Mail Has Changed

[Ron Stacy]

My wife's laptop died, so in my absence, she used my iMac. No one knows what she did, but my Mail program has changed from the way I liked it set up to a new way that I don't like. Also, now I have to double click to open a message. Imagine the time wasted by requiring that extra click! Here are the screen shots to show the before and after. I've looked through all the preferences I can find, and I can't change it. I imagine that I set it up at one point, but that was probably too many years ago to remember. HELP!

 

[chas_m]

You threw me off there by taking the second picture from an iPad and the "one I don't like" on a Mac!

However, my initial guess (from the listserv) appears to be correct: your naughty wife changed the view in Preferences under "viewing" to "Use Classic Layout." Unchecking that will fix the issue.

Thank you for the images, that made diagnosing the issue a breeze.

 

[Ron Stacy]

Thanks, Chas. I just went to preferences and saw that the "Classic" was NOT checked, so that ain't it. Sigh!

 

[chas_m]

Thanks, Chas. I just went to preferences and saw that the "Classic" was NOT checked, so that ain't it. Sigh!

Okay, I figured it out. After playing around with Mail for QUITE a while, I was able to duplicate the issue without turning off classic mode.

Here's what I think happened: In the three-pane view (as seen with your iPad, aka "modern" view), there is a thin line between the list of emails and the content of the highlighted email. If you pull that line by dragging the mouse all the way over to the right, the "content" window disappears, with no obvious way to retrieve it ... but you can. If you put your mouse all the way to the right of the Mail window, you should see a little "arrow cursor" that indicates "pull to the left" (it is resistant to screenshotting, or I'd include one here -- the chart below has an example, called "Move left or right"):



It's tricky to get vs the "resize the entire window" cursor, but when you get the "move left" one you can pull back the content window to whatever portion of the screen you like.

 

[Ron Stacy]

Chas: I love you! That fixed everything. It's the only thing I hadn't tried. I'm a happy guy. And, I note this for next time if there ever is one.