Mac OS X: The Missing Manual, Second Edition

Chapter 19. Mail and Address Book

Email is a fast, cheap, convenient communication medium; it’s almost embarrassing these days to admit that you don’t have an email address. Once you have one, though, you’ll be happy to discover that Mac OS X includes Mail, a program that lets you get and send email messages. It’s a surprisingly complete, refreshingly attractive program, much improved in Mac OS X 10.2, that’s filled with shortcuts and surprises—and it’s free.

Setting Up Mail

What you see the first time you open Mail (by clicking its icon on the Dock, for example, or from your Applications folder) may vary. If you’ve signed up for a Mac.com account (and typed its name into the Internet panel of System Preferences), you’re all ready to go. You’ve just saved yourself several minutes of typing and fiddling.

If you’re using a regular Internet service provider (ISP) account instead, you’ll confront the dialog box shown in Figure 19-1, where you’re supposed to input the various settings to specify your email account. (Some of this information may require the help of your ISP’s phone representative.) Here’s the rundown:

• Your Name will appear in the “From” field of the email you send. Type it just the way you’d like it to appear.

• Email Address. This is the address you were assigned when you signed up for Internet services, such as [e-mail].

• Incoming Mail Server, Mail Server Type, Outgoing (SMTP) Mail Server. Enter the information your ISP gave you about its mail servers: the type ...