Andrew Escobar has just released a new, improved version of his Mail Stamps utility, which removes the new lozenge-shaped buttons from the Tiger version of Apple Mail.

The new version is a stand-alone app. It streamlines the installation process, which was a bit fiddly before. Download it, install it in your Applications folder and run it. A screen appears, offering you the option of removing the lozenges and of making Mail highlight selected folders in the colour used to highlight folders in other apps like iTunes, Address Book and iCal.

Undoing the changes is as simple as running the app again, deselecting the options you wish to remove and clicking on “Update Mail”. It is still freeware and can be downloaded from Andrew’s website.

Apple Mail’s built-in Junk Filter is a joy to use and one of the app’s most welcome features. But how does it work?

An article on O’Reilly’s mac devcenter web site describes the technology behind the filter and how the filter works. Be amazed by reading about vector representation, semantic analysis and all the science that powers the filter, or just learn how to fine-tune the filter for your own needs.

Joe Kissel provides another explanation of the Junk filter and the tech behind it on the TidBits website.spam, mail.app, apple mail, junk filter, latent semantic analysis, lsa

When Tiger was released, Mail’s new interface was a shock to many people. New lozenge-shaped buttons appeared in the toolbar, which some thought were not only ugly in themselves, but out of step with the rest of Tiger’s interface. They wanted to wind back the clock, and return to the look of Apple Mail in Panther.

If the new look bugs you, three applications can return you to the Panther look. Mail Stamps will replace the lozenge-shaped buttons with the icons from Panther. An uninstaller painlessly returns Mail to the new look if you want to later. Running Mail Stamps turned my Mail’s appearance from this:

to this:

Cagefighter and Debuttonizer are two other apps that will do the same job. Both are freeware.

Mail Stamps 2.0.1 was released on 15 September 2005.
Mail Stamps 2.1 was released on 5 December 2005.

Updated 5 December 2005icons, mail.app, apple mail, lozenge-shaped buttons, panther, apple GUI, hack, interface

Apple users don’t need to worry about the viruses and worms that infect their friends’ PCs, but they can’t escape spam. One easy change in Apple Mail’s preferences can help reduce the amount of spam you receive.

Spammers often use HTML code to determine if an email address is valid, and therefore worth more spam. The code checks whether images or objects are successfully retrieved as an email loads in Apple Mail.

To frustrate this, simply uncheck the “Display images and embedded objects in HTML messages” option in the Viewing pane of Mail’s preferences.

When an email with HTML images arrives, a small button will appear in the top right of the email, allowing you to download the images if the email comes from the trusted source (like my daily headlines email from BBC News). If it’s spam, you can just bin it, knowing that you have not given the spammer the satisfaction of finding a live email address.

If you are really plagued with the stuff, you could also look at installing one of these third-party spam filters for added protection.

Apple uses tech notes to provide a lot of useful information. You can find a full list of the tech notes for Apple Mail 2.0 in the Support section of its web site. After the break are the five that I have found most useful.
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Another way to solve the broken hyperlinks problem was right under my nose and I never noticed. Perhaps I’m not the only one.

You can embed a hyperlink in a Mail message, and the embedded link will then not break.

1. Highlight the text that you want to anchor the hyperlink, say, “click here” or “this web site”.
2. Control click on the highlighted text and select the “Edit Link…” option from the contextual menu
3. Enter the text of the link (paste it in if you have copied it to the clipboard)
4. Send.

The hyperlink then arrives in a form that works at the other end. This only works if the message is in Rich Text Format though. That’s a bit of a downer for old-fashioned emailers like me.

Not everyone wants their email in their face all the time, which can happen with MailAppetizer. MailUnreadStatusBar is a notification utility that takes a more low key approach. Your email is just a click away but it’s not flashed up automatically to disrupt your work flow.

This excellent plug-in puts a little icon of the Apple Mail stamp in your status bar that lists the number of unread emails you have. You can customise which folders it tracks, and the icon’s drop down menu lists the unread mail by folder, allowing you to jump right to the folder you want or need to read.

I have found it a bit temperamental. It seems to forget from time to time which mailboxes to check and occasionally freezes. Still, it’s my favourite utility of its kind, and it’s free. Download it from QueueSoft. notification, menubar, utilities, mail.app, apple mail, nifty