Chris Landon emails with a reasonable request, something you don’t miss or even think about until someone else mentions it.

He points out one thing that Thunderbird and Mail.app can’t do, and that’s coloured mailboxes.

He writes:

Do you know if there’s such a plug-in, etc, for color coding a folder? I have over a hundred folders an it makes it difficult to get to a specific folder, quickly. I could have created more sub-folders than the bunch I already have, but this does not help my situation either.

Here’s an example (I was using Thunderbird at the time and it does not have it either)…

Would it also be difficult to write a plug-in for this?

I don’t know of a plugin that does this, nor do I know how difficult it would be to code, but my hunch is a lot of people would use it.

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Joe Tan at Tan Tan Noodles has written up a way to switch from Outlook to Mail.app using the open source utility, libpst , which was originally developed for Linux but runs fine on Mac OSX.

There are already a number of tried and true ways to crack open Outlook’s PST files and make the transition, either using Mozilla or (for Outlook Express users) DbxConv.

Or you could use the shareware utility, O2M (formerly known as Outlook2Mac) which only costs USD 10.

Still, some people get a kick out doing this kind of thing for free, and libpst offers another way.

Joe outlines just twelve steps from downloading the source code, compiling (not as hard as you imagine) and running it, to the end result.

If I had a PST file to hand, I’d try it myself. Fortunately, I don’t.

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Having trouble connecting to your .Mac account with Mail.app? You’re not alone.

According to a post at MacFixit:

Users are continuing to report (in droves) problems accessing .Mac services — particularly mail — over the past few days.

The post also suggest two solutions that have helped some of its readers.

First, cleaning out the Mac OS X’s caches seems to work for some. You can do this with Tiger Cache Cleaner (USD 8.99) or AppleJack (freeware).

Secondly, it suggests a restart.

There is an easier way. Under the “Other” pane of .Mac’s webmail preferences, you will find a option to forward your messages to an email service that actually works:

After .Mac sorts itself out, you can go back to accessing it directly (if you want to).

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Michael Rothwell has written the code of his IMAP-IDLE plugin from the ground up to produce version 1.06 of his IMAP-IDLE which brings the “push mail” function to Mail.app.

When the plugin is installed, your IMAP server tells Mail.app when new mail arrives rather than Mail needing to poll the server repeatedly without finding anything new. This is obviously faster, more efficient and smarter.

The new version also features a new icon and and the beginnings of a Preference Pane:

I asked Michael what exactly had prompted the rewrite and he told me, “I switched to an OO design from the c-style switch-statement design. So the code is cleaner, and it works better.”

At which point I quickly realised I am too stupid to understand what actually happened, but that whatever it was, it’s good.

Michael also suggests on his web site that Leopard Mail is rumoured to have the IDLE feature built-in. That’s bad news for the IMAP-IDLE plugin, but good news for everyone else.

You can get IMAP-IDLE 1.06, which is freeware, from Michael’s web site .

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A few days ago a Hawk Wings reader kindly emailed me about his search for a template to create Mail Stamp icons.

I skimmed it, thought it was very interesting and then — somehow — lost it. Not even a mailbox rebuild brought it back.

If that person could email again, I’d be very grateful. Sorry about that.

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Logan Rockmore’s excellent menubar notification utility, Mail Unread Menu has been updated and now offers much more control for users over the mailboxes it will track.

Mail Unread Menu works with Leopard (which will be handy) and also features a new exclusions list in its preferences where you can specific mailboxes for the app to ignore.

This is a concentration boost of the first order. For example, in the screenshot below, I have added the mailboxes for two mailing lists:

Because Mail Unread now ignores, it only reports emails that might actually need a response from me, not emails that prefer to browse when it suits me.

Mail Unread Menu is donation-ware and available from Logan’s web site .

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