HT204093: Use Mail on your Mac

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Ed10028

Q: preview new mail

When new email arrives in Apple mail, I get a small text box in the upper right corner of my screen. Often enough it covers a search box which also tend to be in the same spot. Rather than juggle, can I have the preview appear elsewhere?

Thanks for any tips.

MacBook Pro with Retina display, OS X El Capitan (10.11.5)

Posted on Jul 20, 2016 8:25 AM

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Q: preview new mail

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  • Helpful answers

  • by Linc Davis,Apple recommended

    Linc Davis Linc Davis Jul 20, 2016 6:26 PM in response to Ed10028
    Level 10 (207,926 points)
    Applications
    Jul 20, 2016 6:26 PM in response to Ed10028

    You can't change the position of the alert, but if it doesn't disappear after a few seconds, open the Notifications pane in System Preferences, select Mail from the list on the left, and change the alert style from Alerts to Banners. You can also disable the notifications, if you wish.

  • by dianeoforegon,

    dianeoforegon dianeoforegon Jul 20, 2016 12:33 PM in response to Ed10028
    Level 5 (5,298 points)
    Jul 20, 2016 12:33 PM in response to Ed10028

    Easy option:  You can change the position of the Search box by dragging it to another location.

     

    You can also change the time before the alert disappears. If you are comfortable using the Terminal, it's an easy change.

     

    Changing the OS X Notification Banner Persistence Time

    For example, to have the banner quickly disappear, set it to one second:

    defaults write com.apple.notificationcenterui bannerTime 1

    Hit return for the command to execute. For the change to take full effect for all applications, you’ll want to log out and log back in, or reboot the Mac.

     

    Returning to the Default Notification Banner Persistence Time

    Going back to the default banner persistence time is just a matter of deleting the defaults string you wrote to previously. Go back to the Terminal and enter the following command string:

    defaults delete com.apple.notificationcenterui bannerTime

    Again, you’ll want to log out and back into the Mac for the change to take effect and to revert back to the default settings.

  • by Ed10028,

    Ed10028 Ed10028 Jul 20, 2016 6:28 PM in response to dianeoforegon
    Level 1 (12 points)
    Mac OS X
    Jul 20, 2016 6:28 PM in response to dianeoforegon

    Thank you. I'm going to play with banners vs. alerts first. I'll come back to timing, or eliminate the banners.