Lion mail To Do?

I am used to working with Outlook on my work and am using Mac at home. Now I have a new job and am working with a Mac on my work as well. Though you can use flags and tasks, I really do miss the option that Oultook offers to add your emails to a list with follow-up actions that can be tracked. I was not aware that this option was present in previous versions of Mail. I stronly urge Apple to re-introduce this option ASAP.

Some months back, a recommendation was put forward for MailHub - I just put it through it's paces for the 30 day trial and am impressed. If you wish to create reminders related to emails you've received, MailHub does the job easily and effectively.

It doesn't address having To-Do's displaying in Apple Mail, but I think it safe to say that functionality can be consigned to the history books. With the advent of iCloud and Lion, Apple took a giant step backward with calendar and task list functionality - more so than any other part of the OS, which is being progressively dumbed down for iOS integration. Not only did we lose To Do/Task interaction with Mail, iCal in Lion is unusable.

Dear Tony,

Thank you for this recommendation. I missed the original one but I have just downloaded MailHub and it seemsto provide exactly the pieces that stupidly missing from Mail. And there seems to be a virtually zero learning curve....

Thank you again

MailHub is fine, but it's fine if you're a casual email user. If you are serious about reliance of workflow, I'm afraid that you need to rethink. (That's the reason why people choose Microsoft Outlook, not Apple Mail.) As a third party product, MailHub will never be able to provide compatibiity with any new version of Mail at all time. That's why I need the native ToDo feature on Mail. It's a waste of time "playing" around apps, plug-ins etc. when you're working seriously.

I think the way now is to do reminders in ical and later in the notes or reminders app like in a iphone but for that need wait for mountain lion.

For now create them within ical or in calendar in icloud in safari,create reminder or to do or whatever and set the alert to send you a notification when you want it.You can do it in a mac or iphone/ipad and you get the alert when you want.May isn't so easy as before but later with mountain Lion will be much easier than before having a notes and a reminder app like now in the iphone.

Hope help..

Actually Ivan, to contradict what you state - I have been a heavy 'serious' email user for many years - and am a freelancer so I depend on my email and workflows. Mailhub has fit into that workflow to take up the slack from functionality Apple chose to remove.

Your statement about plugins and third party products could apply to any software - the fact is that most freelancer software tools are made great by the plug ins that enhance the functionality. As with any upgrade - assess the impact and benefits before upgrading. I certainly do, and never take the final step until I'm sure that my critical workflows will remain in tact - or I have a solution for what will be impacted.

This discussion has been going on for a long time and has for the most part pretty much run it's course, what it has shown is that people will adapt and use the solutions that suit them best. Horses for courses.

Hi Tony Young2, as you said, you're a freelancer. You made a choice one day, and you have absolute right to change it on another day. A freelancer baskets those software/apps unique to himself and differentiate himself from all others. When I was thinking about a "serious" email user, I was thinking about making a decision of choice, at the point of no return. You're a "heavy" and unique email user, not the kind of "serious" email user in my mind.

If you work in a corporate, recommending or making a decision to go for Mail for 500 people. The next day the ToDo disappeared, think, what would happen to you? A decision maker going for a particular email / messaging / workflow system is a "serious" user. That's why IBM/Lotus Domino and Notes is still a strong survivor, at least it reduces a change to let the email adminstrators a chance to peek into the executive emails. It's serious, isn't it?

Can you think of any serious feature taken away from Microsoft Outlook in the last ten years? Remind me plese. That's the reason why businesses and IT love Microsoft: reliable, predictable, trusted. Apple? Full of personal characters, freedom. Beloved by uni students and those still young and be managed in the corporate, task-accepting, not -giving; or those executives who can ignore current policies (cos' they have the authority to change it) and they don't care about ToDo. Today, it could be iPhone 4S, tomorrow, a Samsung Galaxy SIII already and in two months iPhone 5 if attractive enough.

Apple, took away the ToDo, and broke the business continuity of workflow. That's serious, isn't it?

This is a good point, though I about flipped a lid when I had to figure out all the changes to Office with the new Ribbon at first. I got through it and it's ok now.

A bigger issue with mail is the lousy way it handles fonts when you send an email to someone using Outlook

As anyone figured that out? My business emails look like my 6 year old crafted them with all the completely unpredictable font sizes.

The points you made are valid Ivan, and I've no desire to debate them with you as this is a support forum, not a debating chamber, and I'm sure we both have better things to do.

You are right - for a reason yet to be determined, Apple removed functionality from a core app. It has been an absolute pain in the backside, but after using Macs for 24yrs, I know well enough to find an alternative and move on, more so this time than any time previously because of the iOS convergence path Apple are on as they work tirelessly to make my monitor screens one big iPad. Reminders app on the Mac as part of Mountain Lion does not inspire me at all, I have stuck with the third party ToDo app that I have used on iOS for over 5 yrs because it has better functionality, looks better and is not crippled by the constant communication with iCloud that Reminders on the iPhone and iCal in Lion suffer.

When Mountain Lion is released you will see Reminders app on the Mac that syncs with Reminders on iOS -anyone expecting anything better is setting themselves up for disappointment. One thing is certain, ToDo's won't come back to Mail any time soon - I wouldn't even be surprised if they disappear from Calendar (Mountain Lions renamed iCal) as well.

Just a quick note from one of the early posters in this discussion: I started using the Wunderlist app to replace Apple's to-do list. It works really well and I like it a lot. It's easy to use, free, and has companion apps on the iPhone and iPad that all sync automatically. I recommend it for those of you looking for a third-party solution. (I swear I don't work for them!)

I've given up on Apple reinstating or replacing the missing functionality. And before I upgrade to Mountain Lion (or any future OS) I'll be reading review sites very carefully, looking for lists of functions that were changed or removed in the upgrade, as To-Do was this time. (Like Spaces, which has less functionality and doesn't work as well for me in Lion as it did in Snow Leopard, but that's another discussion!).

Good luck all --

Andy

MACMAIL AND ICAL STILL JIVE - DRAG AND DROP TO DO EMAILS

I did not read all these posts, but in searching for the "To Do" function in LION that links MacMail with iCal I discovered it does still work quite nicely! No more "TO-DO" button in MacMail that I can see, but DRAG AND DROP the actual email onto the iCal. It lets you name the event, add options and it links to the original email. Everything I love about the old feature. Hope this helps some people.

Well Macworld did a cool article How to use Automator's services and folder action workflows and the first part of the video make a cool ToDo that you might like and can use in any application with a keyboard shortcut that you make yourself. IMHO it's very cool this was way.

RudeBoy - I haven't been able to make drag and drop of an email onto iCal work. Is there a "trick" or am I just an idiot? Thanks - Kevin

kcampbe - Works for me without any tricks of any kind. Just drag and drop and then there is a link: "Open in Mail". If it doesn't work for you, maybe you ask the Genius Bar if there is something wrong in your setup.