If there ’s one daily job that exclaim out for automation , it ’s managing your email inbox . as luck would have it , there are all form of tools — some progress into Mail.app itself , others from third - party vendor — that can help you do just that .
Hide the Reply-All-ers
Tool : MailLike every company , we here at Macworld deal with groups inside our organization who consider click Reply All is a proper answer to any “ Welcome Bob ! ” or “ Great Work , Team ! ” message that cover the wire . gratefully , these the great unwashed lean to cluster in their own domain — something along the line of@wehavenoclue.com . So I create a Mail rule to do by their effusions : In the Inbox Rules department of the Rules tab in Mail ’s orientation , I added a rule that await for messages in which the From field contains that domain , then do the action Move Message and specifying a disjoined postbox as the address . I can then peruse that boxwood when my patience allows.—Christopher Breen
Keep Track of Shipments
dick : Delivery Status , MailI routinely shop online and easy recede track of when software are scheduled to be hand over . So I use Delivery Status fromJunecloud — which include an iOS App , Dashboard thingamabob and cloud service — to keep an optic on incoming packages . Among other feature of speech , the servicing allow me to forward rescript and payload - check electronic mail to JuneCloud , which parse their textual matter and adds their tracking info to the app . So I created some simple Mail rules to handle this promotion mechanically .
First , there ’s a principle that seem for any guinea pig that bear the wordsorder has shippedand then forwards such message totrack@junecloud.com . This catch most of the relevant messages . you could create other , more customized rules for particular vendor . For example , I have one that looks for ( and then forwards ) messages in which From containsshipping_notification@orders.apple.com.—Katie Floyd
File Mail messages to Evernote
Tools : Evernote , TextExpanderI use Evernote to store and manage all kinds of documents . One thing that makes it more efficient : Evernote gives every drug user a alone email computer address , which you may use to institutionalize document to your Evernote account . Email messages sent to that address are commonly saved in your nonremittal notebook . But with a small planning , you may organize and tatter notes more precisely .
The subject of the email becomes the title of the note in Evernote . To specify a notebook where that bank note will be filed , adding the@symbol followed by the name of an existing notebook computer to the subject crease . Similarly , you may tag the banknote by appending # , followed by an existing tag , to the field of study .
If you regain yourself sending messages to the same set of notebooks and tag routinely , you may automate this tagging procedure with a TextExpander snip . For case : I ’m go back to school this class and want to keep track of the link up expense . In Evernote I keep a notebook call Tax Receipts for every year , as well as an Education tag ; I also care to include day of the month information with each bank bill . So I created the following snipping in TextExpander to use as the subject of my subject matter :
% Y.%m.%d % filltext : name = Note Subject% @Tax Receipts % Y # breeding
The first part of that snip inserts a date stamp . The second part of the snippet create a individual - air pop - up study that prompts me to enter the national of the banknote , such as the type of receipt . The final part of the snippet announce the specific notebook using a custom yr snippet ( so I do n’t have to update the snippet every yr ) and a tag.—Katie Floyd
Forward emails with special formatting
dick : Keyboard Maestro , MailDozens of times a day , I ahead crush releases from computer hardware and software vendors toMacworldwriters ; each substance get going to a particular person base on the topic area . When I do so , I replaceFwd : in the subject with a standard prefix ( such asiOS accessories :) to make it easier for that person to filter these messages . It ’s a simple - but - long-winded project , so I ’ve created a bunch of Keyboard Maestro macro instruction that do all the necessary steps with a single keystroke .
For case , to forward an iOS - accessory press release to our writer Joel Mathis , I created the following macro instruction : For the gun trigger , I pick out Hot Key Trigger from the New Trigger pop - up menu and specified Control - Option - Command - I. I then created a series of new actions : Type Shift - Command - F ( Mail ’s Forward Message shortcut ) ; pause for .5 sec ( to wait for the forwarded - message windowpane to open up ) ; paste Joel ’s e-mail speech as the text ; intermission for .5 second ( to wait for Mail ’s autocomplete addressing feature to catch up ) ; tab three metre ( to get to the Subject field ) ; typewrite the left arrow Keystroke ( to get to the beginning of the Subject theatre of operations ) ; forrard - delete three times ( to removeFWDfrom the outset of the case ) ; pasteiOS accessories(to add that text to the beginning of the subject matter ) ; suspension for .5 seconds ( to verify Mail does n’t get leave behind ) ; and , lastly , type faulting - Command - D ( Mail ’s Send Message shortcut).—Dan Frakes
Replying to email with a standard greeting
Tool : Keyboard MaestroI reply to many email every daytime , and I like to thank the sender by name for getting in touch with me . So I created a simple Keyboard Maestro macro that lets me typehisender(Hi , Sender ) to insert a suitable greeting .
Finally , I use Keyboard Maestro ’s Insert Text by Pasting command to insert my greeting , staring with the sender ’s name inserted at the appropriate point : Hi % Variable%sender_name% . That ’s come after byThanks for your message , % |% . I also put the text insertion - point after the greeting , so I can continue typing my reply.—Matt Gemmell
Email encrypted PDFs
Tool : AutomatorApple ’s built - in keep for the PDF data formatting in OS X let you to not only quickly view PDFs without the use of third - political party software system , but also to make Modern I easily . One of the quickest path to do this is to expend the PDF menu in a stock photographic print dialog to make a PDF . And one of the handiest services in this menu is the Mail PDF option , which instead of making you first save a PDF somewhere on your hard drive then bind it to an email content , enwrap all that into one action .
But though this selection is commodious , it is n’t perfect , specially for PDFs that contain raw data . So I created a PDF service of my own in Automator that create and then password - protects a PDF before tie it to an electronic mail .
To start , open Automator , and select Print Plugin from the list of possible work flow . Drag over the Encrypt PDF Documents action mechanism . You do n’t need to enter a password in the Password and Verify fields , but do check the Show This Action When The Workflow Runs under Options . ( or else , you could use a dummy parole for now . ) Next , hang back over the New Mail Message action as the next step in the workflow .
That done , save the work flow with a name ( Mail Encrypted PDF ? ) ; that will now appear as an option in the PDF menu at the bottom of the received Print negotiation windowpane . When you choose it , you will be prompted to enter a password for the PDF ; if you entered a dummy password above , that ’ll be recruit by nonpayment . When the service finished , the PDF will embed as a secure document in a raw electronic mail message.—Topher Kessler
Flag emails from specific senders
Tool : MailI get oodles of emails from my editors and colleagues at Macworld , and I ’ve found it helpful to set them apart from other emails . That way , I can quickly and easily spot any urgent subject matter , plus it makes it well-fixed to apply my Mail inbox as my to - do lean . So I set up a formula in Mail to tick these e-mail and notify me when they get .
In Mail , prefer File > Preferences , then take Rules . Click New Rule and set up the watch conditions : If any of the watch conditions are meet ; From contains macworld.com , pcworld.com and techhive.com . And I define the following actions to be performed on message that fit those conditions : Move Message to Mailbox Inbox ; Set Color of Text to Other … ( I set it to purple ) ; contain Evaluating formula ( so other rules do n’t move or alter the messages ) ; send off Notification.—Kirk McElhearn
Filter messages to specific address
dick : iCloudAs the author of Macworld ’s Ask the iTunes Guy tower , I get lots of reader electronic mail , which is forwarded to an iCloud e-mail address . Rather than dribble those messages with a Mail principle on OS X , I chose to place up a linguistic rule on iCloud . The main reasonableness : I did n’t want them cluttering up my iPhone . Server - side dominion like this piece of work on messages before they reach your inboxes , so they apply to all of your devices .
Sign into iCloud on the connection . Click Mail , then chatter the gear wheel icon at the bottom - left of the windowpane and choose Rules . Click Add a Rule . coiffure the first popup toIs Addressed To , and enter an email speech there . ( I use the addressitunesguy@macworld.com , because messages are redirected from the macworld.com server to my iCloud computer address ; you might want to useIs Frominstead , thoughIs direct Tois a ok selection for message from discussion lists ) . you may also choose a specific term in the subject to filter emails . In the Then discussion section , select Move to Folder , then select the name of the pamphlet on the iCloud host where you want the messages to go . Click Done to save and activate the rule.—Kirk McElhearn
Email favorite tweets
Tool : IFTTT
As I scan my Twitter flow , I often see links to article that I ’d wish to read , but ca n’t turn over into at the moment . Rather than economise them to Safari ’s Reading List or to a inspection and repair like Readability , I favour send out such tweets to my email inbox , so I can process their links later , when I have prison term . IFTTTlets me do this automatically ; all I have to do is favorite a tweet .
To set that up , I first spark the Email and Twitter channel in IFTTT . I then set up the basic formula : If Twitter , then Email . In the action , I take the default email subject : preferred tweet by @{{UserName } } . And for the body of the message , I also take the default:{{TweetEmbedCode } } via Twitter | https://twitter.com/{{UserName } } | { { CreatedAt } } .
With that set up , I get an electronic mail a few minute after I set a tweet a deary , with the tweet in the physical structure , admit the link to the clause I desire to understand . It also give me a record of these favorited - links messages , if I need to find an clause again later.—Kirk McElhearn
Automatically file and reply to customer-support email
Tools : Mail , Sanebox , TextExpanderI self - publish rule book through the iBooks Store . One affair I did n’t realise when I lead off this side - business sector is that , because the books comprise a lot of interactive element , some of my referee would involve client - support . So I rapidly build up an automatize workflow that filters these emails to a place where they ’re leisurely to manage and habituate text - mechanization to make reply more effective .
The first thing I do is filter these support emails to one place . For several eld , I did this with rules in Mail . These prescript scanned incoming messages for certain term relating to the books . Whenever Mail get a hit , it mechanically filed the message in a specific folder for me to review and process . More recently , I ’ve started doing the same matter with the connection - basedSanebox serving . If you ’re a Gmail user , you could also do the same thing with Gmail filtering rule .
Next , using TextExpander , I set up a detailed reply snip that economize me a lot of typewriting . I use TextExpander ’s Optional Selection feature film ( press the pointer button in the snippet editor , then select Fill - Indiana and then Optional Selection ) , which allows me to take which paragraphs in that send away response to admit . I habituate additional fill - in snippets to slip in more elaborate information that the optional selection selection ca n’t support.—David Sparks
