Mail Act-On 2.0: Act On Your Mail with Just a Few Keystrokes

A few days ago, we reviewed MailTags, a great app for organizing and sorting Emails in Mail.app. We briefly mentioned Mail Act-On, the companion app to MailTags.

Mail Act-On works the same way as MailTags, once you install it, there will be a new preference pane in Mail.app. In the General tab of this pane, you can specify if the window is locked (it won’t disappear), and fading of the Result window. The “menus” tab lets you choose keyboard shortcuts for Mail Act-On’s basic functionality. However, if you own a laptop or new Apple keyboard, these shortcuts are very annoying because you must hit the Function key along with the F Key. Right now, there is a bug that does not allow modifier keys for these shortcuts, but I have been assured that it will be fixed soon. While you can turn off the need to hit the function key, it also turns off all of the special actions associated with the keys like Brightness and iTunes controls. To do this, go to System Preferences>Keyboard & Mouse>Keyboard and select the “Use all F1, F2, etc. keys as standard function keys.”

Mail Act-On also adds some new Rules tabs. If you go to the Rules pane of Mail.app’s preferences you will see that there are now three tabs. The Inbox Rules tab is just like Mail.app’s regular Rules. The “Outbox Rules” tab allows you to make rules apply to messages being sent and the “Keystroke Rules” tab is where Mail-Act-On’s power is really seen. Here you can specify rules that can be applied to messages by just one keystroke. You will usually want the “If” part of the rule to be “Any Message” because the point of this rule is to apply it to every message selected when you invoke the rule. There is also a new field in this type of rule called the “Act-On Key”. When you want to apply a certain “Keystroke Rule” you select some messages and hit Control-[Act-On Key for the rule]. This makes it simpler than ever to apply dozens of rules to messages after they have been received.

Mail Act-On does not require you to have any rules set up to use it; you can just use it as a tool to perform many actions on multiple messages. To invoke Mail Act-On, just hit the function key you set up for Mail Act-On (unless you changed it, F1). You will see a HUD-like window popup with actions that can be done to your selected messages. If you have MailTags installed, you will not only see the “Apply Rules”, “Move”, “Copy” and “Open Folder” actions, but you will also see two more: “Add Keyword” and “Set Project.” You can use the arrow keys on your keyboard to scroll through these or just use your mouse. To lock this window manually, just hit F1 (or Function-F1) again. Then, even after you have performed an action of some messages, the Mail Act-On window will still be there. As you remember, there were also options for setting up shortcuts for each action in the Act-On window in Mail Act-On’s preferences. If you hit one of these key combinations, instead of going straight to actions part of the Act-On window, it will take you to the part of the window that corresponds with the keystroke. Although this window makes it amazingly easy to apply rules of all sorts, if Mail.app loses focus and then gains it again, the Act-On window disappears. It is a nice feature that it is not there when Mail.app doesn’t have focus, but it would be better if it appeared again.

indev‘s Mail Act-On retails for $19.95 (an introductory price) and you can download a free 21-day trial from their site. If you are an avid user of Quicksilver, or even if you just want to speed up your Email system, you will love Mail Act-On.

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