Mark up messages in Mail

Annotate your attachments in Mail and send files that are too big for email

Annotate your attachments in Mail and send files that are too big for email

Mail in OS X has always been a sleek, uncluttered email client compared to many alternatives, and features Apple adds tend to be really useful. Often they’re things you hadn’t even realised you needed. Markup in OS X Yosemite’s version of Mail is handy for making notes or highlighting areas on an attached image or PDF without having to open it first in another app, such as Preview. Say you want to attach a photograph and point out a person, or add some text notes. It’s easier to do with Markup than by writing lengthy explanations in a message.

Mail Drop is another useful technology that’s new in Yosemite, and it works almost invisibly. When you are signed into iCloud on your Mac – which you almost certainly will be already – Mail detects when you try to send an attachment that’s large (typically over about 20MB) and offers to upload it to Apple’s servers rather than risking rejection by your ISP for going over size limits. If the receiver has Yosemite, the attachment downloads to their Mail app automatically. If they don’t, they receive a link to manually download the attachment. It’s an excellent solution to sending large files. Hollin Jones

Annotating things with Markup is easier to do than writing lengthy explanations