OS X Mountain Lion Bible

Setting Up Apple's Mail

Apple's Mail application is, simply put, world-class. Most people can use it as their regular e-mail client, rather than others such as Microsoft Entourage, Microsoft Outlook, or Mozilla Thunderbird. You can manage multiple e-mail accounts, have your mail automatically sorted, and search your mail.

But before you do any of that, you need to set up Mail. If you've upgraded your Mac to OS X Mountain Lion, your existing Mail accounts are ready for you in the Mountain Lion version of Mail (Version 6). If you have a new Mac, you need to set up your Mail accounts. Either way, you can import your existing e-mail accounts from other programs so they're all available in Mail.

Setting up new e-mail accounts

If you have no e-mail accounts set up in Mail, the program walks you through a series of steps to set up your e-mail account when you first run it.

If you already had an e-mail account set up (because you upgraded your Mac to OS X Mountain Lion, for example) and want to add an additional account, choose File⇒Add Account. (You don't need to set up previously setup accounts again when you upgrade.)

Whether you are creating your first e-mail account or adding a new one, the process is the same: In the dialog box that appears, enter the name you want people to see in the From field when they receive e-mails from you, as well as your e-mail address and the password for that e-mail account. Click Continue.

Mail tries to connect to the e-mail server automatically. If ...