As mentioned, you can edit .plist files directly by opening them in either a plain text editor, or in Xcode. If you open a .plist file in TextEdit for example, you'll see unformatted XML with tags.

You can then use and modify the content with other tools and exchange data with other XML systems. The article explains how to use standard Office 2003 tools to perform a number of day-to-day tasks.

If going this route might give you a little more Gmail power, you'd do well to read up on your advanced Gmail search operators, and maybe download our 10 must-have Gmail filters for a bit of ...