Mail - page 6

It’s not often that you’re able to get “maximal” savings on such a “minimal” piece of software, and in many cases these kinds of things can just pass on by. But we’re not about to let this soon-to-be-ending Cult of Mac Deals offer fade off into the sunset without giving it one last look. So if you’re tired of the Mac native Mail.app (as many are) then there’s no time like the present to pick up the premier “get email done” application for the Mac, Sparrow before the special pricing gets so minimal that it disappears!

This is neat: When you log into a webmail account using Safari in OS X Mountain Lion, Safari will offer to save the login info. So far, so familiar. The new trick is that it will also offer to set up your Mac apps with the same login. Thus, you sign in to Gmail and Safari will ask if you want to use your Gmail account with Mail, Messages and Calendar.

It’s hard enough to get to that elusive “Inbox Zero” when your email program just won’t help you out. It either has too much or tries to keep you dwelling in email purgatory when you could — and should — be spending your time on better things. Things that don’t qualify as busy-work, but as actual work.

Well…this Cult of Mac Deals offer is going to be your saving grace. That’s because we’re offering an awesome minimalist email application for the Mac, Sparrow, for only $6 for a limited time!

After a German court ruling earlier this month that deemed Apple’s push email services for iCloud (and MobileMe) infringe upon a Motorola patent, the Cupertino company has been forced to disable the service in Germany.

The big new feature in Mountain Lion’s Mail app isn’t really a Mail feature at all: Notification Center will now flash up an alert for every new e-mail you receive. But this can get old fast, especially if you get a lot of e-mail. Thankfully, you can tweak these setting to be finer-grained, and a lot more useful. And you can do this by making your friends VIPs.

Apple finally brought the rich text format to its Mail app in iOS 5, but the Cupertino company is yet to introduce it to an app that I think needs it just as much: Notes. According to the screenshot above, however, it’s coming in iOS 5.1.

Developers have already received several pre-release builds of Apple’s OS X Lion 10.7.3 software, and we had expected last week’s release to be the last one before the update goes public. But it seems there’s still some testing to be done. Apple has seeded yet another build to developers through the Mac Dec Center, this time with the build number 11D50.

Here’s a neat and simple trick that lets you forward several emails at once if you use the OS X Mail application.

Apple’s iOS devices come with a default mail signature that reads “Sent from my iPhone/iPod/iPad.” It was a nice novelty in 2007 when the iPhone was first released, but over the years, it’s gotten a little boring.

But did you know that it’s incredibly easy to customize your Mail signature and remove Apple’s default? Here’s how to change your signature on your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad.

Apple makes it incredibly easy for you to set up a Gmail account on your iPhone — you simply hit the Gmail button when setting up a new account and enter your login details. But with just a little bit more effort, you can enjoy a much better Gmail experience — one that pushes new emails straight to your device as they come in.

Here’s how to set up Gmail the right way on your iPhone.

We’re hearing loads of reports from both readers and Twitter that iCloud Mail & Notes is down. According to Apple’s iCloud System Status page, they are aware the issue is affecting “some” users and are working hard to get service restored, but between the various Siri service outages and now this, it’s clear Apple’s been having issues lately keeping their servers up against strong demand.

Is iCloud down for you? Let us know if you’re having issues in the comments. We’ll keep you updated as we know more.

Thanks, Jørn!

One of the advantages to jailbreaking the iPhone — at least for me — is the ability to add shortcuts to your home screen that will quickly adjust your device’s settings. There are a number of tweaks that allow you to change your brightness; and toggle 3G, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, Airplane mode, and more.

It’s not so easy if you’re device isn’t jailbroken, but a new app called IconProject changes that — for just $0.99.

If you received a video file via email or stumbled across a clip in Safari that you wanted to save under iOS 4, it just wasn’t possible. You could watch it, but you couldn’t save it. However, one feature you may not yet have noticed in iOS 5 is that you can now download videos to your camera roll.

Let’s be honest, typical email clients (like your old corporate buddy Mr. Outlook) are about as fun as a bag full of dead butterflies.  When was the last time you got excited to use Entourage or Lotus Notes? Probably never.

Luckily, Sparrow glided into the app-scene with a singular goal to make emailing fun. It’s lightweight so its zippy, yet packed with features no other email app has.  The love and energy the Sparrow team put into their app has changed emailing from a dreaded chore into something that is pleasurable and fun.

Yesterday, with great excitement, Cult of Mac launched a new software hub called deals.cultofmac.com. Teaming up with the guys at StackSocial, this new feature will bring Apple fans the best deals on cutting-edge Mac Apps at a price you won’t be able to find on the Mac App Store. We’re starting things off by offering Sparrow, the best mail-app for OS X, for only $6.

To celebrate the launch, we’re giving away 5 copies of Sparrow for free to our readers via a giveaway contest on Facebook. Entering the giveaway is simple, but you gotta play to win.

Here’s how to enter:

Apple’s MobileMe service is currently experiencing issues that have resulted in an outage lasting several hours for 75% of subscribers. The issues mean those affected are unable to access Mail, Me.com web apps, or Find My iPhone.

One of my favorite improvements that shipped with Mac OS X Lion is Mail 5.0 and its new Conversations view. This new view allows you to view message threads by combining messages into a chronological timeline. It has one drawback, since by default, any messages that you sent don’t show up in the timeline. That makes it hard to read and make sense of the thread. Here is a tip on how to fix it.

Mac OS X Lion looks a lot different from its predecessor Mac OS X Snow Leopard and one of those differences is the sidebar in Finder and Mail. The sidebar looks a lot different because it displays different elements in Lion and the icon it displays aren’t even in color now.

Google’s Gmail web app for the iPhone delivers a nice new update this morning that makes it even more iPhone-friendly, introducing the iOS trademark pull to refresh function, and an enhanced interface.

Apple has just launched its iCloud.com online service which will later be the successor to MobileMe. Those signed up to the service can now use their web browser to access their Mail, Contacts, Calendar and more.

One of the biggest changes that Apple has implemented in Mac OS X Lion is Mail version 5.0. The new version of Mail has a whole new look and feel to it that I’ve heard a few of you complain about. Well good news this tip will show you how to reverse the new modern look that Mail is sporting these days into something a bit more classical.

One of the biggest niggles with the iOS Mail application – for me – is that in order to delete multiple emails at once, you need to go through and select each individual message before you hit the delete button. I think that kind of defeats the object of having a multiple delete function; you might as well just delete them individually if you’ve got to touch them all anyway. However, a new jailbreak tweak called DeleteMail offers a solution to this problem.

Developed by Andrea Oliva, and now available in Cydia for $0.99, DeleteMail allows you to delete every single email in a particular mailbox in just two taps.

If you’ve ever used and loved the “Archive” function in Gmail or MobileMe, then found yourself missing it while using Apple’s own Mail application, this simple free plugin is a dream come true.

It’s an Archive button for Mail, and you can guess what it does. Instead of having to mess around with filing messages into folders, a single click will throw them into the archive. It even comes with its own ready-made keyboard shortcut (Command+Option+S), to make archiving even faster and easier.

When you need to find something specific, use Mail’s own search, which is quite up to the task of hunting through enormous archives (I’ve used Mail in this way, as a backup for my Gmail account, for years now).

If you need Mail to be a little more flexible, try Mail Act-On, which we mentioned back in number 8 in this series.

(You’re reading the 33rd post in our series, 50 Essential Mac Applications: a list of the great Mac apps the team at Cult of Mac value most. Read more, or grab the RSS feed.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cX928KC8jiA

Here’s a quick video tour of the new Mail client in OS X Lion. It’s got a three-pane view, nicely threaded “Conversations,” and a goes full screen. It’s very good. Mail alone is a good reason to upgrade to Lion.

With the release of the iPad, we have yet one more way to access our email. While the look and feel of the Mail app for iPad is good, let’s dig a little deeper into what’s good, what’s bad and what’s ugly (Hint: Gmail and saving messages).