Minimum font size of incoming mails

There is a hidden Mail preference that lets you set the minimum size on HTML-formatted e-mails. Open the Terminal, paste in the following and press return:

defaults write com.apple.mail MinimumHTMLFontSize 12

Of course, you can change the 12 to any other font size you want.

Thank you! worked for me.

Yes, this worked perfectly. Thanks so much for posting this tip. (Why is this topic still flagged as not answered?)

I have the same issue, but what is "the Terminal"?

Brilliant! I have had this problem since switching back to Mac in 2006. It's usually when receiving email from Outlook or AOL mail users. Thanks very much for this tip.

Thomas, thanks for this tip, it works great. But I've never used Terminal before, so I just wanted to ask if it was okay to enter this code multiple times (with the font size changed of course) as needed? Does it just read the most recent command entered, or will that cause some confusion? Thanks!

To smpostma:

I have the same issue, but what is "the Terminal"?

I didn't know either, but I found it by searching for terminal in the Finder

I searched for "terminal" in Finder but nothing came up. Where is "Terminal"?

I have a new iMac OS X 10.5.7.

I'm a iMac newbie, just got my 1st iMac a month ago. I am receiving emails where the font is so small I can barely read it.

I'm not sure why it's not coming up in the search, but try looking in your *Applications folder > Utilities folder*. It'll have a black computer screen icon. It should be there.

Can't get this to work for me. I've tried testing it by sending myself e-mails with tiny type and I get...e-mails with tiny type.

PPC Mac tower using Leopard, Mail version 3.6