Switching to the Mac: The Missing Manual, Snow Leopard Edition

Chapter 11. Mail & Address Book

You know how every copy of Windows comes with a free, basic email program like Outlook Express or Windows Mail? Well, every copy of Mac OS X comes with Mail, a slightly fancier email program that’s also free. Mail is a surprisingly complete, refreshingly attractive program, filled with shortcuts and surprises. Together with the high-octane Address Book program included with Mac OS X, you may never pine for your Windows setup again.

Note

This chapter assumes that you’ve already transferred your email, addresses, and email account settings to Mail and the Address Book, as described in Chapter 6.

Checking Your Mail

You get new mail and send mail you’ve already written using the Get Mail command. You can trigger it in any of several ways:

• Click Get Mail on the toolbar.

• Choose Mailbox→Get All New Mail (or press Shift-⌘-N).

  Note

  If you have multiple email accounts, you can also use the Mailbox→Get New Mail submenu to pick just one account to check for new mail.

• Right-click Mail’s Dock icon, and choose Get New Mail from the shortcut menu. (You can use this method from within any program, as long as Mail is already open.)

• Wait. Mail comes set to check your email automatically every few minutes. To adjust its timing or to turn this feature off, choose Mail→Preferences, click General, and then choose a time interval from the “Check for new messages” pop-up menu.

Now Mail contacts the mail servers listed in the Accounts pane of Mail’s preferences, retrieving new messages ...