Take Control of Apple Mail, Sixth Edition

Master Mail for Mac, iPhone, and iPad!

Version 6.2.2, updated June 8, 2025

Use Apple Mail more effectively! Email expert Joe Kissell explains what's new with Mail for Mac, iPhone, and iPad, and how to best set up your Gmail, iCloud, IMAP, and Exchange accounts. He then shows you how to take Mail to the next level with plugins and automation, manage your incoming email, customize Mail, and solve common problems.

Take Control of Apple Mail is your complete guide to Apple's Mail app. In this book, Joe explains core concepts like special IMAP mailboxes and email archiving, reveals Mail's hidden interface elements and gestures, and helps with common tasks like addressing and adding attachments. He also offers tips on customizing Mail, including a nifty chapter on how plugins and automation can dramatically improve the way you use Mail. Joe also covers finding that message in the haystack with Mail's natural-language search, improving the messages you send, how digital signatures and encryption work in Mail, and—perhaps most important—an award-winning strategy for avoiding email overload.

You’ll quickly find the information that’s most important to you, including:

• Key changes in Mail for Sequoia, Sonoma, iOS 18/iPadOS 18, and iOS 17/iPadOS 17, such as Mail Categories, Priority Messages, Message and Thread Summaries, Smart Replies, and Apple Intelligence Writing Tools

• How to take advantage of the Mail privacy features Mail Privacy Protection and Hide My Email

• Getting through your email faster with gestures

• Using advanced search techniques to find filed messages

• Using third-party add-ons to significantly enhance how you use Mail

• The whys and hows of sending attachments

• Defeating spam with the Junk Mail filter—and what to do if you need more firepower

• Understanding special mailboxes like Sent, Drafts, and Junk

• Taking charge of email organization with rules and other measures

• Backing up and restoring email

• Importing email from other apps, older versions of Mail, or another Mac

• Deciding whether you should encrypt your email, along with detailed, real-world steps for signing and encrypting messages

• Taking Mail to the next level with AppleScript and Automator

• Key skills for using Mail for iPhone and iPad, such as working with incoming and outgoing messages, using attachments, and configuring accounts

• Fixing problems: receiving, sending, logging in, bad mailboxes, and more

Although this book primarily covers Mail in macOS 10.14 Mojave through macOS 15 Sequoia, iOS 18/iPadOS 18, and iOS 17/iPadOS 17, the majority of it is also applicable to earlier versions.