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Back in the day, I remember having an e-mail program (perhaps it was Eudora?) that could schedule the sending of mail, so when composing a message, you could set some preference for when it would be sent. The message would be composed and queued up, but would not send until the computer was connected to the internet at or after the schedule time.

Is there a way to duplicate this feature in Apple Mail? Specifically, I want to compose a message, but rather than clicking "Send", I click "Delayed send" (either from the Services menu, the AppleScript menu, or, ideally, from an icon magically added to the Mail toolbar, but I don't expect that will be easy to pull ofF). When I do this, I'd get a dialog box asking me when I want to send the message. I enter the information, and the message is queued up and will be sent at the soonest time after the scheduled send time/date when the computer is on and connected.

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  • 1
    Is a third-party app or service acceptable?
    – Tuesday
    Mar 24, 2012 at 2:13
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    Seems like most of us had the same idea. ;-)
    – afragen
    Mar 24, 2012 at 2:27
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    @afragen True that...
    – Tuesday
    Mar 24, 2012 at 2:32
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    This would be a great feature, as sometimes you want to send email to oversea clients and have it hit their inbox when they will in fact be at their computers, or to send stuff that gets to offices at the start of business and not buried in the overnight mail....
    – user37881
    Jan 4, 2013 at 16:49
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    Try chungwasoft.com/sendlater (I'd love to give it as answer, but I only have StackOverflow reputation)
    – mahal tertin
    Dec 2, 2013 at 13:39

5 Answers 5

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It is possible to achieve this effect using Calendar and Automator:

  1. Open Automator and create a Calendar Alarm.

  2. Use the tasks “New mail message” and “Send Outgoing Messages”, customize them as required, and save (⌘S).

  3. An event will be created in Calendar automatically. Move the event to when you want the message to be sent.

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  • Unfortunately, Andreas Amann's Mail Scripts is broken in OS X 10.7. I tried it and it did not work. I wish there was another simple solution that works on 10.7 and now 10.8.
    – user27757
    Aug 21, 2012 at 5:50
  • @manuel does the iCal example that makes up the majority of this work for you. Others have up voted this, so it's likely to work.
    – bmike ♦
    Feb 10, 2013 at 3:30
  • @bmike the iCal example didn't work for me, but because I skipped one step inside the step! I could easily set it up, but the email wasn't sent on scheduled time. It created the email, but didn't send it. Guess why... But no idea why even keep the mention to Andreas script here!
    – cregox
    Jun 6, 2013 at 13:14
  • @Cawas If someone was on OS < 10.7, it could be useful.
    – Tuesday
    Jun 11, 2013 at 20:35
  • @timothymh but it's already in the other answer! :) also, doesn't this work on OS < 10.7?
    – cregox
    Jun 11, 2013 at 20:43
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There is a plugin for Mail app which name is SendLater:

enter image description here

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  • bought it and it's worth every penny.
    – mahal tertin
    Apr 23, 2015 at 14:27
  • 1
    They changed name and payment model. Now you pay €6 per month for MailButler.
    – Emil Vikström
    May 27, 2016 at 12:23
  • It does seem now there is a free plan. Doesn't seem time-limited.
    – MiB
    Feb 14, 2020 at 4:08
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No promises, because some of the scripts break under OS X 10.7 Lion, but you might find your answer by using Andreas Amann's Mail Scripts which includes

Schedule Delivery (Mail)

Allows you to send individual messages at predefined times (this script uses iCal for scheduling message delivery).

Andreas makes the source code of his compiled scripts available. You can download the .dmg

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  • I don't know if the specific script will still work, but try Mail Scripts from Andreas Amann. There is a Schedule Delivery script that used to create an iCal event that would trigger the message being sent.
    – afragen
    Mar 24, 2012 at 2:24
  • Mail Scripts plus energy saver scheduling a start/wake event might be a great combination to ensure the Mac gets up to send your most important message (assuming you might have several queued).
    – bmike ♦
    Apr 14, 2012 at 20:44
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The simplest way I know is to save a draft and then set a reminder on iOS so I get bugged to hit send.

It's not ideal, but works in practice when the sending of a message at the exact moment is worth more to me than uninterrupted sleep (or whatever else might be going on in my life).

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    Out of curiosity, do you think this is a better idea than setting an iCal alarm that automatically sends the message? If one is already depending on iCal, why not let iCal do all the work?
    – Daniel ♦
    Apr 14, 2012 at 21:48
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    Not at all - if you don't mind the formatting of iCal - that is a far superior answer. I just wanted to put an "outside the box" answer up.
    – bmike ♦
    Apr 15, 2012 at 0:03
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Scheduling emails has been added to Apple Mail in macOS Ventura:

Key Features and Enhancements [to Mail]

Scheduled send

Schedule email to be sent at the perfect moment

See this Apple support article to see how it can be done. Screenshot from the article below:

Screenshot of a macOS mail window with a hint where to click to send it later

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