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Apple Mail

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Mail
Developer(s)Apple Computer
Stable release
2.1 (752/752.2) / June 27, 2006
Operating systemMac OS X
TypeE-mail client
LicenseProprietary
Websitewww.apple.com/macosx/features/mail

Mail (aka Mail.app or Apple Mail) is an e-mail program included with Apple Computer's Mac OS X operating system. Originally developed by NeXT for their NEXTSTEP operating system, after NeXT's acquisition by Apple, Mail was updated along with NEXTSTEP as it was overhauled to become Mac OS X. Mail uses the SMTP, POP3, and IMAP protocols, and supports .Mac and Exchange via IMAP.

History

File:OPENSTEP Mail application.jpg
Mail on OPENSTEP.

First found in the NEXTSTEP operating system (which later evolved into OPENSTEP) known as NeXTMail, Mail was innovative for its time, supporting rich text formatting with images, and voice messaging (as pictured). Mail could also support MIME emails as well as plain text for backward compatibility. The default message found when the user first opened Mail in NEXTSTEP included a voice recording of Steve Jobs.

As NEXTSTEP was updated by Apple, going through various stages as Rhapsody and various developer releases of Mac OS X, Mail was known as MailViewer. With the third developer release of Mac OS X, Mail had returned to being simply known as Mail.

Version 1 of Mail, which was included in all versions of Mac OS X up to Mac OS X v10.3, was integrated with other Apple applications such as Address Book, iChat, and iCal. Some of its features include rules for mailboxes, junk mail filtering and multiple account management.

In Version 2 of Mail, which was introduced with Mac OS X v10.4 "Tiger" on April 29, 2005, messages are stored in a proprietary single message-per-file format (with suffix .emlx) in order to permit indexing by Spotlight.

Some of the new features in Version 2 include:

  • "Smart mailboxes" using Spotlight technology to sort mail into folders.
  • The ability to flag messages with a low, normal or high priority and to use these priorities in mail rules and smart mailboxes.
  • Tools for resizing photos before they are sent (to avoid too-big e-mail attachments).
  • The ability to view e-mailed pictures as a full-screen slideshow.
  • Censorship controls to specify who is allowed to send e-mail to children.
  • HTML message composition.

See also

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