Mac 101: In Mail.app, reply with selected text
More Mac 101, tips and tricks for the novice Mac user.I've been using the Mail app in Mac OS X for a good four or five years now. I thought I pretty much knew most of how to use it, but today I've been pleasantly surprised. I've just stumbled across a nifty little feature that I hadn't known about before, and it's going to make a small, but significant improvement to the way I do email in Mail app.
In replying to an email in Mail.app, when you hit the reply button all the text from that email is inserted into the reply message (like all other email clients). However, having just been sifting through a rather complex message & trying to decipher a few key areas, I selected a specific portion of text to copy and insert into the reply message to illustrate and help clarify a few points.
This is a practice I usually follow, but in haste, I selected the text I wanted to copy before I'd created the reply message. When I hit the reply button, I suddenly realized that I had a reply message with only the selected text from the previous mail present.
If you select text in Mail.app and then hit the reply button, Mail.app will automatically insert the selected text into the reply message whilst leaving everything else behind. This is useful if you want to quote a specific piece of text in a reply message, but not make the recipient trawl through the previous conversations to get there (and it saves you cutting and pasting the text, too).
I'm sure this is quite obvious to veteran Mac users, but that's why this is a Mac 101; for new Mac users, and those slightly less proficient with email, it's a little tip to make your email experience that much more pleasant.
Let us know if you have any helpful tips for using Mail.app in the comments below.
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Source: http://tuaw.com/tag/mac101
More Mac 101, tips and tricks for the novice Mac user. I've been using the Mail app in Mac OS X for a good four or five years now. I...
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Just a small reminder: Mail preferences need to be like that:
- Composing - Responding - Check "Quote the text of the original message" and Check "Include selected text, if any; otherwise include all text"
thanks for the tip!
regards,
It works also when forwarding; on iPhone too.
October 30 2010 at 4:10 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyIf you don't like this feature, and sometimes it is quite annoying, you turn it off in preferneces under the "Composing" tab.
October 29 2010 at 9:31 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyHow do you stop it from replying to YOURSELF when you hit 'reply all'??
October 29 2010 at 4:37 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyAnother thing I discovered recently (related to the "selected text" tip):
When using data detectors to automatically add a contact to Address Book or an appointment to iCal, if you select some text before the entire process (I mean, even before hovering your mouse over the data you'd like to "extract"), the selected text is automatically added to the comments section in your new Address Book / iCal entry. Pretty useful too, sometimes !
I do like this feature, but it reminds me of something that really bothers me about Mail.app that nobody seems to have a solution for.
When I forward messages written in Mail.app, they turn into text file attachments (rather than just text at the bottom of the message) when viewed by folks with outlook. I understand that this as much to do with how outlook (exchange perhaps) receives it as how mail sends it, but still, geez. Seems like something that basic could be worked through between the two companies?
I've been using Mail.app since my first Mac running Tiger 10.5.6 and didn't know this feature existed!
Great tip, and excellent addition Dan, it's even more useful on the iPhone.
On the topic of copying and pasting, I wish OS X had a "print selection" option like Windows, instead of having to cut and paste the text you want to print.
Works on the iPhone's built-in mail client too!
October 29 2010 at 3:18 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyiPad too.
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TUAW (or The Unofficial Apple Weblog) is a website devoted to tips, reviews, news, analysis and opinion on everything Apple.
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