Q: How to keep email unread when selected?

If the message pane is visible, yes, clicking on a mail preview for more than a second or so is considered "reading" it.

If the message pane is not visible (ie, slide the divider all the way to the right), selecting a message in the list will NOT mark it as read. You have to double-click the message and open it in a new window for it to be marked read.

The choice of how you want the mail displayed is yours, but if you want the message pane open, don't select emails unless you intend them to be marked read.

Matt

Or scroll down with two fingers on your trackpad, just like you would in Safari to scroll down a page, which will not result in "selecting" any message until you actually click on it.

Matt

although I don't use Mac Mail in most any email program that I have every used there is a setting to mark mail as read After X Amount of time. That time period can be increased, in most email programs, to something like multiple minutes, like 10 or 20 minutes, so no email get auto marked as read if you just click on it.

Surely there has to be a option like that in Mac Mail. If not switch to some other email program that does allow that option to be set.

This is Thunderbird set for 20 minutes.

Yes it on a Windows PC but that same option is available in Tbird on OS X.

I'm not disagreeing with the method you're using - all I'm saying is that if you're "scrolling down the list to see what's in the messages", then yes, that involves reading the messages. Scrolling while selecting, which is what you're doing, will refresh the message pane (the right-hand pane), and Apple Mail has no way of knowing whether your eyes are actually looking at that pane. (Removing the message pane removes the doubt.)

If you don't want to read the actual message, and the 2-line preview in the central pane is enough to help you decide whether to read it or not, use the two-finger scroll. This will not refresh the message pane, and if the 2-line preview interests you, you can then click on the message to select and read it.

Don't forget that you can use flags, instead of read/unread status, to highlight messages that are important enough to be addressed later. Right-click a message preview to select a flag, or shift-cmd-L to assign a red flag - you can use the Keyboard preference panel in System Preferences to assign shortcuts to the other flag options.

There's now a "Flagged" mailbox by default in Apple Mail, though you can set up any smart mailbox to do a similar operation.

Matt

Matt's suggestion, while you don't seem to like it, is the only option that will work with your current behavior. If you need more than two lines in the preview, you can set up to five in the preferences. Hide the message pane and just scroll through the preview list.

There isn't another way to get what you want. When you show an email in the message window it is marked as read. There is nothing you can do that will change that. There are no preferences, hidden or otherwise, that you can adjust to have it not mark the message as read.

Well I just fired up Mac Mail and there is no option to not mark messages as read for X amount of time.

Just another reason not to use the built in, not very good for anything IMHO, Mac Mail.

There are several very good mail programs for Mac OS X. I suggest you dump Mac Mail and fine one that works better for you. There is no reason for you to uses any program that doesn't work the way you want it to.

Good Luck & Best Wishes.

fmontrelay wrote:

Anyway, I can see that there is no way out.

Have you considered the "retro" route of using the classic layout (in Preferences> Viewing)? If you use that layout & pull the bottom of the message list all the way to the bottom (so that no selected message is showing), you can browse through the list without selecting anything.

You only will see the info that layout shows in its columns, but that may be enough to see which messages need immediate attention. Double-click on one & it will open in its own window.

Now I'm confused too!

Are you talking about Mail.app in OS X on a MacBook Air or on an iPhone running iOS?

If it is Mail.app running on Mountain Lion on the MBA, open the app & select "Preferences" from the "Mail" menu at the top of the screen. Then select the "Viewing" item from the choices along the top of the Preferences window. Put a checkmark on the first item in that window ("Use classic layout").

I'm sorry I don't know the French names for these things but I hope this helps.

Once you change to the classic layout, you will probably see a message list with a section below it saying "No message selected" (if in fact you have not selected any message from the list). Pull the horizontal divider between these two items downward (the pointer will change to a line with an arrow when you are over the area on the divider where you can do this) until it reaches the bottom of the window.

This will allow you to select any message from the list without reading it. The columns in the list can be customized to show various things about each message (like sender, subject, date received, etc.) which may be enough to tell you which ones need immediate attention.

There's no such option in Mail.app that I'm aware of.