Mail icon

What's New in Signal

This page tells you about some of the many new features in Mail. To learn more about how to set up, send and receive email, and solve problems, click the Home button above to take you to the main access page for Signal Help.

Dramatically improved searching

Imge of Mail viewer window with search text

Mail incorporates Spotlight, the new search technology in Mac OS X Tiger. Spotlight is fast, simple, and easy to use. Searches begin as soon as you begin to type, and options for refining your search appear automatically. Spotlight is also integrated with Mail's new Smart Mailboxes, so you can save your most frequent searches for instant access.

bullet Searching your email


Smart Mailboxes

Imge of Smart Mailbox search

Smart Mailboxes work with Spotlight to provide instant and up-to-date results of searches you've previously defined. You create a Smart Mailbox by saving a useful search of your mailboxes. Later, when you click the Smart Mailbox, Mail displays the results of your previous search, but updated to include any new messages that fit the search criteria.

Smart Mailboxes provide a powerful way to help you organize your mail by allowing you to "arrange" your messages by sender, subject, date, and content—all at the same time.

bullet Creating a Smart Mailbox


Photo slideshow

Imge of photo slideshow

When you receive pictures in a message, instead of scrolling through the pictures in your message, click the Slideshow button to have Mail display the photos full screen, one at a time. Use the slidehow controls to display all the pictures at once—à la Exposé—and click another button to send your favorites directly to iPhoto.

bullet Viewing pictures in a slideshow


Parental controls

Imge of Parental Controls pane in Accounts preferences

Use Parental Controls in the Accounts pane of System Preferences to control who users correspond with. Set up a list of approved addresses. Mail alerts you if the user receives a message or tries to send a message to anyone not on the list.

bullet Restricting a user's email account


.Mac synchronization

Imge of Sync pane of .Mac preferences

With a .Mac membership, you can synchronize your accounts, and rules, signatures, and Smart Mailboxes across all of your Mac OS X Tiger computers.

bullet Synchronizing mail across computers


Additional new features

Mail has a new clean look, and the mail viewer window now has an integrated mailboxes list. There are lots more new features. Here are just some of them:

  • Connection Doctor—Helps you solve connection problems.
  • Signatures for Accounts—Signatures are now created for specific accounts. You can specify the default signature for each account, then use the Signature pop-up menu in a compose window to change the signature for a particular message.
  • Quota Management—The Account Info window provides a convenient way to view and delete messages from your accounts, enabling you to free up space on a mail server without having to go to your ISP's website.
  • Spell Checking—A new preference lets you check spelling when you send a message.
  • Account Setup—Mail makes setting up new accounts easier than ever. An account setup assistant steps you through the process.
  • Customized New Message Window—Choose Customize from the Action menu to specify exactly which address fields you want to appear in new message windows, and select which convenient pop-up menus you want to appear.

Click the links below to learn how to use these new features.

bullet Using Connection Doctor to solve connection problems

bullet Adding a signature to your email

bullet My mailbox is over its quota

bullet Checking spelling in email

bullet Setting up your email accounts

bullet Customizing the new message window