Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with osx and email

e-mailing multiple addresses within one Entourage Contact.

jmd82 — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 10:43:21 -0800

Using Entourage to send to multiple e-mail addresses with one Contact. Staff members are using Entourage for e-mailing groups. These groups often contain people with multiple e-mail addresses, and for various reasons, all these e-mail addresses must be contacted. So Jon Doe will have a home and work e-mail. However, when sending to a Contact with a Group (or even individually), it will only send to their default address instead of all listed, like Outlook would.

So my question is: Is there a way to send to all e-mail addresses within one contact by default? Some users have hundreds of contacts, each with multiple e-mail addresses listed, in their distribution groups, and we'd rather avoid having to go back and modify all their groups.

Help me administer Mac OSX Mail Server

rkent — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 13:18:40 -0800

Help me administer a mail server on OS X. Some friends and I have run a small web / database / email server for several years. Originally it was Linux, which I'm relatively familiar with; a while back we moved to OS X (Server) at the behest of one of the guys. Now for various reasons his availability for server admin duties is severely curtailed, and I'd like to pick up the slack rather than pestering him with questions.

Most pressing is the email server. I have no idea how to run it. I've tracked down pages like this, and I'll continue to search the Apple website, but any third-party FAQs or HOWTOs would be very appreciated. Even the really basic stuff, like: what is the name of the mail server process / executable(s), and where are their config files? What logs should I check when there are errors? Basically, help me approach the OSX server utilities with my Linux-based brain.

An additional level of difficulty is presented by the fact that I'll be doing any admin 100% at the command line; I don't have a Mac and so I lack the GUI server tools.

osx applemail imap mbox emlx duplicate emails email messages

DLWM — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 06:33:51 -0800

If I make changes using a command-line utility to an mbox file that is the local cache of an IMAP account, how can I get those changes uploaded to the server? (Mac OS X 10.4, Mail.app, Perl script.) I use Mail.app for my Gmail and work email, both of which use IMAP. I have a local cache of everything that gets synced when I'm connected to the internet.

I have a bunch of duplicate messages within both of these accounts. I found a Perl script that will go through all the emlx files in each local mbox directory (i.e., the local cache) and delete dupes. But I'm thinking that when I connect again and Mail.app sees that there's a bunch of messages on the server that aren't in my local cache, it'll just download them again.

How can I get Mail.app to tell the servers that the messages that are missing on the local copy should be deleted from the server copy, too?

I've tried using this AppleScript that deletes the messages within Mail.app, but it's way to slow on my machine. The command-line Perl script is so much faster.

How do I disable Mail on my mac?

bluefly — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 10:24:01 -0800

Is there a way to disable Mail.app on my mac (OS 10.4.11)? It pops up whenever I mistakenly click on a mailto link. I don't use it for my email, so it's really annoying. Googling suggests that you can go to the Preferences menu in Mail, but that's greyed out for me, as I've never ever used the program before. I use my departmental webmail. I'd like to eventually figure out how to redirect the mailto links to some other email software/account, but for now, just disabling it will be fine.

How can I use my host's SMTP to send mail when I have my address set to forward incoming mail?

churl — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 23:18:04 -0800

How can I use my name@my-domain.com email address to send email, if the same address is set to forward incoming mail to another address? I am using Mac OS 10.5, Mail.app, and an iPhone.

I have a site and domain name -- let's say it's my-domain.com -- hosted by 1and1.com. I use name@my-domain.com as my primary email address, but I have set my host to forward incoming email at that address to a MobileMe account: name@me.com. I want to continue to give out name@my-domain.com as my email address. I want to, for the time being, continue to use MobileMe (name@me.com) for my actual mailbox.

The rub is, because mail that's sent to name@my-domain.com is currently forwarding to name@me.com, any replies I send come from name@me.com. I have tried to set up Mail.app to use my web host's outgoing SMTP server (smtp.1and1.com), using the settings they describe (Port 25, Password authentication, etc), but it does not work; it gives the error "The server stmp.1and1.com cannot be contacted on port 25." I expect this is because I don't have a real "mailbox" set up with the host using that email address, only a forwarder.

So the question: is there any way to have my outgoing mail come from name@my-domain.com? For example, is there maybe a way to set up a @my-domain.com mailbox and have MobileMe go out and pull new messages into my @me.com address? Or can I somehow set up Mail.app to use my host 1and1's SMTP server to send mail, when the same email address is set to forward incoming mail? Or is there another service I can use to make this work?

Cheers, and thanks in advance.

Apple Mail.app list selections (and deletes!)

zpousman — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 14:17:21 -0800

Apple Mail.app question: I'm setting up a friend with Apple's Mail (mail.app 3.5 on Leopard 10.5.5). Everything is great -- it works like a charm. Except for something that is different than his old client (AOL for Mac -- ack!): When a message is selected, and you delete it, the selection moves "UP" the list, selecting the *prior* message, not "DOWN" to the *next* message. This is exactly the opposite of AOL and Outlook and other mail clients. Anybody know of a terminal hack on defaults write or another way to swap this behavior? I have seen the tip to use option+delete, which kinda works, but it gives up the selection entirely, which requires the user to now select again in the list. This is, um, sub-optimal in the extreme since it requires the user to pick back up the mouse.

I have googled to no avail. Anybody care to help me with search terms is welcome (I found the same complaint from Mac os 10.0 from 2000, but...)

how to restore preview pane in Leopard mail.app?

dcjd — Wed, 07 May 2008 00:50:26 -0800

How do I restore the preview pane on mail.app? I somehow got rid of the preview pane on Leopards mail.app, and after looking through the options and help, I haven't been able to find a way to turn it back on. Please help!

Day of the Deleted Message part 17

nowonmai — Tue, 06 May 2008 11:37:58 -0800

I have a long-winded question about deleting zombie messages from Apple's mail.app. I am trying to get rid of some unwanted email on my Mac, and finding it surprisingly difficult.

Mac OSX 10.4, downloading email from a Microsoft exchange server by POP3 because that's what the IT guys said to do.

Once a week or so I get an email that's really intended for somebody else with the same name as me in the same organization. The emails have 300-odd addresses in the the "To:" line, including a dozen or so distribution lists, to one of which I must have been mistakenly added. I have no idea how to get myself off these lists, so that is unfortunately not the answer.

Anyway, Mail.app just stalls and has to be force-quit when trying to download these messages. I then log into webmail, delete the offending message, and everything's OK again.

Except there are a whole bunch of these messages on my computer now, and try as I might I can not delete them. They just respawn. If I move them to a folder, they respawn in my inbox and now I have more copies. I have tried the rebuild mailbox command. I have tried deleting .emlx files that contain these messages - this deletes the contents of the messages, but the headers seem to stay in the system somewhere, and now my inbox is full of disembodied headers.

Does anybody have any ideas what else I can do? Are there other files I can delete without borking up all the rest of my mail? (My saved mail from my boss and colleagues is important, and there's many megabytes of it). Can I edit some file somewhere by hand to remove database lines containing a certain string? Can I export and reimport my messages in a way that will allow me to strip out the dodgy ones? Is there some Voodoo trick that might help? I have googled extensively, but the universal answer seems to be "rebuild mailbox", which just doesn't help.

Mail.app cutting off forwarded emails.

mattbucher — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 11:37:24 -0800

In OSX Mail.app (using an IMAP account), why do messages I forward keep getting cutoff or truncated? Has anyone had this problem with forwarding in Mail.app? Do I need to reconfigure the IMAP account?

How can I export my Entourage mail from one machine to another?

Tommy Gnosis — Wed, 26 Dec 2007 12:08:46 -0800

What is the best way to move my Entourage 2004 Email from one Max OS X machine to another? I had done this once before, and it wasn't as straightforward is it should be and totally forgot how to do it (Mac's help is no help). Also, for bonus points, is there another, better email client that I can use on the new machine? I'm not a big fan of Entourage for a lot of reasons.

Can we read the same email without tears?

al_fresco — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 11:48:49 -0800

Help me use email in a multi-user environment. IMAP is great, but not for more than one user at a time. My boss operates a business where people register for classes through a website. An HTML form generates an email. Administrator checks email for registration details and enters details in a (hosted) FileMaker database, which then sends confirmation email.

All of this worked fine when all of the business could be dealt with by one person, or even one person at a time. Now, the business has grown to the point where there is often a need for two people to be processing the emails at one time, two people at two different desks in two different locations. We have an IMAP email account, and messages are often duplicated when both email clients (Mail.app) are connected at the same time. We also use third-party software (MailTags) to add keywords and notes to individual emails. We now minimize the errors by turning off automatic synching, but there are still collisions and gaps. Users communicate via iChat.

The business is not large enough to warrant shelling out for expensive large-scale enterprise solution. We want the ability to have two or more people at two or more workstations accessing the same information from the same email account at the same time, and to be able to make other users aware of the actions they have taken on those emails, without having to create a separate log.

The hosted FileMaker database works well enough (two users can update the database at the same time, just not the same record). Is there a similar solution for email? Should we somehow route the email account through its own hosted FM database and work from that?

Ideas? Thoughts? Thanks!

Entourage database corrupted

londongeezer — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 11:24:59 -0800

Corrupted Entourage database: what can I do (Mac)? OS X 10.4.5: Entourage 10 (part of Office X), 2001 (I think, at least that's the installation year). Trying to launch Entourage brings up the message "Entourage cannot access your data. To attempt to fix the problem, rebuild your database." There are two rebuilding options, Typical Rebuild and Advanced Rebuild. Choosing either of them brings up the message "An error occurred while launching. Mail error." After which the only option is OK and the program quits.

Anything I can do? I am aware of this thread (http://ask.metafilter.com/25790/Corrupted-Database - sorry, no link-formatting button), and I have mailed the originator of Entouraid, which appears no longer to be in development and not accepting payments to unlock it (although a trial version, allowing you to retrieve the first 20 emails is still available - it seems to work btw). I've run disk utility. But are there any other options?

OS X Mail - autonomous processing of email?

jaimev — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 20:04:52 -0800

Can Mac OS X Mail be configured to autonomously process email, and based on specific From: and Subject: lines, save the attachment(s) of that email into a specific folder? I'm a dinosaur and prefer to ssh into my Unix based ISP to read my mail. So never having used OS X Mail before, I have no idea if it can do this. I want to be able to send email to a seldom used POP account and have Mail running on my Mac at home automatically check that account and save an attachment based on From/Subject lines. Possible?

I want X1 for OS X

ill3 — Tue, 05 Dec 2006 14:18:12 -0800

OS X and large amounts of email. Recent switcher wants to mimic the current behavior of Outlook + X1. I have just switched to a Mac. I'm in a corporate environment where I have been using Outlook and keeping all my email for 5+ years. For better or worse I use this database of email as my main repository of all my information. I have about 1 gig of email on the exchange server and 4-5 gigs of offline archive on my laptop (in 4 different PSTs). I think it's about 120k emails all in all. I index the whole mess with a Windows app called X1 (http://www.x1.com). One of the nice things x1 does is it also peers into attachments, not just the text of the email. What this allows me to do is find just about anything work related in seconds. Need to know what proposal we sent to ABC Co. last year? Fire up X1 and enter "ABC doc". I have the result in less than 2 seconds. I already have replicated this whole environment in both Parallels and the VMWare Fusion Beta. It works fine, but I'd love to be less Windows dependent in general. Also, I have resigned myself to using Entourage on the OS X side, even though I find it a little worse than Outlook - this is because I need corporate calendaring as well. My questions are :

1. How do I import 5 gigs of email into OSX (it's mostly in .PSTs), specifically Entourage. Has anyone tried O2M or Emailchemy with this amount of email?

2. Provided I can import it, can Entourage handle 5 gigs of mail? If so, how quickly can Spotlight find a needle in a 5 gig haystack? Does it look in attachments?

3. Is there something X1 like? Is there a better note program or data management program where I could set up Entourage to warehouse into?

Thanks in advance!

Why does Entourage keep automatically putting email messages into my Junk Mail folder?

thewiseacre — Wed, 22 Nov 2006 03:54:47 -0800

Why does Entourage keep automatically putting email messages into my Junk Mail folder? After having the "Junk E-Mail" protection start to call a lot of legitimate email (i.e. anything with an aol.com addy, for starters) junk email and autofile it into the Junk Mail folder, I finally just turned "Junk E-mail Protection" to OFF. And yet, Entourage still behaves as it is ON...it STILL automatically moves legit emails to the Junk folder when I receive email.

What gives? This is driving me crazy

Viewing the BCC field on emails one sends with OS X?

Manhasset — Tue, 05 Sep 2006 19:30:40 -0800

Can I see the names in the BCC field of an email that I sent on OS X Mail? I can't seem to figure it out if it's possible. If it's not possible, are there any OS X mail apps that do allow this? When I was on Windows, I used an email program that allowed me to view the BCC field. It was very useful to look and see who the recipients were (ie, to make sure I invited everyone to a party or gathering). It annoys the hell out of me that I can't seem to do this in OS X. Why block this info from the sender?

How to recover lost email in Thunderbird, OSX?

Rumple — Wed, 14 Jun 2006 12:21:55 -0800

Lost email in Thunderbird 1.5.0.4, OSX 10.4 (Tiger), caused by changing the settings in the news reader. I changed the settings in the Thunderbird news reader to not keep news (usenet) messages older than 10 days. Thunderbird then got rid of all of my emails as well older than 10 days (thats a lot of email, and some of it I'd rather not lose!). It deleted it from inbox, sent mail, and all saved folders -- any email older than 10 days! I suspect it's there somewhere since my free disk space didn't increase noticeably, and I'd guess there were several gigs of email, at least. This happened a few days ago and I only just clued in to what I did. The email isn't in the Thunderbird trash, nor in the system trash. I am a <1 year mac user so forgive me if this is terribly obvious, but, where might my email be? Can it be recovered? How might I recover it?

Probs with OS X Mail App

dobbs — Fri, 03 Mar 2006 08:59:41 -0800

This is driving my family bonkers: Mom is on OS X (Tiger) using Mail APP. Mom sends X an email. X replies to email. X's reply comes back to X. (ie, My mom's emails substitute the email address of the person she's emailing in the reply-to field.) This doesn't matter who she is mailing or which account she's mailing from (her ISP account or her own domain). It also doesn't matter which ISP she uses (she's switched, thinking the prob was with one of them).

I've searched through Mail App for a possible switch or field regarding the reply to variable. Found nothing. This has been going on for six months and I'm ready to throw the computer out the window.

Mail.app Hates Me And My Mail

rossination — Mon, 27 Feb 2006 23:45:15 -0800

I have a Gmail account and a university email account (IMAP), both configured through OSX's Mail (the IMAP is only for sending mail; all incoming mail comes through the Gmail account). Lately, none of my email has been showing up in Mail (I know this because I've started keeping Gmail Notifier on the menubar as a double-check). It's not just that it takes a while to collect; it just never actually appears in my Mail.app inbox. I've double checked all my settings against Google's instructions, and even removed and re-added the mailbox. Any ideas as to what could have gone wrong and how I could fix it?

How to get groups out of Outlook Express on Windows?

sfz — Sat, 22 Oct 2005 16:22:37 -0800

OK - I just bought an iMac to replace our dying Windows machine at home. I've successfully moved over almost everything - email (thanks to emailchemy), bookmarks, contacts, calendar items, documents. But I'm stuck on one thing - how can I reproduce the groups of contacts from our old windows outlook express address in the OS X address book? I would rather not have to recreate them one address at a time if I can avoid it. Thanks!

thunderbird and gmail.

craniac — Tue, 27 Sep 2005 11:23:16 -0800

I need a little help with Thunderbird/OSX/Gmail. Specifically, I can't get T-bird to work with Gmail's smtp server. Using these instructions from gmail for configuring netscape, I've got the outgoing mail server set up using port 587, etc. but keep getting the error:

blah blah can't connect to server %S.

I have deleted the outgoing server accounts, replaced them, and tried other ports as well. I have selected TLS rather than SSL, and have tried SSL as well. Postfix is enabled on my pre-tiger machine, and using localhost doesn't work either. Is this a case of corrupted preferences, or is something else wacky going on?

Good, general OS X user mailing list?

scruss — Tue, 27 Sep 2005 07:27:48 -0800

Looking for a good, user-oriented OS X mailing list. Some tech level would be helpful, as would a sane level of traffic. I'm a longtime Unix user who is a little lost with the Apple specifics. And please, I mean a good old-fashioned-e-mail mailing list. Web forums don't work too well for me.

Lost text in mail.app

forrest — Sat, 06 Aug 2005 22:52:21 -0800

Is anyone else losing text in OS X mail app? I occasionally lose text in mail I send using OS X mail app and smtp.mac.com as the smtp server. I lose anywhere from a couple sentences to several paragraphs with the lost text starting and ending in the middle of words. Google turns up references to lost text in Safari, but nothing about Mail.

Grappling with AOL's email server

inksyndicate — Sun, 10 Jul 2005 10:59:50 -0800

My client uses AOL for mail, which I have to sift through, and forward to various places. I want to set up scripts to automate some of it. Is there a good mail client for Macintosh capable of dealing with AOL mail, through IMAP, to let me set up clever filters for it? Mozilla Thunderbird works OK for the basics, but doesn't seem to have the scripting capabilities I need. It doesn't help that AOL's mail system seems to refuse advanced requests like the IMAP "SEARCH" command. IMAP is better than the horror of the AOL Web mail interface, though.

Switching from AOL unfortunately not an option.

Thunderbird -> Mail.app

swift — Tue, 03 May 2005 15:17:38 -0800

I'm trying to import a Thunderbird inbox into Mail so I can use Spotlight to index the messages. Everything works fine, except Mail ends up importing over 4000 messages, most of them spam, when all I see in the Thunderbird inbox is 900 messages. Why are the ghosts of spams past showing up like this? The trash can and junk mail folders are empty as can be.