In the old days, you not only had to know a load of arcane settings (details such as email server addresses and ports, which I’ll get to in a bit) but you also needed to configure multiple applications to put everything together. You have my permission to gasp when you see that a Gmail account now appears in Mail’s list of accounts.Īnd that’s the beauty of the Mail, Contacts & Calendars system preference. So what exactly has happened here? If you’ve chosen to synchronize your email with Google, go ahead and launch the Mail application, which you’ll find in the Dock. If you’d like to use a different name for your account, select it, click the Details button to the right, and in the sheet that appears, enter a new name in the Description field and click OK.

You will notice as well that your Gmail account now appears in the list of configured accounts. You’ll see a spinning gear icon next to the enabled features, which indicates that your Mac is syncing Gmail’s data with the appropriate applications on your computer. If you don’t wish to use all of the features-for example, you’d rather not sync your Gmail calendars and reminders with your Mac’s Calendar and Reminders applications (and I’ll talk about why you might not want to do this when I discuss those specific applications in a later column)-simply uncheck the ones you’d prefer to do without. You’ll know that its efforts have been successful if a sheet appears that lets you choose which of Gmail’s features to use. Adding a Gmail accountĪs long as your Mac is connected to the Internet, it will create the correct settings so that you can use Gmail’s mail, calendars, reminders, messages, and notes features. Then, just enter your Gmail address (in the form enter your password, and click Set Up. In all likelihood the Name field will be filled in already if it isn’t, do so. A sheet pops down with Name, Email Address, and Password fields. Click the Gmail item in the Mail, Contacts & Calendars list. Now that you have an account, let’s set it up.

Setting up mac mail for lunarpages