No preview timer in Mail???

One more voice chiming in in favor of this. It is probably the only thing preventing me from moving over to Mail right now.

this is one of the things that makes one hate Apple. this has been a gripe of many users including myself for as long as i can remember and has kept me using outlook (on parallels) until they can come up with a solution to fix this. just a simple preference option would fix this.

Apple are you listening?

The ironic thing about this topic is this: One of the best preview-without-reading functions that I have ever seen is Apple's...on the iPhone. With the iPhone, you are easily able to preview messages (the first several lines) without the need to open the message.

C'mon, Apple. Please make 'Mail' a little more user-friendly. Give us true preview capability for our message.

This should definitely be a feature in Mail. This is one of the limitations that is stopping my company from moving entirely to Macs. With this feature and a little more support for Exchange integration with iCal, the Mac could be a good business computer.

Apple, have you gone completely bonkers. A simple "Mark message as read when viewed in Preview Pane" checkbox would make a lot of people happy. Please make us happy and show us that you care 😉

You can make suggestions to Apple regarding Mac OS X and it's bundled applications by submitting feedback here:

http://www.apple.com/feedback/macosx.html

This topic is still current and pretty high up on a Google search, so I thought I'd post my "solution" here.

My workaround is to

1. Create a rule that marks all messages as flagged. (If you use the flag for other purposes, then use colour or something else.)
2. Create a Smart Folder that displays flagged messages.
3. Optionally, delete the Unread folder.
4. For added comfort assign a new keyboard shortcut (instead of Shift-Cmd-L) to flag-unflag.

This'll have to do until Apple realises that people have a workflow.

Just a few thoughts.

First I like the suggestions as per posted earlier I think all of you that think improvements can be made to mail should feel free to send Apple there feedback: http://www.apple.com/feedback/mail.html

Ok now, I think its important to note that Apple doesn't call it a Preview Pane, we came up with that on our own, they call it the message area. And for those that don't like the message area should feel free to turn it off, as this might cause them less headaches for the time being. To do so you see that little divider line, either drag it all the way down or double click it and it will snap to the bottom. To bring it back just reverse.

Also I remember reading somewhere that people tend to be more productive when they batch things. And since I don't speak for everyone, I personally feel that its easier to batch my emails if I move them to a new folder, Mailbox or whatever you want to call it. So that I don't have to go overtop of the emails I've already decided I need to reply to.

My workflow is as follows, forgive me if you see bugs, I start my day and batch my emails. Quickly removing junk and chain letters that everyone feels is a must to send me. I move all emails that will require more attention to my Reply Mailbox. Since I only like to reply to emails at the end of my day so that I stay focused on the task at hand. Also its not possible for me to close my email case something that is important comes along that is like say 'I'm you freaking boss, do this now or your fired' so I don't like to get caught up with unread email badges, and sorting through emails I've already sorted through. Anyway so as the day progresses I jump in an out of my email quite frequently and quickly batch it, until a few hours to the end of my day. Then I go through and email the emails I can get to right away, and store the ones that need further research for a later date in another needs further research Mailbox.

Anyways I hope that helps,
Weston

This has been one of my biggest pet peeves with Mail for years now. I have searched all over for a solution, but was never able to find anything. So, I scratched my own itch, and wrote the plugin myself. Go get TruePreview at . I have only tested it with Mail 3.6 on 10.5, but I would love feedback from other versions.

Jim,

THANKS SO MUCH for this great plugin!

I'd love to make one tiny request (which, looking at the code, shouldn't be that big of deal, if my quick scan of it serves me right): Can you have a "never" option? I've seen some other requests for this on the web, too.

I have used your plugin and loved it until i upgraded to Snow Leopard! Any ideas when we will see a version compatible with 4.0?