If you want to be reminded about something or want to wish someone happy birthday at an exact time, email scheduling can help you, but I n order to use this feature, your email program has to support it.
If you are using the Mail app on your Mac, you’ll be disappointed to know that it does not come with this feature. However, you should be able to do it with the following trick.
To schedule emails in the Mail app, you can create an Automator script that performs all of the tasks that are required to schedule an email.
Scheduling Emails in the Mail App
1. Launch Automator by clicking on Launchpad in your dock and searching for and clicking on Automator.
2. When Automator launches choose “Applications” as the destination folder and click on “New Document” to create a new app.
3. Select “Application” on the screen that follows, then click on “Choose” to create a new application type script with Automator.
4. Click on “Mail” in the Library category on the left, and then drag and drop the “New Mail Message” action over to the workflow for it to be added to the application.
5. Now enter in the email details in the box that is shown in the workflow panel. You need to enter the recipient’s email, CC and BCC if required, the subject of the email, and the email content.
Then use the drop-down menu at the bottom to select whitch email account you wish to send the email from.
You can do that for as many emails as you want to be scheduled.
6. Drag and drop the “Send Outgoing Messages” action from the left-panel over to the workflow, and make sure it is at the bottom of the workflow because it will only send the emails that are above it.
7. Your application has been configured and is ready to be saved. To do so, click on the “File” menu followed by “Save…”
8. When the Save dialog box appears, enter a name for the application, select the “Applications” folder for the application location, ensure the “File Format” menu is set to “Application,” and then finally click on “Save.”
9. The application is now ready, and you now need to create a trigger for it. To do that you are going to be using the Calendar app.
Launch the Calendar app by clicking on Launchpad in your dock and searching for and clicking on Calendar.
10. When the app launches, select the date you want the email delivered, and add a new event to it by double-clicking the date box.
When the new event box appears, enter any details you wish, but make sure the date and time are correct.
Click on “alert” and select “Custom…” to set a custom alert for the event.
11. In the custom alert dialog box, select “Open file” from the first drop-down menu, select “Other…” from the second drop-down menu and select the “Scheduled Emails” app you created earlier. Then select “At time of event” from the third drop-down menu and click on “OK” to save the changes.
The email you created in the Automator app will now be sent at the time you set in the Calendar app.
What you have done here is created an Automator app that sends an email, and to trigger the app to do its task, you have created a calendar event that launches the app for it to send the email.
You need to keep one thing in mind: your Mac must be awake at the event time. If your Mac is not awake, it will not be able to send a trigger to the Automator app and thus your email will not be sent.
Conclusion
If you want to send an email at a specified time in the future without using a third-party app, the native apps on your Mac can help you do that.
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Mahesh Makvana
Mahesh Makvana is a freelance tech writer who’s written thousands of posts about various tech topics on various sites. He specializes in writing about Windows, Mac, iOS, and Android tech posts. He’s been into the field for last eight years and hasn’t spent a single day without tinkering around his devices.
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