Mastering iOS Mail: Tips, Tricks, and Alternative Clients

Managing Your iOS Mail App

• 💡 The default iOS Mail app offers features like categories (Primary, Transactions, Updates, Promotions) to help sort your inbox, though they can sometimes lead to neglecting less important emails.
• 🔍 Utilize the filter icon to sort by unread, flagged, VIPs, or emails with attachments, and look for time-sensitive information indicators.
• 📧 Easily unsubscribe from mailing lists directly from within a message to reduce inbox clutter.
• ⚙️ Explore Mail settings for options like changing the default mail app, previewing messages, swipe actions, and privacy protections like hiding your IP address and loading remote content privately.
• ↩️ The Undo Send feature, with a configurable delay, is a lifesaver for catching mistakes after hitting send.

Advanced Email Management with Fastmail and Rules

• 🚀 Fastmail is highlighted for its powerful mail rules that run on the server, allowing for automated organization, tagging, snoozing, archiving, or deleting emails based on sender, subject, or content.
• 🎯 Rules can be set to process all other rules or stop after the first match, significantly streamlining email management.
• 🔍 A bonus tip is to search by sender before unsubscribing or marking emails as spam to manage multiple messages from the same source efficiently.

Exploring Alternative Mail Clients: Spark

• ✨ Spark is presented as a robust alternative mail client that offers server-side processing, enabling features like cross-device syncing and team collaboration.
• 🔗 Spark allows users to create viewable links to emails, useful for sharing information within teams without sending separate forwards.
• 🛠️ While Spark has evolved, the classic version is preferred by some, and it includes features like smart sorting, snooze, spam filtering, and a built-in calendar.
• 🎯 The choice of an email client often comes down to muscle memory and finding a system that works best for individual workflows, with most powerful clients offering similar feature parity.

Troubleshooting Audio Volume Issues

• 🔊 Sound Check in Apple Music (formerly iTunes) normalizes audio levels based on the average across your library, but it doesn't hard-limit all audio to the exact same amplitude, leading to perceived volume differences.
• 🎧 For more consistent volume, consider using more powerful normalization filters on your own music files or utilizing equalization settings on your playback device or head unit.
• 🔄 If Sound Check seems ineffective, try toggling it off, rebooting, and then toggling it back on, as settings can sometimes get stuck.

Automation with NFC Tags and Shortcuts

• 📱 NFC tags can be used with Shortcuts to automate various tasks, such as logging medications with the Capsule app.
• 💊 While HealthKit doesn't directly support medication logging via Shortcuts, third-party apps like Capsule offer this functionality, allowing you to mark medications as taken by tapping an NFC tag.
• 🏷️ Coin discs are recommended over stickers for NFC tags on reusable items like pill bottles, as they can be moved to new containers.

App Caps: Notify and NetNewsWire

• 🔔 Notify Website Monitoring is a free app that tracks changes on websites, alerting you when specific content is updated, useful for monitoring ticket availability, price changes, or documentation updates.
• 📰 NetNewsWire is a free, open-source RSS reader that aggregates news from various sources, allowing you to stay updated without visiting individual websites and without ads.