Does Apple Mail have these great features found in Outlook 2011 ?

Question

Does Apple Mail have these great features found in Outlook 2011 ?

My friend uses Outlook 2011 for Mac with OS 10.68. Told her that Apple Mail might be better. She said she couldn't find the following features, so we ask this Community to please comment on Mail under 10.68. Will these features be available under 10.68 or if her OS is updated to 10.7, 1.8, or 10.9 ?

1. SELECTABLE FROM: The FROM field on a new message should be selectable from other accounts on Mac Mail

2. FROM FIELD VISIBLE: The "From" field should appear on the new message. We cannot see any preference for making the "From" field visible.

3. SIG BLOCK: Signature block should be selected for more than one signature when sending from any account. It seems Mail will only allow one signature block per each account.

4. CALENDER: Outlook allows a "meeting" created from any received e-mail, and when transmitted will add that meeting to the recipients calendars. Outlook has a meeting setup option. Does Mail have this option ?

Thank you.

Posted on Dec 22, 2013 4:29 PM

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Answer 1

a brody

Level 10

83,011 points

Dec 23, 2013 4:46 AM in response to MacPcConsultant

2. FROM FIELD VISIBLE: The "From" field should appear on the new message. We cannot see any preference for making the "From" field visible.

It should be visible. Check your View menu.

4. CALENDER: Outlook allows a "meeting" created from any received e-mail, and when transmitted will add that meeting to the recipients calendars. Outlook has a meeting setup option. Does Mail have this option ?

Apple's iCal/Calendar (it changes name with operating system) does let you assign e-mail addresses to calendar events.

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2967

I know there are limitations with signatures, and #1 I don't understand how that is done. But Mail has a distinct advantage over Outlook. E-mail data corruption is highly unlikely with it and easily backed up. Both Outlook, and its predecessor Entourage rely on a format that easily can get corrupted as the database file can get confused. Mail has one mailbox file in its Library folder for each mailbox. And those files can handle way more messages than Outlook. Once you've seen data corruption, you never want to return.

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Answer 2

varjak paw

Level 10

170,206 points

Dec 23, 2013 9:03 AM in response to MacPcConsultant

1. Yes, that feature is in Mac OS X Mail, assuming of course that the system has more than a single email account set up.

2. Its clearly visible on mine. We'd need more details about the system setup to be able to offer a diagnosis.

3. That's not the case. You can have as many signatures for a given account as you wish, though you can only insert one signature per message.

4. That's a feature when you are using a server that offers calendaring, such as iCloud, Google Calendars or Microsoft Exchange. For such services Mac OS X Mail and iCal definitely offer that feature.

Regards.

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Answer 3

Dec 23, 2013 10:13 AM in response to a brody

Talk about corruption ! Look at all the posts on Microsoft's website (and other places) about SP2 being associated with corruption of the mail data in Outlook 2011 fpr Macintosh.

EXAMPLE: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2409331/en-us

EXAMPLE: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4313550

EXAMPLE: http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/mac/forum/macoffice2011-macoutlook/outlook-20 11-keeps-crashing/ec997032-872e-49d6-80c3-717d0ca4e427

EXAMPLE: http://www.mac-forums.com/forums/os-x-operating-system/269308-corrupted-outlook- mac-2011-a.html

Yes, the mail file is indeed corrupted. Despite using the Database Repair Utility multiple times, one cannot delete even one trashed mail without the program crashing, and the mail data cannot even be fully exported without crashing. Microsoft did not to well on this program structure.

Ironically, Stellar Phoenix has their third party OLM repair utility designed for Mac Outlook 2011, BUT it only works if one can export the mail data file. With corruption, than cannot be done. Would have been wise for them to repair the original data file and not rely on Microsoft's software for export.

QUESTION: Is there a program which will archive this Outlook mail into a readable and searchable document, such as Pages or Word ?

QUESTION: Any benefit to increasing the Mac OS from 10.68 to 10.7 or 10.8 or 10.9 with regard toi repairing Outlook 2011 or with regard to improving the Apple Mail application ?

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Answer 4

a brody

Level 10

83,011 points

Dec 23, 2013 10:36 AM in response to MacPcConsultant

Not to my knowledge on both questions.

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Answer 5

Dec 23, 2013 3:49 PM in response to a brody

Thank you. That Outlook mail database is over 200MB. Does Apple Mail have a limitation on the mail database ? Has anyone has Apple Mail corrupted, and if so is there a repair utility ? There's a "rebuild" in the menu, but it's not labelled as repair.

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Answer 6

Dec 23, 2013 5:54 PM in response to MacPcConsultant

As far as I know, Apple Mail 'databases' per se. can be any size.. Though if any given mailbox gets too large and full with messages, it can bog the program. At that point, you make a new subfolder and move older messages to that, and there is also the option to archive the really old stuff.

Did you ever use Outlook Express in the late 90's?

The Apple Mail system is actually quite similar to that, with each mailbox as it's own folder with a database list then a Messages folder inside with all the individual e-mails. I *think* the Rebuild is the same as the Repair, where the tool counts the messages in the given mailbox then creates a new Info.plist (preference list) file for the mailbox.

Oddly enough I spent 2 hours today fixing an Outlook 2011 Mac database.. Quite the experience and the business had over 5 gigs of mail. It turned out to be a corrupted set of e-mails in the Junk mail folder that one of the users accidentally replied to. Once he went to send a reply, it started the Spinning Beachball of Death and a force quit was necessary. Very interesting that the whole Outlook program can be stopped in it's tracks like that.

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Answer 7

Dec 25, 2013 1:10 PM in response to Deborah Terreson

You call it interesting, most would say "sad" or "inane". Databases should not be so fragile, and repair programs should be robust. The Microsoft telephone support was very substandard. He knew much less than most home users.

Apple Mail is working fine. QUESTION: Where do you find in Apple Mail the Outlook feature "Delete mail from server when deleted locally". That is, this is chosen for each e-mail, and not a global preference.

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Answer 8

Dec 25, 2013 7:19 PM in response to MacPcConsultant

Oooo, I'm not sure of that. It *may* be one of those right-click submenu things that pops up for each message.. Let me faff around and see if it even exists.

Oh, BTW.. Merry Christmas! 🙂

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Answer 9

Dec 26, 2013 8:09 AM in response to Deborah Terreson

Thnak you ! MC and HNY to you.

It seems that "delete from server when deleted locally" is implied in Accounts ----> MailBox Behaviors. by UNchecking "store deleted messages on server". This part of Apple Mail needs a mild overhaul. Right clicking on any message gives "Delete" which is no different from a garbage can icon click. The software should be a more user=friendly as to if and when a message will be deleted from a POP server.

Please share the results of your investigation.

As a separate question, does anyone know which additional features have been added (or deleted) from Apple Mail in 10.7, 10.8, and 10.9 (compared to 10.6.8) ?

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