Mail for OS X

[Neurotrophin]

Hello All,
I've been lurking a few months on macrumors and just recently made the switched to Mac. Im amazed I was able to keep my sanity dealing with Windows all these years...
Anyhow, Im trying to setup OS X's email client "Mail". I was hoping to get a bit of advice from you guys who have experience using this program or its equivalent. Basically I have 5 email accounts, two of which are IMAP, 2 with POP capability, and a yahoo (in the process of getting rid of this). Is there an easy way to funnel all of these accounts into one of my IMAP accounts? Also, is there a way to color code incoming mail depending on the account origin?
Much Appreciated.

 

[kolax]

Also, is there a way to color code incoming mail depending on the account origin?
Much Appreciated.

Yup - go to Preferences, and then Rules. Add a rule for any emails from a certain email address, and then set the Action as "Set Colour".

 

[Neurotrophin]

Thanks.

 

[MisterMe]

.... Basically I have 5 email accounts, two of which are IMAP, 2 with POP capability, and a yahoo (in the process of getting rid of this). Is there an easy way to funnel all of these accounts into one of my IMAP accounts? ...

To the best of my knowledge, you may setup as many accounts in Mail as you like. They will all appear in Mail's Inbox. The Inbox will have a sub-box for each account. As I understand your question, you want to access all of your messages at any time, irrespective of receiving account. If you intend to use only one computer to access your messages, then you have to do nothing special. Mail always checks all of your accounts unless you stop it. There is no need to shuffle messages among accounts.

If, however, you want to access a master IMAP account from any computer anywhere anytime and receive your messages, then you cannot use Mail to move messages from your other accounts to your master account. To do this, you will have to use each account's webmail client to setup automatic forwarding of messages to your master account. Alternatively, you may also download messages from other accounts to your master account. However, I do not believe that it is possible to do the latter automatically.

 

[kolax]

If, however, you want to access a master IMAP account from any computer anywhere anytime and receive your messages, then you cannot use Mail to move messages from your other accounts to your master account. To do this, you will have to use each account's webmail client to setup automatic forwarding of messages to your master account. Alternatively, you may also download messages from other accounts to your master account. However, I do not believe that it is possible to do the latter automatically.

Yes you can - you can make a rule to move emails from an account to another.

Although I've never tried it so not sure how reliable it is, but there is a feature to do this. Found in Prefs --> Rules.

 

[mkrishnan]

In the rules, it does appear that it is valid to move a message to the inbox of an IMAP account. I guess, if you do this, the message should then be on the IMAP server as well. There are some limitations to rules though. For instance, if a message enters the inbox in the "read" status, then rules to move it don't always occur.

I'd generally recommend the way MisterMe outlined first. That's what I do. I have a mix of IMAP and POP accounts on my Mail.app, and have essentially the same set of accounts on my Blackberry independently. They play along well generally. You can read e-mails on webmail accounts, etc, and still get them delivered to the Mac and to devices.

 

[swiftaw]

I do this all the time. I have a .mac and a gmail account set up in mail.app. I have created a rule that moves every incoming message from my gmail account to a folder on my .mac account.

 

[Neurotrophin]

If, however, you want to access a master IMAP account from any computer anywhere anytime and receive your messages, then you cannot use Mail to move messages from your other accounts to your master account.

This is exactly what I am trying to do.

Yes you can - you can make a rule to move emails from an account to another.
Although I've never tried it so not sure how reliable it is, but there is a feature to do this. Found in Prefs --> Rules.

Great, works like a charm so far with incoming messages...

One potential problem, is that this method requires that I send all messages using my IMAP account or else these "sent" messages wont be transfered to the IMAP server.
Actually, I might be able to use Rules--> From: my email addresses from POP accounts -->copy to--> IMAP account
Ill give it a shot.

Thanks for all the help.

 

[mkrishnan]

Actually, I might be able to use Rules--> From: my email addresses from POP accounts -->copy to--> IMAP account
Ill give it a shot.

I don't think rules apply to your non-Inbox folders... You might be able to set up to automatically BCC yourself (IMAP account) on all sent mails, and then have rules push *those* messages (which'll appear in your inbox) into your sent mail?

 

[MisterMe]

This is exactly what I am trying to do.

...

To use Mail, you have to open Mail on a MacOS X computer set-up with your accounts. To access each message for the first time from any computer anywhere anytime, messages will have to be directed from your account servers based on instructions from their webmail clients.