11 Free Tools To Improve Your Email Experience

As the Mac’s popularity with formerly Windows users continues to grow, the number of free Mac applications and utilities seems to decrease. After all, we live in a commercial world.

We could go ultra cheap and buy a Windows PC, but we’d never get that true Mac experience. Fortunately, some savvy Mac developers continue to provide Mac users with superbly crafted utilities which enhance and improve our Mac life. So it is with Mail Scripts, the little Mac tool that keeps on giving.

Improving Email Without Clutter

I weaned myself off Microsoft Entourage many years ago and take delight in how robust Apple’s Mail app has become.

While Mail may not be the cat’s meow from some hard core email users, there’s almost more than enough features for the rest of us.

What’s not to like about Mail?

It comes with built-in filters, built-in Junk Mail to cut down on spam, text or HTML formatting, a bunch of classy email stationery to make pretty messages, and, Mail is basically easy to use.

What’s not to like? It’s free. It works. But it could do more. It can. For free.

1 Click To Install 11 Mail Tools

For many years Andreas Amann has made available to Mac users his elegant, useful, and highly free Mail Scripts.

Scripts? Uh oh. Geeky stuff, right? Nope. Many Mac OS X’s applications and utilities can be enhanced using Apple Script Studio, a utility which adds personalized enhancements, such as Mail Scripts.

How easy are Mail Scripts to use? How easy are they to install? If you can point and click your mouse, you’re done. Mail Scripts has been around since Mac OS X Jaguar (then, Panther, Tiger, Leopard, and now Snow Leopard) so they work.

Installation is easier than drag and drop. Just double click the installer, and Mail Scripts gets installed properly. Access the scripts from your Mac’s Menubar.

What You Get For What You Click

There’s nothing in Mail Scripts that you can’t do without Mail Scripts. It’s just easier. 11 ways easier. Select the appropriate script from the Menubar and you’re done.

Add Addresses - If there’s an email address in the From, To, Cc, Bcc, or Reply-To fields, simply select it, select the script in Menubar, and it gets copied to Address Book.

Archive Messages - So, you’ve got a message you want to save forever? Select the message(s), select the script in Menubar, and, voila!, it’s saved. Use your Mac’s filters to save select email messages.

Change SMTP Mail Server - That sounds difficult. The SMTP mail server is the one that you send your email to. If you use a Mac notebook, you may need a different server while on the road vs. at home or office. You’re one click away from making the change.

Create Rules - Mail can filter incoming messages with ease—if you know how to make the rules. Add rules with a click and without opening Mail’s cumbersome Preferences. Select email messages and create a rule just for that type of message.

Remove Duplicates - I love this. I get the same message sometimes Cc’d by five or six people. Sometimes Mail downloads the same message multiple times. Select the duplicates and click Remove Duplicates. Even better, this script doesn’t destroy the dupes, just moves them elsewhere for future destruction.

Schedule Delivery - This might be my favorite tool. It uses iCal to set up and sent an email message for a time when you’re away from your Mac (this reminds me of the need for plausible deniability).

Send All Drafts - This will be a handy script for some, but not all. I do drafts, but not often, so they don’t tend to collect in the Drafts folder. If your’s do, Send All Drafts helps to clean it out.

Open Mailbox, Open Message - Now we’re getting all geeky and power user. These scripts will open specific mailboxes that have new messages when used as a rule. Handy, but you need to know why you’re using it. I don’t.

Filter Sent Messages - This is another specific rule which only applies to messages in your Sent folder. The next two Mail Scripts have more to do with Address Book, but assist Mail.

Export Addresses - This one exports the address from within Address Book into tab-delimited text files, handy for sharing addresses with others via email.

Search Addresses in Address Book - Think of this as a mini-Spotlight for searching for address according to specific search criteria (phone numbers, area code, names, etc.).

Of the 11 scripts in Mail Scripts, I use about three or four every day, two or three almost never, and the others from time to time, especially when I’m cleaning up my Inbox or organizing older messages.

Mail Scripts is a welcome and free addition to every Mac user who delights in Apple’s free Mail and Address Book.