How to show text instead of symbols in mac's Mail app?

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Level 1

8 points

How to show text instead of symbols in mac's Mail app?

Is it possible to show text instead of these meaningless symbols?

I have hard time using mac Mail because of this. It is taunting task to learn what each symbol means and they are similar to each other and nobody else uses those symbols anywhere. Symbols are not the best user experience at all. Even gmail uses buttons with text that clearly indicate what they do!

At least you could add a hover text when mouse is over those symbols to indicate user what those symbols mean...

Do a simple UX test: grab couple of persons from the street who haven't ever used mac mail, and ask them to send a reply to someone with this software. Please take notes, improve on it.

There's a picture below of some of the symbols/icons that I have to deal with.

MacBook Pro 13”, 10.14

Posted on Feb 6, 2019 11:43 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

x_user

Level 2

194 points

Feb 6, 2019 12:08 PM in response to jho1111

Try "View:Customize Toolbar…" in Mail's menu. Then change the Show option (lower left side) from "Icon Only" to your choice "Icon and Text" or "Text Only".

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Answer 2

Feb 6, 2019 12:18 PM in response to jho1111

Is it possible to show text instead of these meaningless symbols?

At least you could add a hover text when mouse is over those symbols to indicate user what those symbols mean...

You mean much like the tool bar below—no text, no mouseover tooltip.

At least Mail as an option ;)

Change Viewing preferences in Mail on Mac - Apple Support

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Answer 3

jho1111 Author

Level 1

8 points

Feb 19, 2019 7:13 AM in response to jho1111

Now I must say, I can't find option to add those icons when I'm making a reply. I can only glance with right-click on the toolbar to get this info box to show, which is somewhat helpful, but annoying to open everytime.

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Answer 4

jho1111 Author

Level 1

8 points

Feb 19, 2019 7:03 AM in response to x_user

I was about to ask where is this "View:Customize Toolbar", but I found a quicker way of showing text under icons. Just right-click(two fingers in touchpad) on that top "toolbar" and it gives those options:

To me it would be lot more logical if all of these settings could be found under preferences or settings... In one big settings window or such, you could glance through each setting. There's none of those settings that are under "View".

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How to show text instead of symbols in mac's Mail app?

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