Using Lion how can I create a "to do" reminder when in mail?

no really you right you can create events and notes in mail but to to do.May just you can't or may we can't find jet the way to do it

I really hope you find a way around

hello

this thread is covering this topic already

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3200430?answerId=15728085022#15728085022

the feature has been removed apparently

Hi. Your thread was a while back but I'd like to share how I do it.

In mail, click on the item you want to make a reminder. On the right screen, move your mouse over the header until you get an "grab" hand icon. Drag it over to iCal in WEEK view, not DAY view. Drop it in the reminders list.

Cmd-E will open the reminder for editing. In the URL you'll see a link "show in mail." Click on it to show your original email message. Edit the name, date, alarm, and calendar. Done.

In Mail, you can also use the Archive button which moves the email to the Archive mailbox (bottom of list). Use flags; there's 7 colors so you can match to your calendar color or to a day of the week, like a tickler file. Use both. Flagged items go in the "Flagged" smart mailbox.

It would be useful to be able to annotate a flagged email, but the reminder can contain the action needed, or a note, flagged, could store that also. Imperfect but it can be done.

Finally, the Mail To-Do button showed an archive of all reminders but that's gone. Instead, in iCal preferences, you can set reminders to "hide" until the day they're due (no due date they won't hide). You can also set how long you want a completed reminder to show on the reminders list before it hides. To see the archive of reminders, in iCal go to menu View/Show All Completed Reminders. I found all my old reminders from before the upgrade to Lion were there.

I was trying to find how to do this and I saw your post. Thanks.

I'm not getting your suggestion to work. I get the "grab hand" when I go to the header of the email in the preview screen, but when I drag it to iCal in week view it will only let me drop it into Calendar and not Reminders.

The Mail item turns into a "letter" as I drag it the same as if I just dragged it from the Inbox list.

What am I not doing?

Hi Edj. Hmm it has worked before but I just tried it with your email message and it didn't. Hmm.

Well, do "grab and drag" to the event calendar, as you said (day view works) but then drag the event over to the reminder column. It will make a reminder, and then you have to delete the event. Be sure to click on the white space to take focus off both the event and reminder, then highlight the event to delete it. When you open the reminder you'll see it refers back to the email.

Thanks for trying it 🙂 I hope the extra step works for you.

DeAnne

Hi again Edj. I just called Apple Express and asked them about dragging from Mail into iCal. The iCal advisor said no, you can only grab and drag to an event (again, in day view or other). Then, to create a reminder, drag the event over to the reminders column. It's touchy in that both the event and the new reminder are highlighted so if you delete, you'll delete both, and Cmd-E won't work cuz it doesn't which to edit. I click in the reminders white space to clear the focus.

Well, that seems to be the final word. I don't use Cloud or other i-products so I've only used this on my macbook pro (Lion 10.7.2). I hope that helps you.

DeAnne

Thanks DeAnne for going to all that trouble, but unfortunately I just can't get it to work even first moving the email to an event and then into reminders. Other threads confirm that others are having the same problem. I'll try further but I'm beginning to think Apple needs to fix this. thanks again.

Hi Edj, I feel your pain. I just tried it and I got a "no-way" slashed circle sign over the events.

Well. I called Express Lane again. We tried it in day view, then month view. No go.

Then he asked me what calendar I had selected in iCal. (I have 8.) None were selected. So I selected one of the calendars and Scooby Doo, it worked.

I'm so glad we're having this conversation! It's all in the details. Thanks Edj.

DeAnne

Hi DeAnne. No luck. I already had calendars checked. If there are calendars checked there can be no events shown.

I tried checking and unchecking and duplicated getting the "no way" slash circle, but still I couldn't drag an email from Events to Reminders.

Checking with you if you are using the latest version of Lion and iCal.

MUST be a way to do this!

Hi edj. First, yes my Mail and iCal are current in Lion 10.7.2. Second, I want to make sure we're using the same settings on iCal. Below are my screen shots. Third, when I did it, it worked but it didn't work. Read on...

So here's a shot of my calendar list. I have two groups, 5 calendars on one, and 3 calendars on the other.

On this shot only the group is selected. If that is the setting I'll get the "no no" sign.

To fix that, I select one of my calendars:

When I have a calendar selected, then when I grab & drop onto the center (events) column, it'll turn into a green plus and drop as an event.

Now here's the spooky thing. I dropped my "grab" into the event grid and it worked fine. However, when I then grabbed the event and dragged it to the reminders column, nothing happened. So, when in doubt, quit the app, so I quit iCal. I opened iCal again and there was the reminder in the reminder column. It was there but didn't appear. (Below, the dropped event is green, and the dropped reminder is at the bottom, also green. It's my default calendar.)

So this makes me nuts and I'm sure, you also. I'm going to call Express Lane again & see what is going on. We will get this to work!!

DeAnne

I'll pile on here as well. I am able to drag the email over to the All Day Events area above a date but have no luck with moving it from the Events over to Reminders. The other problem I'm having is that is no information in the event other than the title of the message; i.e., no link back to the message. If I try to drag the message to the events pane (left side of the calendar), nothing happens.

Yes this has been a journey. I spoke again (4th time) with Apple. I told the iCal advisor that I had been able to drag the header and drop it into the events grid, which will only work when a events calendar is active. Then when I drag the event and drop it in the reminders column, it turns into a letter and ghosts back to the event. However, then one of two things happen: If I quit iCal and reopen it, my reminder will show. OR if I go to the next day, the reminders will show with a date of "Tomorrow." In both cases, the URL will say "show in mail" and open the original email. I had also tried making sure that a reminders calendar was active also. It was erratic.

The advisor agreed that it's erratic. He sent the problem to the iCal engineers to find out what the expected behavior was for dropping an event and for grabbing an event and dropping to reminders. With any luck, there will be a fix the engineers can make to make dragging to reminders possible.

He thought I should hear back early this week. I'll post when I hear!

DeAnne

I also can suddenly not drag an event to the reminders list. As an added bonus, if I make the event 4:15 pm to 4:45pm it actually shows as 4:15 until midnight, and no amount of dragging it around in day view or changing the actual times will fix it. What a mess!

After spending too much time on trying to get this to work I went back to running Windows Outlook in VMware Fusion. Last time I had tried this it was just too slow and buggy, but now it is very smooth and the functionality is superb. You can easily create calendar events or tasks from emails by simply dragging them to the menu bar. Also, of course, Outlook integrates email, Contacts, Calendar and Tasks in one place. Much more functionality. I get free sync for contacts, calendar and tasks using a $20 piece of software called gsyncit.

I would much prefer to use either Apple Mail etc. or Outlook 2011 for Mac but they just make it too difficult to get the integrated functionality that I want. Not worth it so here I am running Windows on my Mac and fine with that.