Matt Hovey, the developer of an amazing email format conversion application called Emailchemy has written a nice piece explaining why was driven to create the app.

Hawk Wings has covered Emailchemy before.

It can convert emails and mailboxes from an astonishing number of email clients (AOL for Windows, Claris Emailer, CompuServe Classic for Macintosh, CompuServe 2000 for Windows, Entourage (Database, .rge Archives and cache files), Eudora, Mail.app, Mozilla, Mulberry, Musashi, Neoplanet, Netscape, Opera, Outlook for Windows, Outlook Express for Macintosh, Windows and UNIX/Solaris, PowerTalk/AOCE for Macintosh, QuickMail Pro for Macintosh and Windows, Thunderbird, Yahoo! Mail and any other UNIX-style or mbox-format mailbox—whew!) into “mbox” format, mail spool, or “UNIX-style” mailboxes, folders of individual email files (.txt or .eml files), comma-separated value files (.csv files), IMAPdir (Binc IMAP maildir) or Maildir++ (Courier IMAP maildir) format, or IMAP formats usable by Outlook, Outlook Express, Entourage, Mail.app, and Thunderbird.

Matt recounts how he moved from his beginnings in mail on UNIX (in 1990, when I was still fooling around on a PC with Waffle, Fidonet and UUCP email) through a dizzying sequence of email clients mandated by “corporate policy” at work and the march of software progress at home:

I went from using Eudora at work to using Apple’s PowerTalk, and from that to using WordPerfect Office (aka Groupwise), Microsoft Exchange, Lotus Notes, and finally Microsoft Outlook. Then, to further complicate matters, I went from using Eudora at home to using Apple’s PowerTalk, Claris Emailer, and Netscape Mail, back to Eudora again, and then finally Apple’s Mail.app that came with Mac OS X.

It’s all very nostalgic! No wonder he ended up with “years of archived email saved in files created by several different applications that no other application could read.”

That’s enough to convert anyone into an ardent disciple of open formats.

If you are in the same bind, Emailchemy (shareware — USD 29.50) may well be the tool for you. email, mbox, old emails, emailchemy, mail.app, apple mail. thinderbird, eudora, claris emailer, entourage, convertor, unix, the good old days

Mac users who want to use Gmail (or some other webmail service) as their default email app rather than Mail.app already have at least three ways of doing it.

With the launch of Firefox 3.0, there is now another way for Firefox users.

All you have to do is enter the following text into Firefox 3.0′s address bar and hit return:

This will register Gmail as the default handler for any mailto: link you click on in Firefox. Of course it doesn’t work for mailto: links in other apps—say, a web archive or note in Yojimbo.

To undo it, just reselect Mail.app as the default in the Applications tab of Firefox’s Preferences.

For a comprehensive solution, you still can’t beat Webmailer which is easy to use and free.

[Via Torben Brams ] gmail, firefox, mailto, default email app, web mail

The recent 10.5.3 update introduced built-in syncing with Gmail Contacts in Address Book.

Despite this, developers of third-party Address Book-Gmail syncing apps are soldiering on. Both SpanningSync and Syncman developers point out that 10.5.3 offers this only for Leopard users and, even then, only for Leopard users with an iPhone or iTouch device.

Jeff Nichols, Syncman developer, has just released a new improved version of his sync app, lending credence to his claim that Wateree (his software firm) is a “small and agile company that can adjust quickly to our customers needs and desires”.

Syncman 1.1 can now be configured to run as a menubar utility and to load automatically when you fire up Mac OS X.

Behind the scenes further tweaks have improved the way Google Talk address are mapped to Jabber addresses in Address Book, and improved treatment of how Address Book’s Last Name field is handled.

But the number one request of users was for scheduled syncing, and Syncman delivers on that too.

The Preferences allow you to set the period of the sync and to customise the level of confirmation you want before it makes any changes:

Confirmation is another nice feature of Syncman, that is lacking in Address Book’s default sync option. As Jeff puts it:

Syncman respects the effort you’ve put into maintaining your Address Book, and therefore gets your confirmation before making any changes that could potentially cause you a whole bunch of headache.

So Syncman offers a confirmation dialog displaying potential changes before it makes them:

SpanningSync has also recently launched a 2.0 beta of its software, which is addition to syncing iCal and Google Calendar, will also sync Address Book data, including photos (Syncman is promised to have this feature soon too). The beta is free (but is a beta, so backup!).

SpanningSync costs either USD 25 for a year’s subscription or USD 65 for a once-off, unlimited licence.

Syncman is shareware and costs USD 15 (€9.95). You can get a 30-day free demo from Wateree’s web site. address book, gmail, google calendar, syncing, menubar, contacts, scheduling, nimble agile developers

The Hotmail plugin HTTPMail has been updated to work with 10.5.3.

This plugin won’t work with all Hotmail accounts, only older ones. But in a clever move it tells you whether it works or not. Either it does, or it gives an error message saying that the account needs to be updated to Hotmail Plus (in which case, see Gmail )

From the FAQ and readme notes included in the disk image, it seems that there are currently two kinds of Hotmail accounts, pre-WebDAV ones (really old), WebDAV ones (less old). I think I read somewhere that 2004 is the magic date.

In any event, as Hawk Wings readers know, all Hotmail accounts will soon (but not as soon as 30 June) become DeltaSync accounts.

In the meantime, if your Hotmail account is old enough, this may be the solution for you.

I could only find an older version, 1.49, on the plugin’s sourceforge page . The most recent one is available from MacUpdate though.

[I should confess that I don't have a Hotmail account and--in breach of the usual Hawk Wings policy--haven't tested this for myself.]hotmail, microsoft, plugins, httpmail, mail.app, apple mail leopard mail, gmail

Well, who would have thought? News of Hotmail’s death for mail.app users is exaggerated.

Microsoft has relented and deferred the transition from WebDAV to its own DeltaSync standard. This means that Mail.app users with HTTPMail and MacFreePOPs plugins won’t be cut off on 30 June after all.

After listening to customer feedback from the original accouncement, Microsoft told its users “it became clear that you needed additional time to evaluate alternative solutions”.

Still, this only postpones the executioner’s axe. Don’t fritter away all the extra time Microsoft has given you in making a decision.

With apologies for any distress.

[Via The Fastmail.fm Weblog ] Apple Mail, fastmail, GMAIL, hotmail, httpmail, macfreepops, mail.app, microsoft, webmail, webdav

UPDATE: Not quite as bad as it sounds — See later post.

In April Microsoft announced that it would be terminating WebDAV access to its Hotmail accounts at the end of June this year and replacing it with a proprietary service of Microsoft’s own creation (DeltaSync).

This is bad news for Mail.app users with Hotmail accounts, who have been using utilities like HTTPMail and MacFreePOPs to access their email. After 30 June, they won’t work. (There are reports that 10.5.3 has broken HTTPMail for some users, merely hastening the inevitable).

For those unwilling to let go their Hotmail email address, another solution beckons. While the plugins might not work any more, a web-based service is offering the same function.

IzyMail , so it claims, “enables you to access webmail from major providers such as AOL, Yahoo, MSN, Hotmail, Windows Live, Fastmail or Gmail with any eMail application”. It even has a special page on setting up Hotmail on the iPhone.

It provides users with incoming and outcoming servers that can be plugged into Mail.app’s Accounts preferences. IzyMail does the heavy-lifting behind the scenes, and delivers fresh Hotmail into your Inbox via POP.

It offers free accounts (with some limitations) and a paid option (c. USD 18/year):

Or perhaps it’s time to take another look at Gmail. microsoft, hotmail, httpmail, macfreepops, wevdav, webmail, izymail, mail.app, apple mail, gmail, fastmail, yahoo, aol, desperate measures

Reo-2007 has written a theme to give Thunderbird the “leopard Mail look”. This is the first Leopard Mail skin I’ve seen for Thunderbird, although others exist to give Mail.app the Tiger Mail and Panther Mail look.

If, for some reason, you have to use Thunderbird, it might as well look as much like Apple Mail as possible.

Reo-2007′s skin is a mixture of theme, extensions and customised CSS which combine to give the look of Leopard Mail as well as some of Leopard Mail’s new functionality, like Notes.

The overall effect is well done:

One extension provides the option to add Notes to emails, just like you can in Leopard Mail. When the Notes toolbar icon is clicked, a pop-up window appears:

The skin will only work on Thunderbird 2.0+. You can get it from Reo-2007′s page on DeviantART.thunderbird, mail.app, apple mail, leopard mail, skins, themes, email in general, notes