Hawk Wings reader Adam sends in this tip for creating a custom keyboard shortcut that adds a hyperlink to an email in Mail.app without the need to go searching through its menu options.

Hawk Wings has covered creating bespoke shortcuts before as well as the virtues of moving around in Mail.app using only the keyboard. Few things do more to speed up your email workflow.

So, you can never post often enough about keyboard shortcuts, and this is a good one.

Adam writes:

In Mail.app I wanted ⌘K to be my shortcut for adding a link in the body of a message. But the command is usually only available via the submenu Link > Add… under the Edit menu. On a whim, I went to System Preferences > Keyboard & Mouse > Keyboard Shortcuts, hit the plus sign and in the box for Menu Title entered “Add…” (no quotes, and using Option-Semicolon for the elipsis). It worked!

If you are a visual learner, this screenshot of the process Adam describes might help too:

Mail.app then kindly adds the new shortcut to your menu, so that you never forget it:

Once you get the taste for it, you won’t want to stop there. Add another to insert a bulleted list (if you go for those):

Of course, both these examples are for Rich Text people. I can’t bring myself to abandon plain text — there’s something noble about it, something efficient, something respectful of the recipient’s settings for displaying text; it’s the way our forefathers did email.

But I recognise that I am a dinosaur in these matters.

Great tip, Adam. Thanks! mail.app, apple mail, tips, hyperlinks, keyboard shortcuts, productivity, bulleted lists, customising

Steve Hodgson wonders :

Looking into making more use of mail.app again I was surprised to see that it still doesn’t appear to have a ‘send later’ option to allow a new message to be queued. Am I missing a trick here or is there some
hack available to fix this?

I know of at least two ways to schedule an email in Mail.app so that it is sent a particular time.

Joe Kissell described one way in a recent post on MacWorld using Chris Shull’s iCalMail . Joe suggests using it to email reminders to attendees at meetings, but it works just as well as a way to schedule future email delivery.

Another way is provided by Andreas Amann’s “Schedule Delivery” script which is part of his Mail Scripts collection. You can schedule delivery without leaving Mail and without restricting the way you compose your email. It lets you compose your message as you normally do, without the restrictions of iCal’s Notes field, and add any attachments you might want to send.

I have found the second option a useful way to assure my boss that I’m working hard while out for a long lunch in the sun with friends. No doubt there are more noble uses for it too. mail.app, apple mail, applescript, ical, schedule, delayed delivery, tips, emailing your boss from the pub

1. Automatically mark emails needing a reply: A poster on macOSXHints describes how to set up a rule that will automatically mark incoming emails requesting a reply. Easily adaptable to other uses.
2. Catch image spam: A new brand of image-based spam can outfox Mail.app’s junk filter. Luckily, an easy-to-construct rule will stop it in its tracks again.
3. Remotely schedule torrent downloads: Matt Comi shows you how to construct a rule that will automatically strip out a torrent that you email to yourself and pass it to Azureus to begin the download. Bittorrenting from work without guilt or fear!
4. Control your home Mac remotely: Attached to a mail.app rule, this applescript can automate a select number of tasks when prompted by emails with the right keywords. A couple of apps make this even easier to set up.
5. AppleScripted Auto-replies: Michelle Steiner has written an applescript that will generate auto-replies when attached to a Mail.app rule. Macresponder does the same thing with more options but costs money.

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