Eight top tips for making more of Mail

Use the Mail app’s convenience features to keep things organised

The Mail app handles emails from all your accounts in one place.

You can set up mailboxes, like folders, within each online account, or offline by hovering over On My Mac and clicking the +. Organise messages in these by dragging them manually, or automatically by using Mail Rules.

Using Mailbox > New Smart Mailbox, you can collate messages based on your criteria (without moving the originals). Mail Drop enables you to send large attachments that most mail servers will reject. Here’s how to use these features. Adam Banks

3 Set iCloud rules

Mail Rules are only applied when Mail is open. With iCloud, you can also filter messages at source. Sign in at iCloud.com, go to Mail, click the cogwheel and pick Rules to set up rules on the server.

6 Notify for VIPs only

Now you have the important people and organisations in your life set up as VIPs, you can go to Mail > Prefs > General and set new message notifications to appear only for those people.

1 Make mailboxes

Hover over an account name and click the +, or ≈- click its Inbox and pick New Mailbox, to add a mailbox. Click a mailbox to see its contents. From your Inbox, drag messages to mailboxes to file them.

4 Apply flags

Another way to organise messages is to flag them. On the Mac, you can use multiple colours when you ≈- click on a message in the list, but note that on iOS all flags just appear as an orange dot.

7 Format conversations

Mail clumps messages that it thinks form a thread; select the latest one in your Inbox and scroll through the others on the right. To list all messages singly, untick View > Organise by Conversation.

2 Set up Mail Rules

To file emails automatically, go to Mail > Preferences > Rules and click Add Rule. Set it to match a sender or subject you receive regularly, pick Move Message as the action, and choose a mailbox.

5 Add VIPs

≈- click a sender’s name in any open message and pick Add to VIPs, or click the star left of a person’s name when you hover over it. Messages from them are then included in the VIPs mailbox.

8 Use Mail Drop

In Mail > Prefs > Accounts, turn on Mail Drop for your iCloud and other IMAP accounts. When you attach large files, they’re sent to iCloud; a link is included for non-Apple devices to download them.