catalina mail column view

I called Apple Support today and the first tech who shared my screen could not understand why I can no longer adjust the column width and change the Message List font style in Mail Preferences but can only change the font size (the only one that comes with Mail v. 13.0.

So he handed me over to a Senior Advisor who also shared my screen.

He told me other Mac users have complained about the same issue but no solution was found yet.

Then, after the Senior Advisor directed me thru doing a live Quick Time Screen Recording and having me show the problem on my iMac (it's the same width/font issue for Apple Mail v. 13.0 on my MacBook Pro, so he knew it was a Catalina issue) and having a log file created to send to "Apple's Engineering Dept.," I decided to deselect Column View Layout on the Mail toolbar and found that I could successfully change both the font style and font size in Message List to what I liked.

The Senior Advisor then told me that he researched the issue while I was doing that and he read me an internal report that confirmed Mail in Catalina no longer supports Column View Layout or changing the font style in that mode.

Like most of you, I prefer to use Column View and am not pleased with not having the option to continue to use Column View the way I had it set up in every other version of Mac OS I have used previously, which for me goes back eight years.

Finally, the Senior Advisor provided me with this same website others in this forum referenced to give feedback to Apple to let them know I want to be able to use Column View the way I could before.

He told me if he hears of a way to adjust the column widths and change the font in Column View, he will contact me; however, he did say that because it is not technically a malfunction in Apple Mail but rather a change in the program, he doubts he will have a solution and apologized. He told me he agrees that this was not a positive change in Catalina and Apple should offer the option to use Mail the way I (and now I can say, "We" after reading all the posts in this thread) prefer.

So....I will send my feedback thru this link, below, and "hope" it makes a difference.

https://www.apple.com/feedback/mail.html

I have the same question about modifying columns, really annoying.

The TO tells you whether you have received this email directly or whether you've just been cc'ed into it. This can be disabled under View –> Show To/Cc Label. Hope this helps.

Hi, I have had a long conversation with 'Liam' from Apple Support as I had written in to express my dissatisfaction with the removal of Column View in Mail.

He has promised to feedback directly to the developers (no promises on outcome) and to point them to the huge number of posts on this topic. He encouraged everyone who has this concern to voice it DIRECTLY on the Apple Support site as this is more likely to register with the Apple hierarchy.

https://www.apple.com/feedback/mail.html

This link has been posted throughout this thread and others, but it can't hurt to post it again and remind people to submit their comments there. If everyone does this who knows!

Hi Amy,

Please rest assured that you are amongst friends here. Many of us spent weeks reporting an error, trying to figure out what had happened to our columns in Apple Mail, what we had done something wrong, trying to fix it, until we discovered, late in the day, and indirectly that Apple had intentionally (yes- intentionally) removed this aspect of functionality in Catalina.

A year later and thousands of reports, emails, complaints and deafening silence from Apple we discovered, again by accident, that Apple will be restoring the column function in the next upgrade ‘Big Sur’ which is due for release later this year.

Might still be worth contacting Apple feedback directly!

petemcl wrote:

In the new Mac osX CataIina I cannot find a way to change the columns viewed in Mail. You used to be able to change the field widths and add columns from the View/Columns menu. How can I accomplish this now?

Catalina no longer supports Column View Layout/fields/etc

Apple Feedback http://www.apple.com/feedback

petemcl: You cannot adjust column width under Catalina. Please do two things:

1) Call AppleCare and ask the rep to file a complaint.

2) Fill your own complaint at https://www.apple.com/feedback/mail.html

Apple only works on algorithms these days, not common sense, and the only algorith that governs the developers is how many complaints they get, not the quality of the complaints.

A big thank you, Glenn Fleishman, for the article titled You’re not imagining things: Apple did remove the column option from macOS Mail, published in Macworld on 25 March 2020. Let's hope that other tech writers address this important matter in their columns and let's also hope that Apple wakes up from its long trance. Like many other participants in this forum, I have been a loyal user of Apple products for decades. It is high time that Apple displayed some loyalty to its users in return for our loyalty.

Hi, I have just had a long conversation with 'Liam' from Apple Support as I had written in to express my dissatisfaction with the removal of Column View in Mail.

He has promised to feedback directly to the developers (no promises on outcome) and to point them to the huge number of posts on this topic. He encouraged everyone who has this concern to voice it DIRECTLY on the Apple Support site as this is more likely to register with the Apple hierarchy.

I have an idea that might get Apple's attention. I hope everyone that has posted about the column view is following this issue!

On a specific day, maybe the end of the week, everyone that is posted about this issue send FEEDBACK to apple at the same time! A mass posting to FEEDBACK might get their attention.

If there is anyone willing to head this up you will be more than welcome to do it. If not and there is enough interest, I will be glade to try to make arrangements.

The ONLY way they're going to do anything is for everyone to:

1) Use all their email addresses and complain to https://www.apple.com/feedback/mail.html

2) Call AppleCare at 1-800-275-2273 and ask a tech to submit a bug report.

Sadly, Apple—and every other tech company out there—only reactions to Congressional subpeonas and algorithms. You canj affect the algorithm.

Check your menus to see if there are numbers to the left of each item. If so then you have Voice control enabled in the System/Accessability/Voice Control preference pane.

Disable Voice Control and those tags should disappear.

I have just completed my transition from Catalina's Apple Mail to Outlook, on my desktop machine. It wasn't too difficult. The only reason I changed was the loss of a user-customizable column view. The largest effort was in copying my local ("On My Mac") mailboxes over to Outlook.

The first Apple computer I had on my desk at work was the Mac SE, and I've had Apple on my desk ever since. That's more than 30 years. So I suppose I can claim to be a loyal Apple user. But I found problems like having the Attachments column way off to the right -- where I can't see it at a glance and easily identify which messages have attachments and which don't -- to be too much to tolerate.

Aside from the column view issue, there are pros and cons to Outlook vs Apple Mail. But overall they are similar enough that I believe Outlook will be satisfactory. And I'm confident that MS won't degrade the product to any significant degree. I have no such confidence in Apple, especially if their goal is to bring MacOS, iOS, and iPadOS into greater conformity with each other, as some have speculated.

I do plan to continue with Apple Mail on my laptop, which is still running 10.14. But I don't use that machine to organize and manage my email, just to view it. So I can probably tolerate a crippled column view if and when I upgrade it to 10.15.

Jimonga has a good point about using the media to get a response on something we all care about. Use this email address to tell the editors of Mac World about the problem with Mac Mail. If the magazine gets even 1% of the volume of complaints on this site, they will follow up, even as Apple hasn't bothered to respond:

letters@macworld.com

You can sort it with the drop-down menu at top left corner of email list. But there are no column headings so it's more time-consuming. .

You can also toggle an icon to show all Unopened mail or toggle back to All mail - just found that recently.

I talked with Apple Support.. The next operating system is to restore the Column headings and that is being beta tested now. So hang in there. This is still WAY better than using a pc.