Quick Mail.app enhancement: full conversation threads

For most of my email needs, I use Apple Mail.app on my Macbook Pro as an IMAP client for gmail. For the most part, I find that having a standalone, native mail app has clear advantages over a working in a tab in a browser. Also, IMAP is particularly useful for me because I have several gmail accounts, both for personal use and for various businesses. With Mail.app, I can choose to see all of my messages in one rolled-up inbox, or dig into specific mailboxes as needed. Finally, with Mac OS Leopard, Mail.app now replies to each email using the account associated with my recipient address in that email, thereby eliminating my biggest gripe with Mail.app in the past.

However, I've been a bit frustrated with one aspect of Mail.app lately: when I organize my mailbox by "Thread" (highly recommended! View --> Organize by Thread), my own replies aren't included in the threads. So, if I want to review how I replied to something in my Inbox, I have to click on the little arrow-button in the header of the message to see my reply -- which then opens in a clumsy new window. Other people's replies appear inline, but my replies are somehow *special*, so I have to go elsewhere to see them. This sucks. The web-based gmail application does a great job with this, but Mail.app really screws it up.

Happily, yesterday, I figured out a great solution: Smart Mailboxes.

I just created a new Smart Mailbox (Mailbox --> New Smart Mailbox), called it "Threads," and configured it to include all messages that are either in my "Inbox" or "Sent" mailboxes.

Voila! Now, when I view that mailbox by Thread, my replies appear inline with the other messages in their respective threads.

Ok, it's not exactly identical to the way that gmail does it, and it's not a perfect solution -- these threads won't include items that I've deleted or moved out of my inbox, and the mailbox also contains independent messages that I've sent that weren't part of a thread... But these are small problems, and I can always switch to another view if I want. Better!

Nice, huh?