Adding email, contacts & calendar accounts to Mac OSX Lion

Apple’s newest operating system, OSX Lion, makes it easier than ever to add your email account, calendars, contacts, and even screen names for iChat. You no longer have to go into each application and enter your account information. It can now all be done in the System Preferences screen and in this tutorial, we show you how to do exactly that. So lets dive in!

With the launch of Apple’s Mac OSX Lion software, Apple introduced a new way of adding accounts to their Mail app. In the past, you had to go into the Mail app and enter your new account in the “Account” area of the Preferences screen. (Pictured below)

While this works just fine, but most email providers also have other systems built in besides email like calendars, contacts, and even notes. That’s where this old way of adding email is lacking. You would then have to go to the Calendar app and add your account there; the same for Address book. With Lion, that all changes.

Now when you want to add an online account that houses your email, calendar, contacts, and notes you just go to the main System Preferences. There’s a new section called “Mail, Contacts & Calendars”. If you have an iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad then you’re already familiar with this type of preference area – and it works exactly the same. So, here’s how to add your online email account to Mac OSX Lion.

First, go to the System Preferences by either clicking the icon in the dock or clicking the “Apple” icon in the top left of your computer.

Once System Preferences is open, you will see the new Mail, Contacts & Calendars icon in the “Internet & Wireless” row.

The first thing you are presented with is a sentence at the top of the screen that explains the new preferences section. “Mail, Contacts & Calendars sets up your accounts to use with Address Book, iCal, iChat, Mail, and other apps.” Thank you, Apple, for putting all of this in one simple area!

Now, all you need to do is decide which account you are wanting to set up. It doesn’t have to be email. I have an AOL account set up just so I can use my screen name in iChat.

You should be able to finish up from here, but just in case, I’m adding some more screen shots of me entering my GMail account and my iCloud account and what you will see once you have entered them. Notice that the only step is entering your email address and your password and your name – that’s it! Apple does the rest for you, so you don’t have to know the technical stuff like incoming and outgoing mail servers.

So that does it for today’s tutorial. I hope it helped. Please leave a comment and let me know what you think and if you have any questions. I love hearing back from you guys and I’d be more than happy to help more if you need it. And as always, if I don’t know the answer, I’ll do what it takes to help you find it!

Cheers!

Jesse