Found an easier way to schedule mail on Mac to send it later at a specific time I want by using Automator iCal Alarm.
When you open Automator, it immediately asks you to choose what you’re trying to build:
Building an iCal Alarm will automatically set a new event in iCal with the alarm action set to be whatever you design in the Automator.
So I want to send an email at maybe 9am tomorrow morning, I can open Automator and build an iCal Alarm like this:
- Get Specified Finder Items
- New Mail Message (type your mail here - leave recipient blank if you’re sending group mail and add the two extra steps below)
- Send Outgoing Messages
- Save
You may skip step 1 if there’s NO attachment. You can also send group mail (with/without individual salutation) at a later time by adding these steps between steps 2 & 3 above:
- Find Address Book Items (find Groups)
- Group Mailer (check “add greetings” for individual salutation)
Then in iCal, you’ll see a new event set at the time you hit “save”:
Then edit the date and time of the event and the alarm time to whenever you need it.
DONE!
However, from experience, attachment doesn’t work for Group Mailer. So, if you wish to send a mail with attachment to a big bunch of people, stick to the 4-step solution. The only drawback is it can’t take group name as recipient, i.e., all email addresses are disclosed. If you wish to keep mailing list confidential, you’ll need to add your group to Bcc list.
You may also set the alarm to be repeated periodically and have the same mail sent to the same recipient(s), say, every month. This would be really handy to someone who needs to send out reminders periodically.
I’m still working on getting Apple Mail to send all drafts at once so that I can incorporate Serial Mail and Apple Mail and Automator. The problem is Apple Mail seems to be incapable of sending more than one mail at the same time. It can send 100+ emails consecutively very quickly (like really immediately one after an other) but just not when you “select all” in drafts box then hit “send” in file menu (or shift+command+D).
Pingback: Schedule mail on Mac – Automator iCal Alarm « Chicago Mac/PC Support
www,schedulemail.net allows you to send mail at a specified time from any platform and you don’t even have to keep the computer on when the mail is to be sent!
Opps I meant http://www.schedulemail.net of course!
Thanks for the tip! This works out perfectly for scheduling a monthly reminder email.
This looks like what I am looking for, but your instructions are missing critical details. Please do not assume that everyone knows what/where you are looking. BE MORE SPECIFIC! I will try the schedulemail.net option as this is not helping.
Well, not running a help desk business to tutorial website here. If you get it and it helps, great; If you don’ get it and need more help, ask nicely (no guarantee that I can help. I’m not even remotely related to IT in profession); if you give up and wanna go look somewhere else, do as you wish but do so quietly.
it works flawlessly! you’re the first one that managed to tell me how to do scheduled mail… it’s idiot proof so to speak!
now i can send mails to people at the right time eg when they return from holiday or i can send out invitations for an opening at the right moment. super!!! thx a 1000 times!!!!
@ LMETR, i’m no IT expert and manage to set this up in under 5 mins. If you can’t follow a few steps then that’s your issue…
Hi! I’m trying but I don’t know where to find the Ical alarm. My automator only shows at opening “select a starting point to open a new workflow” and it only appears icons like (custom, Files & folders, music & audio, Photos & images and Text) I’m confused and this is the first time I open Automator, I don’t even know how it works!
but I need to send 10 different emails with different addresses, at different hours …and I don’t know how! Please if you can help me! 
I’ll appreciated.
Which OS version are you using? I’m actually experiencing problems in Automator under Lion.
MAC OS X 10.5.8
Works very well!! Awesome introduction to a very powerful capability that I haven’t been using so far. Thanks
Note, there’s a bug in Lion’s Automator that can cause an iCal Alarm workflow to spontaneously switch to a regular workflow. In such cases, choose File -> Duplicate To and in the copy of the workflow that appears, choose iCal Alarm, press Choose, and then save the workflow.
http://www.macworld.com/article/161956/2011/08/automator_workflow_of_the_month_automatically_email_a_weekly_schedule.html
There is a bug in Automator in OSX Lion which will convert an iCal Alarm Workflow to a regular workflow. If this happens, open the workflow in Automator and select file->duplicate to. In the pop-up window, choose iCal Alarm, select choose and then save your workflow again. This will place it in iCal at the time you save it.
chomper and colcustard – thanks for your notification of the bug. I stupidly didn’t read ALL the comments. so I went a more circuitous route. I discovered that when you used the attachment, it reverted to a workflow, instead of ical event. To get around this:
1. Create an applescript that creates the email. (see below). save it somewhere.
2. create an event in ical on the date you want it.
3. set the event to have an alert of ‘run script’ and open the script you saved earlier.
4. set the time as ‘the same day’ for the event to fire.
it runs at that time and executes the apple script. the applescript creates the email with attachments and sends it.
applescript file – put the contents between (but not including the ==== ) into an applescript using the ‘applescript editor’ – use spotlight to find it.
================================================
set theAttachment to POSIX file “/Users/you/Desktop/attachment.pdf”
tell application “Mail”
set theMessage to make new outgoing message with properties {visible:true, subject:”My Subject”, content:”My Body”}
tell theMessage to make new to recipient with properties {address:”anemail@aserver.com.au”}
tell content of theMessage
make new attachment with properties {file name:theAttachment} at after last paragraph
end tell
send theMessage
end tell
==============================================
Happy hunting
Thank you, Mark for the applescript. It is much easier to use than an ical automator alert as it is easier to reproduce the process of creating a text alert running a script than re-creating an automator ical alert. Of course, you can always copy and paste the ical alert and edit the details…. if you can remember the date on which you placed it in the calendar!