Click here to see the ifttt tasks

Click here to see the Mail Rule

This is kind of a stripped down version of Read It Later or Instapaper, but functions perfectly for my workflow.

Requirements

  • Apple Mail
  • Apple Safari (with Reading List Support)
  • ifttt Account

First I’ve set up actions in ifttt that forward Links I favorite in Twitter or Google Reader, to my personal Email and prepend the subject with “#ReadLater”. Next I constructed a Mail Rule that acts on all messages who’s subjects begin with said keyword. The Mail Rule will invoke the following Applescript, mark the message as read and move it to the trash.

using terms from application "Mail"
	on perform mail action with messages theSelectedMessages
		tell application "Mail"
			repeat with eachMessage in theSelectedMessages
				set mailbody to content of eachMessage
				set theUrl to paragraph 1 of mailbody
				tell application "Safari"
					add reading list item theUrl
				end tell
			end repeat
		end tell
	end perform mail action with messages
end using terms from

Use cases

  • Read newsfeeds on iPhone. Save longer or interesting articles for later by clicking the favorite star.
  • Interesting item pops up on twitter, but you don’t have time now to read the containing link right now.
  •  While walking in the street you see a URL you want to remember, just mail it to yourself with the appropriate keyword in the subject.

Growl iconIt’s time again to circumvent Apple’s Mail Plugin policy and update the GrowlMail Bundle with the correct identifier string. Otherwise, after updating, Mail will tell you it has disabled the GrowlMail plugin and will move the bundle to ~/Library/Mail/Bundles (disabled).

To amend this, follow these steps:

  1. Quit Mail
  2. Move the GrowlMail.mailbundle Folder back into ~/Library/Mail/Bundles
  3. Enter the following two commands into your Terminal:
    defaults write ~/Library/Mail/Bundles/GrowlMail.mailbundle/Contents/Info SupportedPluginCompatibilityUUIDs -array-add "1C58722D-AFBD-464E-81BB-0E05C108BE06"
    defaults write ~/Library/Mail/Bundles/GrowlMail.mailbundle/Contents/Info SupportedPluginCompatibilityUUIDs -array-add "9049EF7D-5873-4F54-A447-51D722009310"
  4. Start Mail and enjoy Growl notifications for new eMail again!

gAppleMail
Today while playing around with the new Apple Mail’s IMAP IDLE feature (which still doesn’t quit work I think) I discovered an interesting bit in the Preferences window.
Apparently Google succeeded in placing a link to it’s own help page into the Accounts settings in Leopard’s Mail.app. If this is placed there by Apple or via an integrated feature that lets email providers include Help links there, is unknown to me.
But still interesting and quite clever!

Apple Mail under OS X Leopard doesn’t support the GrowlMail Mailbundle which comes as an extra when installing the Growl notificaiton framework. Since I really missed that feature, that has been with me as long as I own a Mac, I searched around the WWW to find a solution.
Luckily there is a way:

  • Quit Apple Mail
  • Download the Growl .dmg from its website and install GrowlMail
  • Launch the Terminal
  • Enter the following two commands
    defaults write com.apple.mail EnableBundles -bool YES
    defaults write com.apple.mail BundleCompatibilityVersion -int 3
  • Start Apple Mail and enable the GrowlMail plugin
  • Be happy ever after 🙂

via: blimps are cool