1. Open Mail (it's in the Applications folder).
2. From the Mail menu, choose Preferences.
3. Click the Accounts button to display the pane.
4. To create a new account, click the plus sign (+) button in the bottom-left corner of the window.
5. In the resulting dialog, choose the type of account you have (.Mac, POP, IMAP, or Exchange) from the Account Type pop-up menu. (If you're not sure about what type of account you have, consult your Internet Service Provider.)
6. Enter a name for your account (such as "My .Mac Account" or "Home Account") in the Account Description field.
7. Enter your name (or whatever name you want displayed to the public) in the Full Name field.
8. Depending on the type of account you have, either type your user name and password in the appropriate fields if you have a .Mac account, or type your email address in the Email Address field if you have a different type of account.
9. Click Continue. If you have a .Mac account, Mail checks your account, then displays an account summary; click Continue, then click Done to finish. If you have a different type of account, keep reading.
10. Type your ISP or email provider's incoming mail server address in the Incoming Mail Server field (it'll look something like "mail.domain_name.com").
11. Type your account name in the User Name field (the name that appears before the at sign (@) in your email address).
12. Type your password in the Password field, then click Continue.
13. Type the outgoing server address for your account in the Outgoing Mail Server field (it'll look something like "smtp.domain_name.com").
14. Select the "Use Authentication" checkbox, type your account name and password in the respective fields, and click Continue.
15. Mail checks to verify your information, then displays an account summary. Click Continue and then click Done to finish.

Viewing Your Mail

Mail displays your Inbox, Drafts, and Sent mail in a column on the left side of the window; the Message Viewer pane is on its right. To view mail in your Inbox, select Inbox to display a list of all your messages. If you have more than one email account set up, you can also click the Inbox disclosure triangle to display each account and select one to view only its messages.

To read a message, either double-click an entry to view the message in its own window, or drag the small dot at the bottom center of the window upwards to reveal a message pane and select a message to view it in the pane.

Sending Mail

1. To send someone an email, click the New button to open a New Message Window.
2. Type your recipient's email address in the To field. If you have this person in your Address Book or if you've sent or received email from this person before, Mail will autocomplete the address as you type it. To address the message to more than one person, separate the email addresses with a comma.
3. If you want to send a copy of your message to others, type their email addresses in the Cc field.
4. Type a subject for your message in the Subject field.
5. Type your message in the text box.
6. If you'd like to send an attachment with your message (like a photo or other file), click the Attach button, navigate to and select the file in the resulting dialog, and click Choose File (or drag the file to the message window's text box).
7. Click Send to send your message.

Junk Mail

If you're getting a lot of junk mail, also called "spam," use the Junk Mail features in Mail. Junk mail filtering is on by default, but you can change how Mail deals with your unwanted email after it goes through a little training period.

Once Mail has been configured, you can make it send all junk mail to its own Junk mailbox automatically.

1. When you first start using Mail, the junk mail feature goes through a training period. Messages that Mail thinks is junk appear in brown text in your Inbox. If Mail marks something as "junk" that isn't, click the Not Junk button to help train Mail.
2. If a message isn't marked as "junk" but should be, click the Junk button to help train Mail.
3. If you'd like to make some changes to the junk mail filter, choose Preferences from the Mail menu.
4. Click the Junk Mail button to display its settings.
5. To make certain types of messages exempt from junk mail filtering, select the item checkboxes below the line, "The following types of messages are exempt from junk mail filtering."
6. After a couple of weeks of training, evaluate how well Mail is flagging your junk mail. If it's fairly accurate, select the "Move it to the Junk mailbox (Automatic)" radio button in the Junk Mail pane of Mail preferences. This creates a Junk mailbox in the left column. Mail will now automatically move junk mail to this mailbox (you won't see it in your Inbox anymore). Make it a point to check your Junk mailbox periodically to make sure that you aren't missing anything important (be sure to click Not Junk on these types of messages).
7. If you want to turn off junk mail filtering, deselect the "Enable junk mail filtering" checkbox