Top ten things every Mail.app user should have

Top Tens must be a seasonal thing. Everyone’s doing it. Digg blogged a list of top ten apps for Mac. TUAW made a kind of anti-list.

There’s a list of ten fastest growing branded web sites with Apple on top. There’s even a list of ten signs that you are a GTD disciple.

Here’s my list – the top 10 plug-ins, add-ons, scripts, and helpful apps that every Apple Mail user should have. The best stuff is at the top:

1. MailTags. (That was easy). Just get it.

2. Mail Act-on. Sorting emails on the fly with user-defined rules.

3. MailAppetizer. Beautiful and useful “in your face” notification.

4. Mail Scripts. Excellent AppleScripts for Mail.app. I haven’t blogged them in detail. Andreas Amann’s own web site is the best introduction.

5. Mail Stamps. Those lozenge-shaped buttons in Mail 2.0! What were they thinking? Banish them forever.

6. MailUnreadStatusBar. Discreet and useful notification.

7. JunkMatcher or SpamSieve. It’s a draw for me which of these offers the better additional protection from spam.

8. Take Control of Apple Mail in Tiger. The only book dedicated to help you get the most out of Mail 2.0. Packed full of tips and other goodness.

9. QuickSilver. Generally excellent and the most valuable third-party app I use. It sneaks in here because you can also email files directly from its interface and do lots of other neat things. Free. Astonishingly.

10. Spell Catcher X. Spell checker, snippet manager, on the fly formatter. Useful in Mail.app and elsewhere.

There are lots more that didn’t make it due simply to the way I use Mail. But you can find them all in the Hawk Wings Plug-in and Add-on List.

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Tags: applescripts, Digg, email, gtd, mail.app, notification, spam, top 10, top ten
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This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 21st, 2005 at 10:10 am and is filed under Apple Mail, Apple Mail Plug-ins. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
23 Responses to “Top ten things every Mail.app user should have”

1.
jakub says:
23 December 2005, 12:15 pm at 12:15 pm

What about this: http://lokisw.com/index.php?item=MailAttachmentsIconizer ? It forces Mail.app to show attachments as icons inside the mail w/o opening.
2.
Tim says:
23 December 2005, 4:49 pm at 4:49 pm

Yes, it’s a good one. And on the bigger Hawk Wings list of course.

But because I never receive large attachments, I don’t ever use it.

I suppose you could mount an argument – if you didn’t need auto-replies – that you should swap out MacResponder and replace it with Mail Attachments Iconizer.
3.
peter says:
26 December 2005, 9:53 am at 9:53 am

check out http://www.tikouka.net/mailapp
4.
Tim says:
26 December 2005, 9:57 am at 9:57 am

Yes, I’ve heard of it ;-)

That’s a good list, but it’s not comprehensive.
5.
xslf.com says:
27 December 2005, 6:58 pm at 6:58 pm

…This post which was in Hebrew got hopelessly mangled in the move to TextDrive, so I’ve removed it. Sorry about that…
6.
Hawk Wings » Blog Archive » FastScripts 2.2.7 and FastScripts Lite says:
28 December 2005, 11:16 am at 11:16 am

[...] Perhaps it’s not too late to point out that FastScripts is Number Eleven on the list of Top Ten Things every Mail.app user should have. Technorati Tags: AppleScript, keyboard shortcuts, scripts [...]
7.
sjk says:
30 December 2005, 7:46 am at 7:46 am

DockStar is getting positive reviews.
8.
Hawk Wings » Blog Archive » Two Top Fives: Hawk Wings 2006 in review says:
31 December 2005, 2:58 am at 2:58 am

[...] Top ten things every Mail.app user should have. Recent and popular, some people found this a useful entry point into the world of plug-ins or fun to disagree with. [...]
9.
Erik says:
4 January 2006, 10:20 am at 10:20 am

This is a good list. I have just installed a few of them, and am looking at your comprehensive list. This might persuade me to leave thunderbird on my ibook.
10.
Tim says:
4 January 2006, 10:32 am at 10:32 am

Thanks, Erik. Do it! You won’t regret it.

Think of the extra inetgration with other iApps, the beauty of the interface, the excellence of the plugins and applescripts that extend Mail’s functionality even further….
11.
Hawk Wings » Blog Archive » Taking a break … says:
7 January 2006, 10:09 am at 10:09 am

[...] The top ten things every Mail.app user should have — the best add-ons, plug-ins and resources that no Apple Mail user should be without. [...]
12.
kOoLiNuS.net » Blog Archive » mail.app says:
11 January 2006, 12:48 am at 12:48 am

[...] Top ten things every Mail.app user should have; [...]
13.
kOoLiNuS.net » mail.app says:
12 January 2006, 10:12 pm at 10:12 pm

[...] Top ten things every Mail.app user should have; [...]
14.
The Unheard Word » Blog Archive » Apple Mail plug-ins and other helper apps says:
18 February 2006, 1:42 pm at 1:42 pm

[...] Tim even put together a Top ten things every Mail.app user should have page to assist us in our selections. [...]
15.
New School of Photography » Blog Archive » Mac Mail — More than meets the eye says:
5 August 2006, 4:18 pm at 4:18 pm

[...] Here’s a great top 10 list: [...]
16.
outserve.biz Blog » Blog Archive » links for 2006-10-02 says:
3 October 2006, 2:43 am at 2:43 am

[...] Hawk Wings » Blog Archive » Top ten things every Mail.app user should have (tags: mac mail.app OSX) [...]
17.
Hawk Wings » Blog Archive » MailTags: Irresistable force meets immovable object says:
31 October 2006, 11:05 pm at 11:05 pm

[...] She’s decided to try stemming the flow with Mail.app and MailTags and Mail Act-on , two of the very best plugins for Apple Mail. [...]
18.
Hawk Wings » Blog Archive » Getting started with Hawk Wings says:
20 November 2006, 3:53 pm at 3:53 pm

[...] Top ten things every Mail.app user should have [...]
19.
Craig says:
26 February 2007, 7:19 pm at 7:19 pm

I would love to get into the whole mail app thing, im new to macs and just got my first macbook pro, its just too easy to have a google notifier, if only i could have these for both google and hotmail running from mail app without have to have the programme open :| yeah its a lot to ask, or even have a mail app notifier with both mailboxes, but still i dont like having open applications im not using.

Craig
20.
Ron Bell says:
5 June 2007, 12:43 am at 12:43 am

Tim,

Great list. At this point, though, I’d say that SpamSieve has the lead over Junk Matcher. The latter is terrific but the spam definitions and the application haven’t been updated in several years, as the author is in graduate school. He has promised in a blog post to update Junk Matcher when he gets a chance, but that could be a while!

Ron
21.
Rohit says:
24 November 2007, 11:44 am at 11:44 am

Hello,

I am trying to hire a freelancer / developer to develop an addin for Apple’s mail application. The application has not been released yet, however is not working for Outlook and some of the Webmail clients. Location is not an issue, and the specs are pretty much clear, as it is a port of the existing app to Mac.

Any idea, where I can hire someone like that.

Thanks.
22.
Tim Gaden says:
29 November 2007, 9:55 pm at 9:55 pm

@Rohit. Not really. Sorry!
23.
jayceek says:
21 June 2008, 10:02 pm at 10:02 pm

What I’d really like are “Next/Previous” buttons within emails.
Is anyone aware of anything that adds that functionality?

Thanks.