iPhone: The Missing Manual, 2nd Edition

Mail, Contacts, Calendars

There's a lotta stuff going on in one place here. Breathe deeply; take it slow.

Accounts

Your email accounts are listed here; this is also where you set up new ones. See Free Email Accounts for details.

Mail

Here, you set up your email account information, specify how often you want the iPhone to check for new messages, change the font size for email, and more.

• Show. Using this option, you can limit how much mail the Mail program shows you, from the most recent 25 messages to the most recent 200. This feature doesn't limit you from getting and seeing all your mail—you can always tap Download More in the Mail program—but it may help to prevent the sinking feeling of Email Overload.

  Note

  The number you specify here also controls how many messages sit in your Sent, Drafts, and Trash folders before being deleted. On Exchange accounts, you're offered here a different control—not how many messages to retain, but how many days' worth of mail.

• Preview. It's cool that the iPhone shows you the first few lines of text in every message. Here, you can specify how many lines of text appear. More means you can skim your inbound mail without having to open many of them; less means more messages fit without scrolling.

• Minimum Font Size. Anyone with fading vision—those of us over 40 know who we are—will appreciate this option. It lets you scale the type size of your email from Small to Giant.

• Show To/Cc Label. If you turn this option on, a tiny, light gray logo appears next to many ...