changing the priority of an incoming message

James Hober wrote:
In Mail, sometimes I get incoming messages marked high priority, with two exclamation points showing in the flags column. How can I change such a message so that it does not display the two exclamation marks?
(It may have been high priority to the sender but it's not to me.)

I understand the sentiment but you can't, sorry. the priority is set by the sender and you can not change it on the receiving end. at least not in Mail.app.

You could Flag messages that you consider high priority, and ignore the sender's opinion.

That *****. It has screwed up my whole system that I used to use with outlook of keeping flagged messages at the top of my screen with the newest messages just under them. When you choose to order by "flags," it includes the exclamation point messages as well, so all those bounce to the top above my newest mail. Also, why should a sender get to choose what is of high priority to me? All this does is open the door for idiots who think their messages are important to mark EVERY email they send as urgent. (Boy who cried wolf kinda' stuff.) Please fix this on your next update, Mac techs!

Sure, we can use rules to flag certain emails as they come in, however sender-designated priority ratings will remain visible wherever we haven't inserted a flag: creating visual junk in the flag column. It seems to me that Apple has conflated two message attributes ("priority" and "flagged") and is using one column to display both.

From my research, you can't. It's really annoying because I frequently use the 'flag' function, and I want to see flagged(important) emails on top of other emails.

So I want to use the 'sort' function by clicking on the 'flag' button, but this forces 'high priority' emails from two years ago to be stuck in the middle between 'flagged emails' and 'normal emails' no matter how I sort it.

I really want to remove the high priority. Perhaps with the snow leopard?