During the keynote at WWDC this year, we learnt that only 25% of Mac users perform backups and only 4% of them do it in a fail-safe automated way.

So another option is always welcome.

Doug Blatti has written an applescript that will backup your Mail folder and Address Book quickly, neatly and conveniently.

All you have to do is launch it. It will prompt you to close Mail and Address Book if they are open and go about its business:

It took about 9 minutes to create a zipped up backup of my Mail and Address Book. The zip file ends up at 620.5MB, just right for burning off onto a CD-Rom with some room to spare. (See further, “How the delete key is your best friend”).

That’s great. There’s only one problem. You.

Remember Apple’s high hopes that Time Machine in Leopard will drastically increase the number of people who do backups? As I’ve suggested before, they are kidding themselves:

Will it work? I don’t think so. The current ability to automate backups with Backup 3.0 and the plethora of third-party automated backup options haven’t brought large numbers of users to the party. This won’t either. It’s not the technical ability that’s missing; it’s the personal habit.

The best solution is to automate it with iCal, so that you are set free to develop more interesting and enjoyable personal habits.

It’s easy. Create an all-day event in iCal and under the alarm option, set it to “Open file”. Navigate to wherever you saved MailBackup.app and select it.

Set it to run at a time when you don’t usually use Mail.

I’m setting it to 9 am because I am having great success with the theory that you shouldn’t open your email until an hour or two after you start work (see more on this in “Emailing to live, not living to email”).

That’s the time to stay in control of your own agenda and actually get some stuff done.

Burn the backup file to a CD-Rom and store it somewhere safe. (Did you hear the one about the guy who kept his backup CD in his laptop case? One day his bag was stolen and…)

Now you are free to enjoy your bad habits worry-free. Your emails and contact details are safe.

NB: This script does not backup your Apple Mail preferences file, com.apple.mail.plist, which lives in your ~/Library/Preferences folder. Is it important? Ask Tim Bray .

You can find some more backup apps in the Hawk Wings Plug-in and Add-on List and in the Related posts section below.mail.app, apple mail, backup, ical, applescript, data security, automation, address bookSimilar Posts:

• AppleScript to backup iCal and Address Book
• How to recover missing Address Book data
• Email Backup and Backup Pro updates: GyazMail, better restore
• A dedicated, easy-to-use backup app for Apple Mail and Entourage
• Email Backup Pro: Simple email backup and restore

After installing it with the instructions on his site, clicking and holding the cursor over an email label in Address Book gives you a “Show Emails from” option.

Click it, and — voila! — the plugin opens an Address search in Mail.app for that email address.

Of course, you can do the same thing manually in Mail.app, but this is much quicker.

And tools that help Address Book and Mail.app to work more closely together without actually mashing them up are welcome.

UPDATE: In order for this script to work you need to have the “Enable access for assistive devices” option checked in the Universal Access Preferences pane of System Preferences. address book, mail.app, apple mail, applescript, automation, productivity, integration, pluginsSimilar Posts:

• Address Book Plugin for European maps via Michelin
• Skype your Address Book
• MobileMe is live – more or less.
• Plaxo releases beta of its Address Book tool
• Use your iChat certificate to sign Mail.app emails

Some of these actions work with Mail.app to automate it and help you get things done more quickly.

Desktop Mailer offers three Automator actions to speed up the emailing of files.

Following the step-by-step tutorials creates three actions that can be added to Finder’s Contextual Menu, allowing you to add a selected item to a new mail message, to archive selected items in a zip file and email them or to just add selected items to an email:

Of course, you can do some of these things with Quicksilver or simply by dropping the files onto Mails Dock icon, but this way may suit some people better.

Another workflow automatically adds photos in emails from particular senders to a project in your Aperture library.

The iWeb Action Pack adds five Automator actions to iWeb, including one that will automatically extract images from cell phone messages sent to your email account and add them to your iWeb blog.

[Thanks, Nyhthawk, for the tip]automator, iweb, aperture, files, mail.app, apple mail, automation, tips, pluginsSimilar Posts:

• Automator Action to email files quickly
• Shortcuts 1.0: Contextual menu hotkeys
• Three Automator actions for iCal
• A plug-in for emailing files from Finder
• A fistful of Quicksilver tutorials