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.

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Email Backup, a simple and easy-to-use email backup utility that I posted about just last week, has been updated, adding support for Thunderbird and Eudora.

The app can now do backups for all the major Mac email clients, which can be selected from the main interface:

It’s not an ideal solution. Restoring one of its backups has to be done manually. It doesn’t back up some of the things that I think are essential for Mail.app.

But it’s a lot better than nothing. And it’s free.

Email Backup is available from the developer’s web site .

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FlexTime is a productivity timer, an app that helps you to pace your work and get things through disciplined time management.

It can time simple events like your break between one task and the next or measure more complicated routines and sequences.

In fact, it can do any job that requires measurement of time intervals. Among the routines that come pre-packaged with the app are one to simulate a metronome and another that keeps the appropriate time through a extensive sequence of yoga exercises. The developer Daniel Jalkut (of Red Sweater Blog fame) suggests further uses:

Schedule regular breaks. Practice yoga, tai chi, or dance. Combat attention disorders. Improve your rhythm. Follow a recipe. Meditate. Remember the laundry! About the only thing FlexTime can’t help you do is list the possibilities.

The interface is simple but allows you to build routines quickly:

Here one of the pre-packaged routines, Merlin Mann’s (10+2)*5 productivity hack , is loaded. It will cycle through an hour’s worth of ten minute focussed work periods and two minute breaks for mucking around.

As it comes to the start of each event, it presents an alert (or plays a sound or speaks, your choice):

You can keep it on the screen to remind you what you are supposed to be doing or dismiss it and get on with it until the next alert, depending on what works best for you.

FlexTime is shareware (USD 18.95) and is available from Daniel’s web site .

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Email backup is a simple, easy-to-use app that offers dedicated email backup for Apple Mail and Entourage v.X and 2004.

It backs up all the files needed to restore your email in the event of a corruption or some other disaster.

The single-paned interface allows you to specify the backup destination and options to schedule the day and time:

A revised version released today adds an option to turn verbose logging on and off, fixes a rare freezing issue that occurred on some systems and adds a progress indicator for manual backups.

Of course, there are many options for creating a regular backup regime. Hawk Wings has posted about many of them—BackityMac, Synk, applescripts, Dejà vu, although there are others.

UPDATE: As Steve points out in the comments, this app only backs up your preferences file and the essential files and folders in your ~/Library/Mail folder. If you want to back up any saved or modified attachments or your Address Book (which I think is part of any sensible Mail backup) you will need to find another method to include all the files needed for a full backup (listed in an earlier Hawk Wings post).

Email Backup is freeware and is available from the developer’s web site .

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