I used to be able to set columns in mail when using the column layout feature. Now there doesn't appear to be a way to do this - also is it possible to rearrange the columns showing in mail other than turning a column off?
I started this thread and so will save you some time paging through the hundreds of replies: there is no workaround, Apple has said nothing, and the two most common mail apps that folks are migrating to get columns is Thunderbird and Outlook, both of which have improved and are more Apple friendly.
I have a different take on why. Columns still exist in every other OS function in Finder and elsewhere. Code like this are 'objects' that can be dropped into most other apps, so I do not believe it is lack of willingness to 'support the code'.
I do think they are trying to move the Mac OS to as close as possible to the iPhone/ipad OS to make the user experience nearly the same. But this makes for a big dumbing down of the Mac OS.
The mystery to me is that you can't change column width in iPhones-- so are they now going to remove the ability to do that in ALL Mac OS apps, finder etc.? I highly doubt that, so why selectively remove it from Mail?
I think they don't believe it is that popular so why not get rid of it. Hence the importance of letting our voices be heard.
Well...Windows lets you do this actually. I just spent 30 minutes searching in mail sir something that used to take me 3-5 minutes. THE REASON I SWITCHED FROM WINDOWS/outlooks to Mac was because of this.
Steve Jobs said "you don't want to organize your documents into folders...you want to search and find what you want."
hes right. Apple has forgotten. Shame.
Me to... it seems bizarre that such a useful feature would be removed... I would have thought customer testing would have identified this as a bad idea.... hopefully someone is monitoring the feedback and will do something... when something is removed it would be good to more clearly communicated it as I wasted a lot of time trying to find the "new" settings for this but there is none!! frustrated...
In column view, the first column is read / unread, the second is the sender, and the third is just plain weird. It has a little black box with white lettering that either says "CC" or "TO" then followed by the subject, BUT NOT THE RECIPIENTS !! How annoying is that. Apple: fix this please. How useless do you want to make mail?
And sadly on the incoming mailbox which is the one I used to use to see the mail I got and also the mail I sent (I bcc myself on all outgoing) it only shows me who sent it, not who it went to, so to review my sent mail I now HAVE to go to the sent mailbox to review what I sent.
Really annoying.
georgergreer wrote:
Yes, terrible?
What free email clients would be a good replacement: Thunderbird, Postbox, even . . . Outlook?
Browse the App Store for “Mail.” I think they’re all $ but Thunderbird is a free download.
Well the UI has been slowed down for the way you use Mail.
For the way most do, including myself - I've never even enabled column mode - it makes zero difference to me.
I use Mail in the mode it comes up in by default, and sort by different fields using the pull down menu and still process over 500 emails per day.
@Duchy777:
you're right, my fault, column handling is better than I thought.
I clicked always on the right button mouse in the column, than nothing happends. But when you ctrl-click in the column the popup menu opens - strange ;-)
But the search is still bad when you use more than one account (everybody here has the same problem).
Keep complaining, it might help. https://www.apple.com/feedback/mail.html
And unfortunately, the answer to your once friendly software is that Apple keeps trying to dumb it down to the least common denominator, frustrating those of us who actually use features. So, yes, emulating other less responsive companies.
I set up a new machine with Ubuntu which forced me to use Thunderbird. I am amazed how far Thunderbird has progressed in the last few years. I would say that it is far superior to the Catalina version of Mail and will now move my office Mac to Thunderbird. There is quite a bit of learning curve but you can do almost anything you can think of, including one thing that is crazily missing from nearly every mail program. When you search for a contact in Mail, you can choose either "To" or "From" but what is the use of that? I need to see bot the To and the From to follow the thread and I have to create hundreds of Smart Mailboxes to achieve that for commonly accessed contacts.
In Thunderbird I can just Quick Search on the contact name and see both To and From.
I shall miss MailHub in Mac Mail a bit but I can work around that.
Fred Davenport wrote:
Can thunderbird use/integrate with Apple Contacts and Apple Calendar?
i’m pretty sure you need to import them. It would be nice if Apple oould let the user set the default mail, calendar client - similar to setting the default browser.
That is because Thunderbird does not implement this feature (probably because it is mac specific and Thunderbird is cross platform, which does not motivate them to implement platform specific features).
It is up to developers to offer these extensions, which can be activated/deactivated in System Preferences->Extensions. Maybe there is one out there.
March 2020, nothing has changed. This is the single most irritating mod that came with Catalina !
Can this functionality be restored by retrieving the Mojave Mail version from Time Machine ?
It confirms the impression that the latest MacOs updates are rolled out without evaluating functionality on the huge real estate of the 5K iMac screen.
Why do you say that?
Not everyone uses column mode. I will state again that most people don't even know it exists, as it is not the default you get when opening Mail.
Until this thread started, I certainly didn't and I've used macOS X since the initial Public Preview.
Not sure how the experience of people who never relied on a function is relevant to the comments of so many who clearly have a need for it and have explained why and how they’ve used it. And why they feel disappointed by a provider seemingly unwilling to take their needs into consideration before executing what in their experience is a radical negative change.
There are a lot of functions I don’t personally use in an OS that a company would still be negligent to discontinue.
William-- the point isn't what you prefer or even what the default is now. In fact column view was the default when Apple Mail first launched many years ago if you want to make that argument.
The point is that lots of people still prefer columns but they have been dumbed down significantly to function in a non-standard, way from all other Apple folder and finder windows. Namely there is NO flexibility to choose which columns, or widths or order etc. On a big monitor, less of an issue. On a laptop, a big issue, almost unusable.
BTW, I was the one who started this thread. To summarize, I have been an Apple user since the 1980s. Am (actually was) a software developer and understand what it takes to code things like this- would doubtfully be hard to implement since standard objects already being used in the OS that could be re-used here.
I have tried all the other email alternatives out there suggested on this thread. The best is Thunderbird, although not without some silly, unnecessary constraints also. About equal in tradeoffs for Apple Mail at the end of the day in my opinion. Thunderbird got purchased recently, so I am hoping the new company will make it sing.
Column width in mail for OSX Catalina
