Labels for Apple’s Mail Application
Labels in Mail have been something I’ve been missing ever since changing over to Apple’s Mail.app. However, I’ve found out how to create a script that allows me to set the color of (or label) a message.
I’ve tested my scripts in Mac 10.3 Panther and 10.4 Tiger and it works great. I prefer how Apple has scripts set up in 10.3 a little better, however it works.
To install the scripts, first download my labels scripts then use Spotlight (or the find feature in 10.3) to find the Mail Scripts folder. Add the Labels folder that you downloaded into that folder and they’ll be installed. You can also just add them in the main Scripts folder like I did in the screen shot. For me, it provides quicker access in 10.4.
You also have to turn on the scripting menu item. Here is how Apple tells us to do it.
The Script menu gives you easy access to a number of sample scripts provided by Apple to demonstrate the AppleScript capabilities of several Mac OS X applications, including Mail. The Script menu looks like a small scroll, near the right side of the menu bar. To include the Script menu in your menu bar if it’s not already there, open AppleScript Utility and select the “Show Script Menu in menu bar” checkbox.
Once you have done those two things, open the Mail application and you should see a Labels option in the Scripts menu. If you put them in the Mail Scripts folder in 10.4, then you’ll need to make sure to look in there.
The scripts that I provide here are named by color; Red, Green, Blue, etc. If you’d rather have labels that say Urgent, To Do, Later and things like that, just find the script files that you copied to the scripts folder and rename them. Whatever the file name is is what will appear in the Labels folder of the Scripts menu.
To uninstall, make sure to first set your messages back to white, then go back to the scripts folder and remove the scripts.
If you label a message in a thread, then try to un-label it, the thread will stay in color until you close the mailbox window and re-open it. Not a big deal, however kind of annoying.
In the screen shot, I re-named my folder from Labels to Mail Labels and put it in the main Scripts folder of 10.4. I had it in the Mail Scripts folder, however it was to many folders to go though to label a message.
Feel free to ask any questions and let me know what you think of the Label scripts or Apple’s Mail application.
thanks for this awesome script. But here’s the problem, and it’s Apple’s fault, not yours. I would want to create a Smart Mailbox where I could call up all mail labelled with a certain tag. There just seems no way to do that.
- lawrence goodman June 6th, 2005 at 9:16 am
Safari 412 - Mac OS X
Ohh that’s a good idea. I’ll have to see if I can’t figure out how to do that. I know that this is a work around, so there may not be a way. I’ll keep it in mind and let you know if I come up with anything.
- Thomas June 6th, 2005 at 9:56 am
Mozilla Firefox 1.0.4 - Mac OS X
nice!!
- hiro June 6th, 2005 at 7:39 pm
Mozilla Firefox 1.0.4 - Mac OS X
Maybe to add comments/tags for Spotlight in this applescript and make smartfolders in Spotlight??
- Charlie June 16th, 2005 at 2:21 am
Mozilla Firefox 1.0.3 - Mac OS X
this is *exactly* what i wanted when i switched from entourage a few days ago! =) thank you for writing this!! =) i wrote about my switch on my blog (ya an adult blog but i’m a mac fan too =) ). i can’t wait to try this.
i have to say though, switching from entourage was a bit weird at first but i really *love* apple mail. it also displays messages so much faster. i dunno why, but on my ibook g4 it works just great and it’s a bit more friendly, if not simple. i just really missed my colors too.
so thank you again. =)
sav.
- Savanna June 17th, 2005 at 11:40 pm
Mozilla Firefox 1.0.4 - Mac OS X
Labels for Mail.app
okies, some geeky mac stuff again!
i wrote the other day that i really missed the colors from Entourage when i switched to Apple Mail.
have no fear, some guy wrote a script that gives the colors back!
and i think that Apple Mail with colors looks pr…
- Porn Pic a Day! June 18th, 2005 at 12:09 am
WordPress 1.5.1.2
[...] to each one for extra ease of use. They seem to be free and Thomas welcomes feedback on his blog, where you can also download the scripts. Nice one!
[...]
- Hawk Wings » Blog Archive » Label Scripts: Colo(u)red emails on the fly October 7th, 2005 at 8:42 am
WordPress 1.5.1.3
Excellent! Thanks, Thomas.
- Tim Gaden October 7th, 2005 at 8:44 am
Safari 412.5 - Mac OS X
Thank you very much for the script. Works smoothly in my Panther Apple Mail and that was a feature I missed a lot from the days I used Thunderbird and Netscape Mail at Linux.
- Carlos Alberto Santos October 20th, 2005 at 10:57 pm
OmniWeb - Mac OS X
Thanks for this great little set of scripts. I really appreciate it!
shuffle1
- Chad Long November 1st, 2005 at 10:50 pm
Safari 312 - Mac OS X
These scripts are great! Now, what I’m looking for is a way to have a smart folder/identify emails that I haven’t responded to… I know Mail keeps track of that (with the little arrow it shows in that ambiguous column containing status, but I don’t know how to access it. I would LOVE a smart folder that I can refer to when I really need to catch up on emailing back people…
Thoughts?
Thanks!
- tl November 2nd, 2005 at 11:22 am
Safari 416.12 - Mac OS X
I just switched from Eudora to Mail and was mourning the loss of labels. Found your script on the Apple Discussion Board (at the suggestion of Apple Care). Seems to work great. Thanks!!!
- Mark November 17th, 2005 at 11:21 pm
Safari 416.12 - Mac OS X
hi, do you know how to search labeled messages ?
- Joseph Kolin December 18th, 2005 at 2:18 am
Safari 416.13 - Mac OS X
Joseph, I haven’t figured out to incorporate search yet.
- Thomas December 18th, 2005 at 9:46 am
Mozilla Firefox 1.5 - Mac OS X
W O W !
You have made me a very happy man.
I have been looking for a way to lable my email for too long. I don’t know how I missed your GREAT script!
Thank You!
- Michael Walker December 26th, 2005 at 11:40 pm
Camino 1.0b1 - Mac OS X
This is great. I’ve been trying to work out how to label my messages for ages and this seems to do the job. Cheers!
- Krissy April 11th, 2006 at 8:40 pm
Safari 417.9.2 - Mac OS X
It’s good to know it’s still working.
- Thomas April 12th, 2006 at 6:57 am
Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.2 - Mac OS X
Any chance at any more colors? Or are these the only ones that Mail supports?
- gopher July 29th, 2006 at 3:07 pm
Safari 416.12 - Mac OS X
Work perfectly with Quicksilver. Type “red” , hit Enter, done! No more clicking this tiny apple script icon!
- vorg September 3rd, 2006 at 12:18 pm
Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.6 - Mac OS X
[...] de este post A del.icio.us A menéame Postanterior [...]
- Think Wasabi » Blog Archive » Gestión de mensajes con AppleScript September 21st, 2006 at 2:32 am
WordPress 2.0
Brilliant! Many thanks. I downloaded and it started working flawlessly. One question: In your screen shot above Mail Labels is at the top of the list. How do you do that?
- Josef September 29th, 2006 at 6:46 am
Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.7 - Mac OS X
Josef, note the space in the beginning of the folder name? Much as the Apple Menu Items did in Mac OS 9, Apple sorts space prefixed folders ahead of the alphabet in the list of folders in the Script Menu.
- gopher September 29th, 2006 at 6:54 am
Safari 419.3 - Mac OS X
Thanks gopher. I did notice that little space but thought it was my imagination! I’m new to Mac (thank goodness) and didn’t know the space worked for sorting. It does now! Great! Thanks again.
- Josef September 29th, 2006 at 7:11 am
Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.7 - Mac OS X
Thanks for answering that one gopher.
- Thomas September 30th, 2006 at 9:31 am
Flock 0.7.5.1 - Mac OS X
Is there any way to create shortcuts to this? I really needed labels after switching over from Thunderbird, but it’s kind of cumbersome to go through all the menus in the scripts menu to get to the labels. Anyway to make it shorter?
Thanks!
- kitalooclef October 24th, 2006 at 12:14 am
Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.7 - Mac OS X
Not that I’ve found. But that’s why I switched to Thunderbird.
- Thomas October 24th, 2006 at 6:01 am
Mozilla Firefox 2.0 - Mac OS X
How do you get Quicksilver to understand that this script exists? I type “blue” and get “bluetooth” or “red” and get “red herring”. What’s the trick?
- monomail December 10th, 2006 at 8:43 pm
Safari 419.3 - Mac OS X
Hopefully someone answers you back monomail as I have no idea. It would be handy though.
- Thomas December 12th, 2006 at 9:29 pm
Unbranded Firefox 2.0 - Mac OS X
For QuickSilver integration, go to the preferences in QS, then click on catalog at the top of the window. Go to Scripts and make sure either the User or All Users is checked, depending on if you place the scripts in the /Library/Scripts/Mail Scripts folder, or ~/Library/Scripts/Mail Scripts. Hit the refresh symbol at the bottom of the window (twisted arrow thing).
Now you can highlight a message, activate QS and type “red”, and run the script when it shows up. It might not be the first item listed in the search result, so arrow down until you find it.
- everyman December 14th, 2006 at 6:48 pm
Safari 419.3 - Mac OS X
Thanks everyman!!
- Thomas December 18th, 2006 at 8:41 am
Mozilla Firefox 2.0 - Mac OS X
HI, Very nice! Is there a way to label the emails you send to have color when they show up in someone else’s mailbox? Apple does this for all their email ads!
Thanks!
- Jonathan March 15th, 2007 at 7:37 pm
Safari 419.3 - Mac OS X
Jonathan - Apple doesn’t send out labels with a message. Rather every Mail app has a rule pre-installed to change the color of the background of messages from Apple.
- Thomas March 16th, 2007 at 5:54 am
Mozilla Firefox 2.0 - Mac OS X
So, I gather there is no way for the common man to perform such shenanigans? Rats!
- Jonathan March 16th, 2007 at 8:33 am
Safari 419.3 - Mac OS X
Cool!
- Diedrich April 12th, 2007 at 3:38 am
Safari 419.3 - Mac OS X
You can color individual messages by using the colors palette. Select message, select color, you’re done. It’s very easy. See here:
http://www.macworld.com/weblogs/macosxhints/2006/05/mailcolor/index.php
You can also write rules that apply colors.
- Gluefreak July 31st, 2007 at 7:34 am
Safari 419.3 - Mac OS X
Thanks, Gluefreak!
- Jonathan July 31st, 2007 at 8:05 pm
Safari 419.3 - Mac OS X
[...] Después de haber encontrado este truco, he buscado quién más podría haberlo documentado, y el mejor resultado es de Macworld online, en su artículo titulado Colorize Mail messages. Sin embargo, hay otro truco interesante, y es el uso de AppleScript, más el menú de Scripts, para colorear mensajes particulares, tal y como describen en TwisterMC, en su entrada Labels for Apple’s Mail Application. [...]
- Memoria de Acceso Aleatorio » Mail: Marcar mensajes individuales con un color August 31st, 2007 at 2:15 pm
WordPress 1.5.2
I’m using your Mail script in Tiger and loving it. What will happen to the script and to mail that’s already color-labelled when I upgrade to Leopard?
- Mark David Gerson October 30th, 2007 at 11:52 am
Safari 419.3 - Mac OS X
I did an archive and install with Leopard and the labels stuck around.
- Thomas October 30th, 2007 at 8:04 pm
Safari 523.10 - Mac OS X
Just did a standard Leopard install and all my labels are also intact.
- Mark David Gerson November 4th, 2007 at 9:51 pm
Safari 523.10 - Mac OS X
You can also select the email and hit Apple + Shift + C to bring up the colour picker window and allocate a colour to label the email.
- Adam November 27th, 2007 at 2:09 pm
Camino 1.5.3 - Mac OS X
Have you noticed that Mail in Leopard has a sort by color option? See the View->Sort by menu.
I don’t remember if this was in the earlier versions…
- Jim January 5th, 2008 at 6:10 pm
Safari 523.10.6 - Mac OS X
Does anyone know how to change the color of the background of emails (i.e. the “paper”) like you can in Eudora or Thunderbird?
Thanks!
- Ed January 6th, 2008 at 4:08 pm
Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.11 - Mac OS X
Jim - That’s a great find. I do believe it’s new.
- Thomas January 6th, 2008 at 6:52 pm
Safari 523.10.6 - Mac OS X
Can I create a column in Mail and sort by your labels?
Sounds great, but, that’s my big priority (moving from Eudora).
I am also recently returned to Apple so am a bit gun shy.
Many thanks.
- Pete M April 19th, 2008 at 6:44 pm
Safari 525.18 - Mac OS X
Hi Pete. You may want to check out the MailTags plugin to get added functionality. Also, Thunderbird is a great email client that probably is a closer match to Eudora.
- Thomas April 20th, 2008 at 7:34 am
Safari 525.18 - Mac OS X
Thanks for the script it was just what I was looking for. Thanks also to Adam for the Shift+Apple+C Trick - great!
- Katy August 28th, 2008 at 11:11 am
Mozilla Firefox 3.0.1 - Mac OS X