The new markup feature is essential for everyday tasks

Oct 21, 2014 19:25 GMT  ·  By

With the release of Yosemite this month, Apple introduced a whole range of new features as well as updated apps. One of the apps that got a makeover in the process of developing Yosemite was Mail.

I hear a lot of people prefer third-party solutions over Apple’s own Mail app. Personally, I love it. I won’t go into the details, but I will say that, thanks to Yosemite, I have yet another reason to stick by its side.

Markup

Mail in Yosemite comes with this awesome Markup feature that lets you annotate your emails with all kinds of drawing tools, colors, shapes, text, and highlighters, essentially turning it into a presentation tool of sorts.

Before Yosemite, I used to employ the help of apps like Skitch to annotate PDFs and photos. Annotating is on my everyday agenda. Whether I’m putting together a how-to guide or showing our lead developer where to insert a handy tool in the backend we work with, annotating is vital to me.

What makes annotating awesome in Mail is the ease of it. Instead of loading my file in a separate app, making the edits, saving that file, and finally attaching it to my email, now I get to do it all in Mail. Plus, if I change my mind about a certain edit, I can just revert with CMD+Z, or if I forget to insert something just as I’m preparing to send that email, I no longer have to take the attachment out and put it back in. It’s a breeze!

Other mail “essentials”

Markup is a personal favorite, but that’s not all the new Mail in Yosemite has to offer. You can also include your signature (yes, the one you make with a pen) and use Mail Drop to send attachments as large as 5GB per message.

It works with iCloud (naturally), and if your recipients use Mail in OS X Yosemite as well, they’ll receive the attachment just like before. Users on a different client or OS will receive a link to download the attachment.

Mail Drop is free (unlike other services where this much storage quota requires a monthly fee), and it works with all kinds of email services, including the most popular ones today: Gmail, Yahoo, and Microsoft Exchange.

So that’s Mail in OS X Yosemite. If you care about your messages and how others see them, consider giving it a try. Especially the markup thing.

Mail (Yosemite) screenshots depicting Markup (6 Images)

Mail (Yosemite) promo
Markup demoed in Yosemite's Mail appMarkup demoed in Yosemite's Mail app
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