you have seen an overview of the preferences in Apple Mail.

How to import data from other e-mail clients

Apple Mail makes it easy to import your data from other e-mail clients.

Go to File.

And click Import Mailboxes.

Choose the program from where you’re importing data.

Click Continue.

Browse for the location of your profile.

Click Choose.

Select the items to import and click Continue.

Then click Done.

The new items can be found in the Import folder.

That’s it! Now you know how to import data from other e-mail programs.