I can't resize the email window in mac mail

Question

I can't resize the email window in mac mail

When I enlarge the box in Mac Mail that has all the emails listed, sometimes it gets stuck and I cant resize it smaller, and therefore can't see both the list of emails and the individual email that is highlighted. The little cursor with the up arrow seems unable to grab the bottom of the box that the emails are in and move it up so that there is room to see the individual email below. If I keep trying for a half hour eventually I can usually get it to work, but this time it isn't! Help!!

It has done this for years, on multiple computers and also with various IOS

MacBook Pro 13”, macOS 10.15

Posted on Jul 7, 2020 12:29 PM

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Answer 1

Old Toad

Level 10

207,961 points

Jul 11, 2020 11:47 AM in response to Katarina Wittich

Boot into Safe Mode (How to use safe mode on your Mac - Apple Support) by booting with the Shift key held down and check there to see if the problem persists. Reboot normally and test again.

NOTE: Safe Mode boot can take up to 10 minutes as it's doing some system cache cleaning, volume verifying and directory repairing.

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Answer 2

motorat

Level 1

24 points

Aug 4, 2020 6:18 PM in response to Katarina Wittich

I have figured out how to resize the inbox/content box window. My wife must have accidently resized the upper inbox area to take up all the space (content are not visible). Once you've done that trying to reduce the inbox portion doesn't work like you'd expect. You have to left click the mouse over the split line, pull it upwards and continue holding the left button down untill the split line finally moves up. There is often a delay before the split line moves up, which is not what you normally see. I tried it many times and sometimes there is a delay and sometimes the split line moves upward immediately along with the mouse. I'm amazed no experts have entered this discussion. Certainly it wasn't necessary to restart the computer or start in Safe mode. The line seperating the inbox and the content box is quirky when it is all the way at the bottom of the window.

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Answer 3

chris_g1

Community Specialist

Jul 11, 2020 11:24 AM in response to Katarina Wittich

Hello Katarina Wittich,

Thank you for using Apple Support Communities!

We understand from your post that you have been unable to change the size of the viewing window when viewing emails on your Mac. This article has some steps under the heading, "Change how emails are shown", which you may find useful:

Read emails in Mail on Mac - Apple Support

Best Regards.

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Answer 4

Jul 11, 2020 12:10 PM in response to chris_g1

Hi Chris, unfortunately my issue is not covered in that. I know how the emails work and I have them set up so that normally I have a list of the emails in my inbox at the top of the mail window, and then room for whichever email is highlighted in the bottom half of the window. Sometimes if I make the top box bigger so that I can see more of the listed emails, it gets stuck and I can’t resize it so that I can see the text of selected emails below. The cursor seems like it can’t grab the divider and pull it up. I will try 50 times and then at some point it just works for no reason at all - because nothing has changed. It is a huge waste of time and I wonder if it happens to other people. And if there is a way to fix it when it happens. I think it happens when I drag to top box so far open that somehow I can’t size it smaller. Totally weird!

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Answer 5

Jul 11, 2020 12:13 PM in response to Old Toad

I will try that next time and see if it does anything. I finally was able to resize the window, not by doing anything different, it just finally worked. But maybe a safe boot will reset it somehow. Turning the computer on and off was not enough!

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Answer 6

Aug 17, 2020 2:17 PM in response to motorat

OOOOh, that sounds like that would work!!!! Thank you soooooo much. I got out of that stuck that time, but I never know how I manage it, and it must be that I held it down just long enough the time it worked. Thank you for answering cause it will save me the huge headache next time.

and yeah, I am just amazed that no experts anywhere have given that very good advice.

thanks!

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I can't resize the email window in mac mail

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