How do I reset the color of conversation views to the DEFAULT color?

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Level 1

36 points

How do I reset the color of conversation views to the DEFAULT color?

By default, the conversation color of messages in Mail is light purple-ish. This is defined in the Preferences > Viewing.

I changed the color of some of the conversation messages to a custom color (just for fun). Now, I'd like to restore them to the DEFAULT color (the purple-ish color that is defined in the Preferences > Viewing). But it's not possible.

Online sources say you need to select white. That is incorrect. White will make the message coloring WHITE and not the DEFAULT color (which is the light purple).

So how would I go about resetting the color?

Thanks.

MacBook Pro 13", OS X 10.11

Posted on Mar 8, 2019 6:33 PM

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Answer 1

Mar 9, 2019 9:25 AM in response to TadWi

If I have understood you correctly, you have changed the color of some of your conversation messages to a custom color, and now you would like to restore them to Mail's default color. I would have to agree with you when you state that it is not possible, the reason being that the color value of each of your individual messages is probably buried somewhere in the many data files that are found in the ~/Library/Mail folder, I imagine. Like you, I conducted some online research, and I was not able to find any information regarding how to reverse what you have done.

The only thing I can tell you, is that the default color for highlighted messages in Mail's "Viewing" preferences appears to be CCDCF2. To set this exact color, you need to :

go to the "Viewing" tab in Mail's prefs
click on the colored box in the "View Conversations" section
when the window opens, click on the "color sliders" icon (the 2nd icon from the left)
enter CCDCF2 in the "Hex Color #" field
hit your return key

Again, I don't think that will restore the color of the messages that you changed, but if for some reason you lost the default color in that particular pref, at least you will now have it back.

Let me know if this helps you any.

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Answer 2

TadWi Author

Level 1

36 points

Mar 9, 2019 1:36 PM in response to WordWeaver777

Thanks for the detailed response WordWeaver777! Unfortunately I've tried that approach already, but once you mark individual conversations (in the group) with a specific color, you are marked for life (at least according to Apple) and even though you restore the color in the Preferences, the individual colors will stay as is.

According to the unhelpful "help" file, you can mark individual conversations as white, to "remove" the color. But that is incorrect since that just mark the individual conversation white. So when you go back to grouped conversation view, they will appear white.

Anyhow. Not the end of the world, it's just astonishing how sloppy Apple is with the small details.

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Answer 3

TadWi Author

Level 1

36 points

Mar 9, 2019 1:52 PM in response to TadWi

Well, what do you know... I just found it by accident!

In order to restore the color of the individual emails in a grouped conversation view to the default light purple-ish color, you need to select the individual email(s) in the conversation view and set their color to BLACK!

Now all emails that is part of the conversation view will be colored again with the default light purple-ish color in conversation view.

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Answer 4

Mar 9, 2019 2:08 PM in response to TadWi

Well, that makes perfect sense. So it seems to work just like when you are composing a message. If you select an option once, it is applied to the text. If you select that same option a second time, the effect is removed from the text. I hope you don't have too many conversations to manually switch back.

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How do I reset the color of conversation views to the DEFAULT color?

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