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10 Ways To Customize Mac Mail
Comments: 44 Responses to “10 Ways To Customize Mac Mail”
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I have a section in the sidebar titled, "On My Mac". What is this for?
Russ: It is for messages stored on your Mac and not on any server. You can create mailboxes there to move messages to and have them only stored on that one device. I don't recommend using it, but maybe for drafts.
Hi Gary,
Is it possible to "merge" mailboxes under favourites like e.g. inboxes?
I would like to move some boxes from all my accounts to favourites but only want to see one that I can expand if needed.
thanks in advance
Jesper: Merging mailboxes would mean copying all of the messages from one mailbox to another and deleting the empty one. There's no way to merge a mailbox but only in Favorites as Favorites just shows your normal mailboxes. You could create a Smart Mailbox with conditions that specified any email in both. Not sure how well that would work but try it and see.
I send and receive message for personal and trustee business under the same Yahoo account. I have been saving many of my email for trustee business in folders by year under the Yahoo account name because I often need to look back for messages. I also would like to transfer the correspondence to my successor eventually. What is best way to move this correspondence in these folders to my Mac in way that I could give them to someone?
Norm: "Best" is subjective. But maybe in this case use multiple methods. Why not? Export them as .eml files. Then also export them as PDFs. Give both. See https://macmost.com/better-ways-to-organize-important-email-messages-on-your-mac.html for ideas.
I have three mailbox accounts but when I receive mail addressed to one account it is deposited in the wrong account? e,g, my bus emails go to my Gmail acc?
Brian: Not sure what you are seeing. Incoming email isn't "deposited" anywhere, you are just viewing the different mailboxes. So when you select JUST one account's inbox, you would be viewing just the messages in that account's inbox.
Hi Gary, I enjoy the All Inboxes displaying all the emails from my three different email accounts. I have created Smart Mailboxes to collect my most read emails. However, now I have two copies of those emails, one in All Inboxes, and one in the Smart Mailbox. If I delete one from All Inboxes, it also deletes it in the Smart Mailbox and vice versa. I was hoping the Smart Mailbox would file the email out of site.
Sue: You don't have two copies. A Smart Mailbox is just a different way to look at your messages. Think of it like a playlist in Music/iTunes or an album in Photos. The message is there once, but you have different ways of grouping them now.
hi Gary, how should Archive be used? I like to save important emails in the native Mail format in specific folders I created in Finder, but always wondered if there are advantages in using Archive. thx
nick: It is all a matter of personal preference. Plus, no reason you can't do both. The advantage to saving everything in your Archive like I do is there is one place to search. I don't have to think about whether an email I'm looking for was important enough to be in one place or the other. Everything is in Archive so I search there.
Gary: I like the idea of having al email in one place. I have 3 email accounts, if I archive emails, will they go into each account Archive? Also, does the search within an Archive look at all text within the emails? I'm just trying to anticipate what the search terms might be. Thanks for taking the follow up question :)
nick: When you archive an email, it goes to the archive for its account. Search should look at all text, but it really depends on the email service. The Mail app just asks the service for results.
My favorite customization is to turn on "view favorites bar" and then I can maximize my screen space by minimizing the mailboxes. With this I can put any folders that I would need to go into, or you can even drag a message to one of those favorites right in the bar. I love it since I keep my folders pretty simple.
When you group related messages it show you all the conversations that took place with the newest at the bottom. Is there a setting to switch this around and put the latest at the top?
Garry I got the box to tick for that
I use Rules to pre-sort my emails for things like Priority; News Letters; Family; etc. and move them to an appropriate folder. Would it be better, or more efficient, to use Smart Mailboxes instead of the Rules feature?
David: Up to you. Just two different ways to do it. I don't use rules or multiple mailboxes as I don't want to create complexity that isn't needed. I find searching my archive is all I need. But Smart Mailboxes are just searches that are easy to access, so in a way that's not far from how I do it.
After expanding my Mail window to full screen, when I double click on an email to open it, or create a new email, it doesn't go to split screen. A new, smaller window opens on top of my Mail window. The split screen would help in responding. Is there another way to do it? I have the latest update to Big Sur on a MacBook Pro.
Sue: Perhaps you turned this off? Look in Mail, Preferences, General for "Prefer opening messages in split view when in full screen."
That was it! Thank you. I never turned it off. Apparently it had not been checked when updated.
Hi Gary, I installed Big Sur and now every time I open an e-mail, it shows e-mail by conversation, which I find EXTREMELY annoying. I can only turn it off by clicking 'hide related messages' (since show by conversation was already turned off!), but that only works once for every mail. And then when you go to the next mail in your inbox: it's with conversations again. Do you know how to fix this?
kirsten: Turn off View, Organize By Conversation.
Hi Gary, that's what I said: show by 'conversation' (or: organize by conversation) is already turned off but STILL it shows e-mail by conversation. The only way I can turn if off now is by clicking (a bit further below) on 'hide related messages', but that only works for one mail/conversation at a time, it's not a general setting for all mails. Seems like a bug or something?
Kirsten: Then how about Mail, Preferences, Viewing and "Include Related Messages." Does that fix it?
That's already checked as well. However: without restarting, rebooting or anything, the problem now seems to have stopped. I find Big Sur to be very frustrating so far, it seems really buggy. Dragging a calendar appointment to another date often doesn't work either, until you click another appointment, drag that around for a moment and then try again with the original one you wanted to move. Things like that. ANYWAY: thank you for trying to help out, I really appreciate it!!
Hi Gary, How can I customize my mail sidebar so my email accounts are listed first and my folders after the emails? When I upgraded to Big Sur the sidebar flipped and folders are now above my email accounts. Thanks!
Sue: Just move what you want to Favorites.
If I close the mail preview screen - drag it all the way to the right - I no longer see the preview, BUT does that also stop it from opening? or does it still open, just out of sight? I get 100's of unwanted emails, unsubscribing seems to multiply them, and most of them never actually unsubscribe, no matter how many times I try. The opening of the preview screen seems to slow down my deleting when each frame opens even if I do it as fast as I can.
Linda: Not sure. But it doesn't really matter. Yes, I can see how it would speed up deleting messages, but it could also slow you down if there is a message you aren't sure about. It sounds like your email service isn't doing a good job with junk mail. Maybe consider switching. See https://macmost.com/how-to-really-stop-getting-spam-email.html
Hi Gary, I finally upgraded to Big Sur. I'm frustrated by the layout of the toolbar. Thhe "reply, reply all & forward" buttons have not only been condensed into an arrow, but that this arrow is all the way over to the right. It's not logical and requires more track pad motion to the right. If I'm not mistaken these buttons were straight up from the list of emails. Is there a way to move the reply-replay all and forward buttons over to the left? I went under customize toolbar & you can't.Thanks.
Gilbert: You can customize the toolbar in Mail and almost any app. See https://macmost.com/how-to-customize-app-window-toolbars-on-your-mac.html
Hi Gary, Using Big Surs Mail is there a possibility to completely turn off 'Grouping Conversations' for all postboxes/folders in one setting? Or is there only a tick/untick option per postbox/folder?
Cortjan: View, Organize By Conversation.
How do I change the toolbar in mail to gray slate. Everything is white. I would like the mail sidebar/favorites bar to be grew and messages in black with white background.
Allison: You can't theme the toolbars. Maybe try switching to Dark Mode if you want a more radical change. Or look at some of these options: https://macmost.com/10-ways-to-customize-the-look-of-macos-big-sur.html
I just created a new mailbox in my mail account and it appeared at the bottom of my list of mailboxes. When I tried to drag it up to where I want it, it bounced back to the bottom. I have always been able to drag and drop mailboxes in the past but I think this may be the first time I've tried it since installing Big Sur. Is there a trick?
Karen: The sidebar is broken into sections by account. You can drag within your section, or you can drag to the Favorites section at the top. You can't drag from one account to the other as that doesn't make sense.
Got it. It works. Thanks.
Any way to have the inboxes (just inboxes) from my 5 accts at the top of the sidebar (in Favorites), but have the Favorites bar listing only folders/sub-mailboxes. My workflow has me quickly sorting mail from inboxes into sub-folders.
This was possible in Catalina, but it seems that they dumbed down the app in Big Sur. Thanks!
Randy: Those are just two different ways to view your Favorites.
Thanks, Gary. What I basically want is to have items in my Favorites section of the sidebar that are different from the Favorites bar across the top. Possible?
Randy: Not possible. Maybe just have Favorites in the Favorites bar and have it closed in the sidebar.