There are a lot of cool, time saving shortcuts built right into Mountain Lion (and iOS 6!) We thought we’d take some time to highlight a few extra handy ones!

Mail, Apple’s built in email app, has strong integration with your calendar and your contact book, making it easy as can be to add, create and edit contacts and events.

When you receive an email, place your cursor over the “from” address — NaNoWriMo in the example above — and click the down arrow at the end to see the options menu. You can copy the email address, make the sender one of your VIPs, start a new email, or add it to contacts.

Once you’ve added the contact, they appear directly in your address book, and mail will remember that address for future correspondence!

It’s easy to add additional information to a contact as well. Let’s say you receive an email from a contact and they’ve got a signature that includes a physical address. Place your cursor over that information and click on the small arrow on the bottom left hand corner to pull up the menu. In this case, you can create a new contact with the information, add to an existing contact or even see the location on a map. In this case, we’ll choose add to existing contact.

Once you’ve chosen that option, a window will pop up with that information auto filled, and you can go on to make edits as needed!

Mail also makes it very easy to add upcoming events to your calendar.

In the above email, there’s a date for an upcoming event I might like to attend. By placing my cursor over the event, that familiar little arrow pops up. By clicking on it, the event is added directly to my calendar on the correct date and with the correct times:

Now let’s say I added an event and weeks later wonder what it was or want to see the original email. Apple makes that easy, as well — click on the event and the handy “show in mail” link pops up — clicking on that brings you right back to the original email correspondence. 

This is just another example of the Mac difference — Apple designers and programmers work hard to make working as seamless and efficient as possible. Once you learn these tips and tricks, you’ll find yourself saving time avoiding repetitive tasks. Want to learn more? Remember that we offer 1 on 1 and group classes — you can always find our upcoming schedule at www.capemac.com/training, or give us a call to schedule an hour with one of us!