Assigning Flags to Email Messages
There are three methods of flagging a message: When you use one of these methods to add a flag, the flag icon appears to the left of the email message.
Mail Flag Colors
Mail flags come in seven colors: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, and gray. You can use any flag color to mark a message type. For example, red flags may indicate emails you need to respond to within 24 hours, while green flags indicate tasks that have been completed. You can use the colors any way you want, but over time, it can be challenging to remember what each color was intended to mean. You can change the names of the flags as needed.
Changing Flag Names
While you’re stuck with the colors Apple provides, you can rename each of the seven flags to anything you want to personalize the Mail flags and make them much more useful. To change a Mail flag’s name:
Flagging Multiple Messages
To flag a group of messages, select the messages and then select Flag from the Message menu. A menu displays the list of flags and their names. Make your selection to assign a flag to multiple messages.
Sorting by Mail Flags
Now that you have various messages flagged, you want to be able to view those messages that were important enough to be coded with a flag color. Clicking on Flagged in the Mail sidebar displays all the flags. Select a single color flag by expanding the Flagged section. Each flag is a smart folder. Clicking on one of the colored flags displays all the messages that are marked with that flag’s color.
Removing Flags
Remove the flag from a message by using any of the methods for adding a flag, but select the option to Clear Flag or—in the case of right-clicking a message—select the X option for the flag type. For example, to remove the flag from a message, select the message (or messages) and click the Flag button in the Mail toolbar and select Clear Flag from the pop-up menu.
