Jean-Michel took exception to a screenshot of my copy of Mail.app in another post about navigating around Mail with the keyboard.

He asks,

I’m sorry, but how old is that screengrab? it looks completely different to my mail.app, is this some of the hawkwings add-ons?

It is. I have modified the look of my Mail.app with two utilities that are easy to use and give (to my mind) a much nicer work environment. Compare these two interfaces:

First, the lozenges in mine (the front one) are gone, thanks to Mail Stamps. Now they are big, bold and brassy, just how I like them.

Harder to see but still noticeable, I have run UNO , system-wide theming utility for OS X that brings the unified Toolbar/Titlebar and lighter metal look of Mail and iTunes to all your skinnable apps.

I like the look. And, of course, once you get the taste for it, it’s hard to stop.

You can replace Mail.app’s Dock icon with one of the 295 alternatives on the Hawk Wings’ icon list, which also contains instructions on how to do it.

You can also replace the new mail badges that appear over the icon in the Dock with one of a number of alternatives.

Using the tips for hacking the Letterbox plugin, you can start to make changes to the nib files which control the layout of Mail.app’s message list and preview pane.

Lastly, if you are really keen, you could replace the mailbox icons with any number of improbable images that appeal to you. Use the Hawk Wings Hasta la Vista icon set, or make something better yourself.

Needless to say, no one in their right mind would try this without having backed things up first.

Go on. Take out the cleaver and make a Mail.app of your own! mail.app, apple mail, interface, hacks, icons, dock, notification badges, mailbox icons, nib files

futurekarma.org has posted a set of blue notification badges to replace the default red badges in Mail.app.

Together with my blue and green badges posted last year and the link in that post to mixed set on ResExcellence , they offers lots of options for customizing how Mail looks in your Dock.

The set posted by futurekarma.org comes with an applescript installer. Mine and the ResExcellence set you have to install yourself (instructions are provided).

You can pair these new badges with one of 202 different Mail Stamp icons. Replacing the default icon of Mail’s Red-tailed Hawk is easy.

Once you’ve got the taste for hacking the look of Mail.app, you can move on to replacing the mail folder icons and even try out the Hawk Wings “Hasta la Vista” icon set.notification badges, apple gui, hacks, customizing, mail.app, apple mail, tips

DockStar is a plugin that allows you to add up to four additional notification badges to Mail.app‘s Dock icon for specific accounts and mailboxes.

An updated version has been released. It has been recompiled as a universal binary and adds several welcome new features.

The notification badges now count emails in subfolders (nested mailboxes). You now have the option to set the opacity of the badges and a new Aqua lozenge-shaped badge has been added.

In addition, DockStar now has a “count all” option, allowing DockStar to display the total number of unread emails in all mailboxes.

Most welcome of all, perhaps, this new version (1.1) resets the demo period, allowing a new trial for users whose previous trial period has expired.

DockStar is shareware (USD 8) and a demo of the updated version is available from the developer’s web site.

Every now and then, something comes along like Paparazzi (grab a screenshot of a whole web page) which has nothing to do with Mail.app but is so useful or excellent that I want to blog it anyway.

Knockout Dock is such an app. It gained me an inch of extra screen real estate and cost me nothing.

Read about it and how to survive in a Dock-less world after the jump.

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Apple Mail can count the number of unread emails in your inboxes, but by default it can’t tell you how many are in which account.

DockStar is a utility that allows you to assign a separate notification badge to different mailboxes.

It comes in the form of a classical plugin installing itself as a bundle with an options screen in Mail.app’s Preferences:

In the options you can assign a badge to up to 5 different mailboxes, choose from four different shapes, set the the size of each badge and select colour you want for each mailbox.

The result is a riot of notification badges, undeniably more colourful and possibly more informative:

DockStar is shareware (USD 8) and available from the developer’s web site.plugin, notification badges, bundle, mail.app, apple mail, account, mailbox

As well as changing Mail.app’s Dock icon, you can change the little red “unread mail” bubbles.

The result looks like this screenshot below, sporting my own very elegant blue bubble.

Here’s how:

1. Quit Mail.
2. Open up your Applications folder in Finder and locate Mail.app.
3. Command-Click on Mail’s icon, and select “Show package contents”. Open the “Contents” folder and then the “Resources” folder.
4. Locate the four badge files – newmailbadge1&2.tiff, newmailbadge3.tiff, newmailbadge4.tiff and newmailbadge5.tiff – and make copies by Option-Dragging them to the Desktop (just in case and to return things to the default state if you want to later).
5. Replace them with four identically named files of your own.

   I’ve knocked up two quick and dirty sets in blue and green. You can probably roll your own nicer ones in Photoshop. Apple’s originals have a light shading in the bottom right-hand corner. There’s also a multi-coloured set on ResExcellence.

6. All done. Launch Mail and enjoy.

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