Looks like no one’s replied in a while. To start the conversation again, simply ask a new question.

catalina mail column view

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?


Also, what does the black background TO next to the email title mean?




Posted on Oct 7, 2019 3:26 PM

Reply
Question marked as Best answer

Hallelujah, Mail Column View, as it was, is back with Big Sur! I joined the Beta Program and installed the Beta version of Big Sur and I can confirm that the column view is restored to its original grandeur. Any information that you desire is available and sortable by the same.

Maybe Apple did realize they made a blunder with Catalina and maybe they do listen to us. Possibly it was a major software change and took a lot to restore it.

I only wish they would have let us know they planned to restore Mail so we would have not had to spend so much time writing to this post and sending service requests. Also, in the introductory clip for Big Sur, it would be nice if they highlighted the return of the column view as originally designed.


A message to Apple:

"Please do not be so distant from your loyal customers and fans!!!". You could have responded to this thread to give us hope.


Posted on Aug 8, 2020 7:24 PM

529 replies

Aug 24, 2020 10:06 AM in response to Ayme9

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!



Sep 21, 2020 6:28 PM in response to petemcl

Hip Hip Hoorah Gary!!! Thank you SOOOO much for posting this. I was one of the lucky ones who found out about the classic view deletion with Catalina BEFORE I upgraded. I was sitting with my son on his computer and told him he should change his view and realized he could not. Then I went to this discussion page and learned it was true, with the upgrade, the classic view disappeared so I have been avoiding my upgrade. Of course over time all the old versions start to cause problems and I have this crazy bug with Mojave that happens every couple weeks where suddenly when I open a new window in any app, the window is a small shrunken box in the upper left corner of my screen and all my sized columns settings are messed up. I have to resize everything and then reboot my computer about 4x over the course of a couple days for it to go back to normal. It's CRAZY. So I just googled hoping MAYBE Big Sur would have classic view and I could upgrade my MacBook - and I found your post. Thank you so much for taking the time to put this in. My son just told me I should bite the bullet and go to Outlook if I really can't function w/out classic view. You just made my. night!! Yippee!!!

P.S. TOTALLY agree with your message to Apple - let us know when you fix something that everyone is complaining about - alert the discussion feeds please.


Oct 15, 2020 3:10 PM in response to millerbc182

The issue is that the ability to add, remove, and reorder columns has disappeared for no good reason that anybody can fathom, causing various problems. Additionally, archived Sent Items no longer show who the emails were sent TO, only who they were FROM. Again, another ridiculous design choice--Um, if I sent an email, I know who it's FROM!!! So if you are in a record keeping business (law, real estate, medicine, tax related, etc.) you can no longer use apple mail to archive your email as not showing the recipient likely violates most record keeping statutes.


Again for what purpose the developers thought this was a good idea, or how they justified this, or how they thought we'd benefit from this, is beyond all comprehension.


Oct 15, 2020 3:31 PM in response to Susana2020

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.

catalina mail column view

Welcome to Apple Support Community
A forum where Apple customers help each other with their products. Get started with your Apple ID.