When Tiger came out, some people noticed right away that Mail.app no longer allowed itself to be launched in a hidden state. An AppleScript fixed the problem in 10.4, but it doesn’t work in Leopard.

Martin Patfield has created a fix for Leopard users who want to launch Mail but not see it.

Installing the app is easy, and follows the same procedure as the old Tiger fix. First you need to download it, and install it somewhere on your hard drive (in the Applications folder perhaps).

Open System Preferences and navigate to the Login Items tab of the Accounts Preference pane. Select the “Plus” button underneath the list:

Navigate to wherever you saved the “Launch and Hide Mail.app” app and add it:

There’s only one problem. It doesn’t work. It launches Mail.app alright, but doesn’t hide it. At least, for me it doesn’t, although you may have better luck. I noticed that 98 people have downloaded it from MacUpdate and no one else has complained.

Try it out for yourself. It’s freeware (donations not refused!).

UPDATE: The developer has just sent me a tweaked copy of the app. Now it works! The entry on MacUpdate now points to the updated file.apple mail, mail.app, hidden state, launching, add-ons, tips, leopard mail

Last year, Jeremy Carlson wrote an AppleScript which allowed you to start Mail 2.0 in a “hidden” or minimalised state.

You could do this with Mail.app under 10.3, but Tiger removed the option. Recently the script has been broken, either because of updates or the shhift to Intel chips. Several people have emailed asking if I knew of an alternative.

I contacted Jeremy and asked him if he plans to update the script. He did. He has!

Instructions for using the script are included in the disk image. You can now get the updated version (1.01) from MacUpdate .mail.app, apple mail, launch, hidden state, minimized, applescript, plugins

In Panther Mail could be set to start “hidden” as a login item. That seems to be broken in Tiger. Not a big deal, but some users find it an annoyance. Now they can use HiddenMail, an AppleScript written by Jeremy Carlson, which will start Mail in a “hidden state”.

To install it, download the Hidden Mail script and move it to your Applications folder. Go to System Preferences > Accounts > Your Account > Login Items. Remove Mail if it is there and add HiddenMail.

Now when you login, Mail will start hidden.mail.app, apple mail, tips, login, hidden state, hide, startup, applescript