Overview of the Apple Mail Window

When you start Apple Mail, you will see a window with three panes. (See Figure 1)

• The LEFT pane lists your Mail Folders, including:
  • Your Inbox folder with all your incoming messages.
  • Your Drafts folder with messages you are writing.
  • Your Sent folder with messages you have sent.
  • Your Trash folder with messages you have deleted, but are still stored until you empty the trash.
  • Any other folders you have created. 
• The TOP pane is the list of messages in the selected folder. When you click on a message in the list, the details of the message appear in the BOTTOM pane.
• The BOTTOM pane shows you the Message Preview.

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Sending A Test Message

1. Select New Message from the File menu or click the New icon in the toolbar. (See Figure 2)
   
   Figure 2
2. Enter in your email address in the To: field. (See Figure 3)
   • To send to more than one person, use commas between addresses.
   • You can also add addresses in the Cc: (Carbon copy) or Bcc: (Blind carbon copy) fields. To show the Bcc field, select Bcc from the View menu.
   • If the address is in your Address Book or in your Previous Recipients list, you only need to type the first few letters of the address. The rest will be filled in for you. If the person is in your address book, the name will be displayed in a blue oval instead of the actual address. See below.
   • If you have configured Mail to use the GAL, Mail will search the directory for the correct address, even it you don’t have it stored in your address book.
3. Enter in a subject line. This should be a brief description of what the message is about.
4. Enter in the text of the message in the main body.
   • Mail will automatically check for spelling errors and underline them in red. You can control-click on the underlined word for a suggested spelling correction.
5. If you are sending an attachment, click the Attach button and browse to the file you want to send.
   • If you are sending a file to someone with a Windows computer, you may want to click “Send Windows friendly attachment.”
   • Only send attachments when it is necessary and when your recipients are expecting the attachment.
6. When you are ready to send your message, click the Send button in the toolbar at the top of the message window. 
   
   Figure 3
7. Your message should be sent. A copy will be saved in your Sent folder.

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Checking Your Mail and Reading Your Message

It may take a few minutes for your test message to be delivered. If you check and you have no new mail, try again in a few minutes.

1. Click the Get Mail button in the main toolbar. (See Figure 4) You can also select Get New Mail from the Mailbox menu. 
   Figure 4
2. Select the message in the message list to open it in the message preview pane in the lower section. To view it in a larger window, double-click on the message to open it in a new window.

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Creating New Mail Folders

To create a new folder in your NACS MailBox account (IMAP only):

1. From the Mailbox menu, select New Mailbox
2. From the Location drop down menu, select your UCI account. (See Figure 5) 
   ( If you are using POP, you can only create folders on your computer. Choose On My Mac from the Location drop down menu. )
3. Type a name for the new mailbox folder.
4. Click OK. 
   
   Figure 5
5. Your new folder will appear in your list of folders. (See Figure 6)
   
   Figure 6
6. If you are using IMAP this new folder is stored on the server and will be available to you from any other IMAP connection, such as Webmail or another configuration of Apple Mail or Thunderbird on another computer.

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Moving Messages Between Folders

You will use this same procedure whether you are moving messages between folders on the server, between a folder on the server and one on your hard drive, or between folders on your hard drive.

You can use any of these three methods for moving messages:

• Select the message you want to move, select Move To from the Message menu, and then select the folder to which you want to move the message, or
• Control-click on the message you want to move, and select the destination folder from the drop-down list under Move To, or
• Drag the message header from the message list to a folder in the folder list.

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Deleting a Message

If you are using IMAP, your messages are stored on the server. It is important to delete messages you will no longer need to ensure you do not go over your quota. You can also move messages to your a folder on your hard drive by using the methods above.

• Select your test message by clicking on it once.
• Click the Delete button in the toolbar.
• If you change your mind and want to UNDELETE a message, you’ll find it in the folder named Trash. Simply move this message back to your Inbox if you still need it.

Note: By default, Apple Mail will erase messages older than one week that you leave in the Trash. You can change this in Preferences > Accounts > MailBox behaviors.

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Junk Mail

Apple Mail has an easy to use Junk Mail filter built in. You can use this in combination with My Email Option’s Spam Filtering to filter out unwanted email.

1. Junk mail filtering should be enabled by default, but is likely in Training mode. This will flag messages as Junk but keep them in your Inbox.
2. From the Mail menu, select Preferences.
3. Select the Junk Mail button in the top toolbar. (See Figure 7)
4. Make sure Enable Junk mail filtering is checked.
5. Select Move it to the Junk mailbox (Automatic)
6. Close the Preferences window. 
   
   Figure 7
7. Mail will now move any message it thinks is Junk to the Junk folder.
8. If you receive a message that is not marked as Junk, but you believe it should be, simply click the Junk button in the top toolbar. The message will be moved to the Junk folder. 
   As you mark messages, you “train” Mail about what you consider to be junk mail, and Mail updates its internal junk mail database accordingly.
9. If Mail marks a message as Junk but it is not, simply click the Not Junk button in the message preview. The message will have to manually be moved back to the Inbox from the Junk folder.

This should give you an overview of how to use Apple Mail. More help can be found under the Help menu of the Apple Mail program.