catalina mail column view

I would like to replace my Early-2015 MacBook Air with a new MacBook Pro. But it will come with Catalina, and then I'll have the crippled version of Mac Mail. It's a real disincentive.

It is clear that Apple's concept of their market does not include people like me -- I use a computer for serious work -- and everyone else in this discussion.

Have sent my feedback as well... This one unneeded change transformed Mail from a very usefull app, great to manage my mail into a useless piece of bit-rot on my drive. For managing a multicatch mailbox being able to see the To/Cc addresses in list view is key to a successful Mail client user interface.

After over 25,000 posts on this stupid mistake/omission. Looking forward to someone posting that this HUGE error is finally fixed. "Worst thing about a mistake is when you do not admit it and fix it."

You can't as I understand it, so I am now about to start looking for another email client. I used to love Apple Macs and told everyone how great it was ... not more. Every OS upgrade changes things for no reason that makes my Mac less functional and is filled with glitches. I left Microsoft for Apple 15 years ago for this reason and am no - sadly - about to leave Apple.

I agree 100% with Sokyle2 and with all the many who are repeatedly saying how counterproductive several changes are. The peak of this design and marketing obtuseness is perhaps the lack of control over the width of Mail columns, but it's a pity I, and many others I suppose, don't have the time to list the several obstacles that Apple is providing to users, beceuse there would be a very long list.

My first Mac was a 512K (yes, not just yesterday...) and I stayed with Apple for decades, then turned to Windows because of professional needs, and then again to Apple. But I don't think I will be buying Apple products anymore, not me and not all the members of my family. We are tired of being frustrated with a constant loss of functionality and a myriad of useless complications. I just changed to Catalina a couple of months ago and I am still going crazy with devices that don't work anymore, sw that I had to buy again and dozens of malfunctions.

Thank you, 3JGA, for putting it so nicely. My comment was deleted by Apple because it was apparently not "constructive," although some of the comments above were even more critical and negative than mine. I truly doubt I that I'll be being any Apple products after this. I am very sorry that I bought a new iMac last year, and I'm now thinking seriously of getting rid of it and hoping I can recoup my considerable investment. It's especially annoying that I can longer use MSWord unless I upgrade to a subscription, which I have absolutely no desire to do.

I was a proud member of the Church of Apple for many years, but that has ended.

Don MacQueen1 wrote:

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.

And therein lies the main problem:

Apple has been dumbing down the computers to make them conform to mobile devices. But the whole point of buying a computer is to get more power and flexibility, not less! If I wanted the dumbed down experience, I'd use a mobile device.

This trend of dumbing things down seems to be pervasive, not just at Apple. It's a cancer that's affecting the whole computing industry.

The most depressing thing here is that Apple used to possess a remarkable ability to 'read the minds' of customers and provide us with innovative and intuitive solutions to our daily problems. It has a history of engendering an almost religious belief in customers of the 'specialness of Apple', which in turn justified in our minds the higher than industry standard charges.

So it is with incredibly sadness that the Apple Mail column fiasco can only be seen as a broken promise.

Apple - thousands of us are disappointed in you, dissatisfied that you have removed what many of us thought of as a critical aspect of functionality for a mail program and annoyed beyond the point of our loyalty that you continue to ignore us. I'm sorry Apple but your head in the sand - 'no response' is not acceptable in a company that many of us have financially supported, advocated for to family and friends and given our loyalty to for years.

Read the comments here - months later, universally negative feedback with no sense of going away, getting less, or moving on - your customers are begging you to reinstate Apple Columns because we want to stay, want to remain loyal, want to continue to be enthusiastic customers.

So sad that each time I login into view a post on "Apple Mail" I do not see someone say all is fixed. With almost 28,000 posting disappointment and concerns about how bad Apple Mail has become, as well as "ZERO" comments from Apple has us all wondering about our decades of loyalty to Apple.

That will save me a lot of money! If they dumb down apple mail to make it work across all platforms, and they get rid of the complex features like sortable columns in Apple Mail--guess what? I'll stop paying $3500 for a Macbook Pro and instead pay $800 for a phone--after all if the Macbook Pro doesn't have the more complex features like sortable columns, there's no $&%@#$% point in buying one, is there?

The point is that we buy computers instead of ipads and phones BECAUSE of the complex features. I don't want my macbook pro turned into a $3500 iphone, in that it lacks the complex features that I paid $3500 for.

Agree with posts here. Love the fact that the viewer is on the right instead of the bottom (have been asking for that for 10 years), but hate the significant loss of features as mentioned in this thread.

Yes, in all the folders you create you can only see the sender, which is intuitively OK when you have dedicated folders, for example to each of your correspondents. But if you create a folder organised in a different way, for example using the name of a company, you are not able to see to whom in that company you have sent the message, until you open the mail. Very dumb indeed...

Jamapple wrote on Jan 23, 2020 [quote] Here's another kicker - move your SENT MAIL to another folder, and the TO: field disappears, basically rendering it USELESS.

I archive my SENT mail by year. So now all it says is FROM: (me), subject, and date. I contacted APPLE SUPPORT and they had no clue.

THIS IS A HUGE ERROR on Apple's part! [/quote]

#BRINGBACKCUSTOMCOLUMNS

@jamapple ... I very much agree with your issue. For years I've used the same technique to archive sent messages to off-line folders in Mac Mail. Now even though there is the ability to sort by "TO" ... the "TO" field does not show up. Totally worthless when looking for something sent to someone last year, etc.