So, you’re thinking about buying one of the new Intel Macs announced this week in San Francisco?

I am. There’s a shiny new MacBook Pro with my name on it out there somewhere. Or there will be.

The big question for me is not whether I’ll miss the FW800 port as much as I think I will (probably not), or whether I will kick myself for not waiting for the Rev B (probably), but whether Mail.app with all my favourite things bolted-on will run natively.

So I asked the developers of all the plugins and addons on the Top Ten things every Mail.app user should have list, how ready they were for the Intel Macs. Here’s the good news:

1. MailTags. Scott Morrison says that a universal binary will be available “hopefully” in two weeks. And as Version 1.2 with a killer new feature as well!
2. Mail Act-on. Two weeks will see a universal binary of this plug-in as well.
3. MailAppetizer. This has been a universal binary since July last year. Ready to go.
4. Mail Scripts. This has also been a universal binary since the middle of last year. Andeas Amann says that “the only potential problem might be the “Archive Messages” script since it packages some pre-complied Perl packages as well”. But if any problems exist, they’ll soon be ironed out.
5. Mail Stamps. Version 2.1 was compiled as a universal binary for Intels and PowerPCs. And it worked fine on his developer Intel Mac, Andrew Escobar says.
6. MailUnreadStatusBar. Masaru says that it’s not clear whether this utility will need a recompile or not, “because it isn’t supposed to depend on architecture”. It should work equally well on a PPC or an Intel.
7. JunkMatcher or SpamSieve. Michael Tsai says that at the moment SpamSieve runs in Rosetta with Mail.app and the SpamSieve plug-in running natively. But a recompiled version of SpamSieve is due out in two weeks and will be available as a free upgrade.

   JunkMatcher’s developer Benjamin Han wants to address some issues with his app before recompiling for Intel Macs. Due to time pressures, “it’ll probably be a while”, he says.

8. Take Control of Apple Mail in Tiger. It is my understanding that this excellent ebook will be just as helpful on an Intel Mac as it is now.
9. QuickSilver. Quicksilver and all its plug-ins were recompiled earlier this week.
10. Spell Catcher X. Evan Gross says he will post a recompiled beta of Spell Catcher X next week (when he gets back from MacWorld) that will also contain some new features and few minor bugfixes. The final release will be polished up and available long before most people get their hands on one of the new Macs.

Now there is no excuse for restraint.

You can find a longer list of all recompiled applications that are ready to run natively on VersionTracker’s MacIntel Resource Center.

Two years ago, Aaron Swartz wrote an AppleScript for filing emails in Apple Mail. Highlight an email, run the script and it’s filed.

It’s a tribute to AppleScript (and to Aaron) that it works as well in Mail 2.0 now as it did then.

The script requires some editing, but instructions are provided. You will also find tips on how to create a hot key for the script, or you could use FastScripts to set the shortcut.

This script was written before Mail Act-on existed. Along with Jonathan Nathan’s MailMover, it provides a slightly more laborious and involved alternative.

The script is available from Aaron’s blog.

A second installment. Learning to give up my Inbox and live in smart mailboxes instead was Part One.

Part Two is about the book and about how I’ve since modified my Mail Act-on and MailTags set-up to help me get some things done better than on my first attempt. (All of which you will find after the jump… )

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You can spend a lot of time blogging. That’s my experience. You kid yourself that you are doing something productive to make the world a better place, but really you are just surfing around and waiting to see if more people on the East Coast or in California hit your blog before Morning Tea or whether more people in London or New York fool around on Fridays, reading your blog instead of working.

It’s not sustainable. Something has to give – either you blog less or get more efficient about the rest of your life so that blogging-time is not threatened. Obviously, one chooses the latter option.

I remember reading a piece by Merlin Mann of 43Folders fame on “The inbox makeover” and today I read about “Using Thunderbird to get things done” on a blog called the entropic principal.

I like to think that Mail.app can do anything that Thunderbird can. Mouse-less spam reporting? No problem! Getting things done? No problem!

Using Mail Act-on and MailTags (Thanks, Scott!) I set up a “Getting things done”-esque Inbox after the jump. If you need to be more efficient too, spend some time checking it out.

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Everyone’s talking about it, so why not join in? Mail Act-on is everyone’s plug-in of the moment. Reviews on 43 Folders, MacOSXHints, About.com, Amit Gupta’s Blog and MacWorld rave about the time it saves and the neatness it brings to your inbox.

Mail Act-on is a plug-in that allows you to create rules, which at the press of a keystroke move emails out of your inbox into any folder that you set. It’s amazingly flexible. Any action you can set in an Apple Mail rule, you can get this thing to do – moving, copying, setting the colour of the subject line, the list goes on and on. Hit a configurable “hot-key” (set to “`” by default) and a list of your rules pops up. Hit the relevant key and the highlighted message has gone to its new home.

Some reviewers recommend combining its use with a “Respond-Action-Hold-Waiting-Archive” schema of folders for sorting mail and getting über-efficient. That’s not for me. I soon forget about the emails I moved into the Action folder, or worry about which of the folders a particular email should be in. But even without this extra step, my inbox is smaller and I deal with things faster.

Mail Act-on is free, although the creator, Scott Morrison, accepts donations. You can download it from his web site.mail act-on, scott morrison, filing, email, rules, plugin, keyboard shortcut, mail.app, apple mail