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change Flag names in Mail
‘Red’, ‘Green’ and ‘Yellow’ aren’t particularly meaningful ways to categorise messages, but changing the names to something more useful can make the ‘Flags’ feature a handy tool.
The procedure is quite simple, but the first thing you have to do is actually flag a couple of messages:
1. Flag some messages (one of each colour if you want seven categories):
2. Next, go into the sidebar in Mail. Click the little disclosure triangle:
3. Click on one of the names and press ‘return’ on the keyboard:
4. Type in a new name and press ‘return’ again:
5. Of course, you can change the flag names at any time:
how to make your battery last a bit longer
Here’s a couple of tricks you can use to eek a bit more life out of your old battery between recharges.
1. Turn off the keyboard backlights by pressing F5.
2. Turn off Bluetooth in the menu bar.
3. If you’re not using the Internet, turn off Wifi in the menu bar.
4. If you are using the internet, but you’re not expecting or bothered about receiving mail for a time, quit Mail or any other email client app. If you still want to check your email and you use a web-based mail service like GMail, you’ll use less battery power if you quit Mail, and open GMail directly in your browser window.
5. Reduce the hard disk drive sleep time (formerly known as ‘spindown’). By default, your Mac will power down the hard disk after 10 minutes inactivity on battery power. You could try setting that to 5 minutes (any less, and you’ll probably lose what you gain as the the HD will end up having to power up more often than necessary).
To do so, open Terminal, and copy/paste this command:
sudo pmset -b disksleep 5
After pressing ‘Return’ on your keyboard, you will need to enter your password, which will be invisible when you type it (so type carefully).
If you want to change it back to its default anytime in the future, just use the same command but change the ‘5’ to ’10’.
This doesn’t affect the spindown time when you’re on mains power.
how to restore Bounce in Mail
If you were a fan of the ‘bounce’ feature in the previous version of Mail, you may be disappointed that it has been removed in Mail Version 5.x
If you want the feature badly enough, you can either
1. Use this add-on for Mail.app in Lion
Restore Bounce Mail Button To Lion’s Mail
or
2. Use Mozilla’s Thunderbird.app instead of Mail, and get the ‘Mail Redirect‘ add on.
Mail: back to classic
OK, I gave it three days, but in the end I just can’t get along with Mail’s new look; it’s just too visually confusing for me. The good news is Apple didn’t desert its old users entirely. If you want to return Mail to its former glory, just go to Mail Preferences > Viewing and check the box at the top. That’s it, back to clarity! 🙂
Mail Preferences: