Mail Scripts

Description

I recently started reading my email using the Mail application that comes with Mac OS X, after years of using Mutt. I discovered right away that Mail was missing a number of features I was used to in Mutt that made it slow and cumbersome to read my mail. I wrote these AppleScripts to add some of the missing functionality.

Scripts

Download all scripts (32 KB)

Save To Mailbox

Displays a dialog where you can enter the name of a mailbox to save the currently-selected message(s) to, similar to the S key in Mutt or Pine. Defaults to suggesting a folder based on the email address, so in many cases you can save mail to the right place with only a few keystrokes.

Edit the applySaveRules function in the script to define your own rules about what default mailbox to use based on the sender and receipients.

Go To Mailbox

Displays a dialog where you can type in the name of a mailbox, and it will be displayed. Modeled on the C key in Mutt.

Open Digest

Opens the currently-selected message as its own mailbox, showing each attachment of type message/rfc822 as its own message. Some mailing lists (e.g., those at run by Apple) can be configured to send digests in this format.

Compose With Sender
Set Sender

These scripts let you easily set the sender when composing a new or existing message. Displays a dialog where you can change the text that will be used in the From header of the message when it is sent, allowing you to send email with a sender of any name or address.

Note that Mail will not display the sender address during composition unless you already have configured multiple accounts or multiple addresses (use a comma in the “Email Address” account preference). I recommend enabling this option when using these scripts.

Documentation

Requirements

Mac OS X 10.2
Perl module MIME::Tools (only required for the Open Digest script)

Installation

Download and expand the scripts. You can run them as you would any other AppleScript, including:

Double-click to open them in Script Editor, where you can run the scripts directly, or save them as applications you can run as you would any other application.
Install Script Menu and add them to your scripts folder. You can then activate a script from the script menu while using Mail.
Use a key macro program to assign the scripts to hotkeys in the Mail program. For example, I have control-S assigned to the Save To Mailbox script. I use Keyboard Maestro, which has built-in support for running AppleScripts, and lets you to define hotkeys that are only active in specific applications (i.e., Mail).

Installing Open Digest

The Open Digest script uses an auxiliary Perl script parsedigest, which uses the MIME::Parser Perl module to do the actual parsing of MIME digests. This script needs to be installed where the AppleScript can find it.

After mounting the disk image, you will find two files, Open Digest.scpt and parsedigest. The former is the AppleScript; run it like any of the others. The latter needs to be moved to a folder named bin just inside your home directory. You will need to create this folder if it does not already exist.

Version History

July 31, 2003

Go To Mailbox now works with multiple and local accounts
Changed download to single disk image instead of five StuffIt archives

January 24, 2003

Open Digest script added.

January 17, 2003

Initial release

Known Bugs

Save To Mailbox only works with IMAP accounts, but not with local (“On My Mac”) mailboxes.
Open Digest creates a mail folder on your Mac named “Digests” and uses it to store the mailboxes it creates. You can delete this mailbox when it becomes too large.