I updated to Catalina today. However, when i open the mail account, I no longer see the headings for the various columns. Can anyone assist as to how to get back the headings? The Classic view option is no longer showing up in Mail.

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

A direct link for easy reporting to Apple of problems with Mail. I hope you all will contact them about this serious f-up.

1. Can't quickly sort by various columns by clicking on column headings, because they're gone!
2. Can't change column width
3. Can't re-order columns
4. Can't do mouseovers on long Subject headings to see what they say (now you have to open the email)
5. No more column for a symbol showing that there is a file attachment

Classic View is gone in Catalina.

In the View menu, you can select, "Use column layout" which provides some of what classic view had, but no headers.

You can also show the Preview below the list (uncheck Show Side Preview).

You can add or remove columns in the View menu.

You can only pick a sort from the menu on the top left.

This is a serious problem, and I hope Apple changes it back to what it was. There are many people who use Apple Mail for business, and we need the functionality of being able to resize columns, instantly sort by various columns, and drag columns to display in the order that suits our purposes. I never cease to be amazed at the stupid things Apple does, while I also remember to praise the many things Apple does so well!

And in the default/only view, the column for Attachments is missing. I depended on that to find what I'm looking for in a mailbox. This is another change that reduces the usability of a built-in program.

Yes, that was another good thing they stupidly took away! And also notice that you can no longer do a mouse-over on an overly long subject heading to read the whole heading. Now, you have no choice but to open the email.

At least there is the option to show message size, and the capability of sorting by size.

Thank you so much for looking! But it doesn't work for me. See 4 screenshots below. Note that I just did the Catalina update that came out yesterday (which didn't change the OS version number showing in "About this Mac"). I sure hope you or somebody reading this can get to the bottom of this. The first screenshot shows my Square view and the second shows my Thumbnail view, which I was already using, with no titles showing. The third shows my View>Metadata settings, and the fourth shows my software and hardware setup.

Perhaps there's a bug that made titles stop showing up once I went from Thumbnail view (which I think was the default) to Square view by pushing that button you found at the upper left. I did that immediately after installing Catalina last week. And I can't remember if at first I could see the titles or not.

Thanks for the link. I'm sending a note now. How about for Photos, is there one for that, too? (For starts, they took away the TITLE, which used to be under the photo. Now it's just in the Get Info box.)

The moderators removed my answer to this question, so I've completely re-written it so it will be useful to you and to Apple without ruffling anybody's feathers:

Just replace "Mail" with "Photos" in the URL. I feel that it was a mistake to remove titles from the All Photos view, and I believe Apple will find it valuable to learn how many users are upset about this, so thank you for writing to their feedback site. !

Here are some other things to mention. Photos, by using an ultra-complex database file that lives on your hard drive (somewhere) to record names and link them to your pictures, forces you to rely on Apple software FOREVER to view photo names that you have carefully and painstakingly created over time. Just using regular folders in finder:  year>month>event name to store pictures and ANY simple picture viewer is starting to seem quite a bit superior to using Photos. It's scary to me that I have tens of thousands of photos on my hard drive with no meaningful names and no meaningful folder structure! Until last year, when I started naming all photos before importing to Photos, they all have names like P7300003.JPG and IMG_3111.jpeg.

I think you'd enjoy the message I posted for you that the moderators removed, so hit me up on Twitter or Instagram @jeffsyrop and I'll share it with you personally. I understand why they removed it and I don't blame them. They have kept this forum running very clean and strong and being a place to solve problems, not just complain about them.

Thanks for working with me to help make Apple products better and more logical.

Jeff

Photos, by using an ultra-complex database file that lives on your hard drive (somewhere) to record names and link them to your pictures, forces you to rely on Apple software FOREVER to view photo names that you have carefully and painstakingly created over time. Just using regular folders in finder:  year>month>event name to store pictures and ANY simple picture viewer is starting to seem quite a bit superior to using Photos.

You can just store them any way you want, with any names you want and reference them in Photos if you want to use the editing tools. Otherwise, you seem to have no reason to use Photos as you don't want to use any of the features.

The database isn't "ultra-complex." It's SQLite3, so it can't be complex at all.

"(somewhere)" Ooohh, scary. It lives in your photos library, like the rest of the data.

I feel that it was a mistake to remove titles from the All Photos view

View menu, Metadata > Titles

Need the image files somewhere else with the Title you have painstakingly entered, just Export and choose the title as the file name.

Barney,

Otherwise, you seem to have no reason to use Photos as you don't want to use any of the features.

You're missing the point. I've got years of photos named ONLY in iPhoto/Photos, and in addition, there are many good and fun reasons to use Photos, the editing capabilities being perhaps the least important to me. And, Photos works rather seamlessly with other Mac apps. Being able to instantly make and later delete virtual folders is cool. I and millions of other Mac users just wish Apple would just stop messing with Photos in ways counter to common sense. Like suddenly taking away the spacebar preview feature! (Which I think just cam back with Catalina!)

the database isn't "ultra-complex." It's SQLite3, so it can't be complex at all.

We get it: you're a Mac expert and a smart guy. So am I, but when writing about this serious problem on this forum, I was mindful that 99.5% of the people looking here for a solution to this totally gratuitous problem would not know about SQLite3 nor have ever used "Show Package Contents". I find that many users don't even know where on their hard drive their Photos library lives.

View menu, Metadata > Titles

This doesn't help us when we're in All Photos view. It's super useful to be able to see photo names in this view.

Need the image files somewhere else with the Title you have painstakingly entered, just Export and choose the title as the file name.

This was actually useful to me and I thank you for it. I forgot about that option. It will be a good way for me to bail out of Photos for good, if I ever decide to do so. As I say above, I wish Apple would just stop breaking it.

Well, thanks for working on it with me. Note that in my virtual folders, titles show up (or filenames of photos not given a title) just like they do on your computer when you're in the All Photos (in thumbnail view) mode. I'm going to update my wife's computer to Catalina today and see what the default settings are in her Photos and check I can see titles/filenames in All Photos view on her machine. I've reported the problem with Mail columns and this Photos problem to Apple, so I'm hoping both will be resolved in a future update.

I have the same problem with Mail-- I've searched, hoping that there's just something I'm missing, but apparently, according to this post, Apple has seriously degraded Mail. I've just emailed them as well, but all I can find is that these features have actually been removed in Catalina?! Seems like *bugs* to me -- Features that I used all the time (multiple times daily) are missing and infuriating! Why can't I:

* Sort by columns by clicking on column headings? Really, I have to select from a menu instead of clicking the heading? I've had to do this about 20 times already just this morning; slows me down. Just what I need, to be less efficient.

* Change column width: I hate the default. I want to change it back to my preference. I *hate* the default; it's distracting.

* Re-order columns: Seriously?! You know better than I do what I want/need to see to get my work done?

* View column showing that there is a file attachment: Seriously, Apple, what are you thinking? How am I supposed to find the ones that contain the documents I need without opening each email?

I get up to a couple hundred emails a day and I resent being slowed down by the removal of features that have helped me to deal with them! Please please put them back ASAP. Stop trying to make the Mac look like an iphone or an ipad. I pay a whole lot more for a Mac for a reason!

Me too! Why on earth would Apple want to take away such a useful feature! Come on Apple, I'm a convert from Windows, don't cause issues that increase time spent on a task and put yourselves in the same bag as Windows.

Please reinstate this facility, it's necessary for sorting quickly. Having to bring up a menu and choose from that menu how the email is to be sorted is a retrograde step and 'Microsoft' like, please don't go there, bring back the easy way!

Yes, WHY is right? Who would think that this is progress?? I do hope they revert to the classic layout. Why do companies change things that work for the sake of it! I have no problem with change, it's quite refreshing to have a change but not when it's retrograde, causes more work and takes more time to achieve an objective.

Please put the column headings back in Apple, this is a simple and efficient way to organise email matters. The bright spark who thought it was good idea to omit them in Catalina must still using paper mail.