New mac user - email / calendar / contacts options

[mr goosey]

Hi all

Recently received my Macbook. It's great. Been a Windows user forever, and whilst I don't have as many strong objections to it as some of my friends I thought it was time to make the switch as I will be using the Macbook for music purposes (and it obviously far more reliable).

Anyway, aside from using music software, I will be using it for my work. I was wondering whether anyone could recommend me some options for managing my emails / contacts / calendar etc.

It would be good to have some kind of integrated solution. I.E - my girlfriend uses Entourage on her Mac, and has calendar events which email her reminders.

I've been using Thunderbird for emails for quite a while now, which is good, but just wondering whether there might be another better option which incorporates all of these elements. Am I best just using Thunderbird and iCal?

What about contacts? Should I keep them all in the Mac Address book? Or in Thunderbird's address book?

Thanks in advance!
MR G

 

[iBookG4user]

Anyway, aside from using music software, I will be using it for my work. I was wondering whether anyone could recommend me some options for managing my emails / contacts / calendar etc.

I personally use the software that is provided with Mac OS X. So I use Mail for my email, Address book for my contacts, and iCal for my calendar. All of them have worked great for me.

It would be good to have some kind of integrated solution. I.E - my girlfriend uses Entourage on her Mac, and has calendar events which email her reminders.

iCal also supports reminders such as email reminders and beeping and other reminders like that.

I've been using Thunderbird for emails for quite a while now, which is good, but just wondering whether there might be another better option which incorporates all of these elements. Am I best just using Thunderbird and iCal?

I find Mail to be quite good for emails, it manages them great (I have ~15000 emails and there is no lag ). I suggest you try Mail and see if you like it better.

What about contacts? Should I keep them all in the Mac Address book? Or in Thunderbird's address book?

Again, I suggest you try out both and see which one you like better.

 

[Eraserhead]

Depends if your phone works with iSync, if so AddressBook/iCal is the best combination. Otherwise if you already prefer Thunderbird to Mail I'd stick with that, you should be able to export fairly freely between the different applications if you choose too so it's not a big issue.

 

[mkrishnan]

When I migrated from Windows, I went from Outlook (2000) to Apple's Mail, Address Book, and iCal. The biggest reason I did so was for iSync to my cell phone, etc. If you want that, your best options are the Apple apps or Entourage. The quality of integration between the Apple trio and Entourage is actually probably pretty close to a wash -- I think you can do all those kinds of things with iCal and Address Book cooperating, for instance.

If Thunderbird is a must for you, and you still need syncing, this might be an option:

http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20060311045921597&lsrc=osxh

 

[mr goosey]

Thanks for the quick responses.

Thunderbird is not a *must* but it has served me well.

Maybe it might be more sensible to stick with Mail if it integrates more easily with the other Mac programs?

One thing is that I have several email addresses, I want them to have their own inboxes, and each inbox to have sets of subfolders. I'm guessing this is achievable in Mail?

 

[KershMan]

Mail gives you an aggregate Inbox. But all you have to do is click it to open an expanded view, which shows each account in it's separate Inbox. Nice feature.

I use Mail for both my .Mac account and my Army (AKO) account. It is nice to have the aggregate when there aren't two many emails, but expand the view when I want to quickly look for a work email vs. personal.

 

[JNB]

One thing is that I have several email addresses, I want them to have their own inboxes, and each inbox to have sets of subfolders. I'm guessing this is achievable in Mail?

Well...

It is, but not like you might think. You have basically one Inbox, and each email account has a "sub" Inbox. You still see them all, but if you collapse the "master" inbox, all the mail is displayed combined.

You can have as many mail folders or smart folders, but they appear as a separate entity from Inbox, Outbox, etc. They don't appear under each individual account.

 

[mkrishnan]

However, I believe that if these are (IMAP) mailboxes for which the server supports server-based folders, then these folders appear as a third sub-tier:

Inbox
-> Account
-> Sub Folder

I don't use any, though, so I'm not sure. Let me do a quick Google.

Actually, let me rephrase. This is slightly confusing. With IMAP accounts, all the server-based folders appear available in Mail. I can show you a screenshot of how this looks, but I'll need my Mac to do that.

You may also end up needing this:

http://macapps.perniciouspenguins.com/imapcheck/

 

[mr goosey]

Hmm I'm not sure I understand -

Are the 'mailboxes' effectively for use as subfolders?

This might make it difficult as I have two distinctly different work emails. Both need their own tree of subfolders. Also - when you move an email from your inbox to one of these 'mailboxes', does it remove the email from the server?

On another note, are there any good Mac chat rooms? On IRC or anything?

These are POP accounts.

 

[mkrishnan]

See this picture:

The "Saved Mail" folder is an offline folder -- it contains, in my case, messages from all my accounts (in subfolders that I compacted for the purpose of showing you this picture). The two accounts with the grey globe icons are IMAP. They appear under each of the Mail functional boxes -- if I expand Inbox, Drafts, Sent, etc, there are separate folders for each of them. The remaining folders are in the grey globe.

Not 100% sure if this is what you want or not. I happen to use my accounts in an integrated fashion -- I sometimes look at inboxes separately, but I keep mail based on what I'm doing rather than which account, so I let it mix... so what I do is somewhat different from what you do.