When I use the search box in Mail (for a person or a subject), the app sorts the results by size by default. I find this to be useless and would much rather the results be sorted by date. Is there a way to change this?
Mac mini (M1, 2020)
I just disabled Column Layout and when I do a search "From", the search results are in chronological order from latest to oldest. Not by size.
Once you have the search results, did you try clicking on "Date Received"?
Yes, I am using 13.4. If I'm in Column Layout and click Date Received, and then do a search, it sorts by Date Received. But if I'm in Preview Layout and do a search, it will still sort by size. If I then switch to Column Layout, it still sorts by size, though the little down arrow is on Date Received. It doesn't matter if I select show size or not.
So, now I've toggled back and forth a few times between Column Layout and Preview and it seems to have fixed itself. I'm not sure what changed, since I just clicked on Date Received once in column layout. My guess is that there is some bug buried deep in the program, and that by using Column Layout a few times, it somehow bypassed the bug.
Thanks for your suggestions.
You're welcome. Interesting. You might want try booting into Safe Mode then restart normally. Sometimes that will fix anomalies.
Yes. Are you running Ventura 13.4? If not, update and try again.
This is a screen shot while in Column Layout, only because it's easier to show the dates and the search window. The results are the same in both.
I'm not sure what "column view" in Mail is, but my point is that I want it to sort by date as a default, not requiring me to click anything else. I always have my mail sorted by date; when I do a search, it changes to sort by size. This has only been true since I upgraded to Ventura.
I prefer the preview layout. Using column layout makes it somewhat easier to switch the sort to date, but I still want it to default sort to whatever I was using when viewing all of the mail, not switch to size when I do a search.
When I search, it always switches to Date no matter what I have set for the sort.
I can't get it to sort by anything but date unless I change it. If I leave the sort and sort again, it reverts back to Date.
You have to be in column view of course.
Column View is when you have "Use Column Layout" checked in Mail's View menu.
Are you using Ventura? Any and every time I use the search box, whether in Column Layout or Preview layout, the default sort of the search results is sorted by size with the largest emails on top.
Sounds like you have the reverse problem from me. Try using the column view as suggested above and then playing with the different sorts there. Maybe it will get unstuck like mine did.
I think what Barney was saying is it's supposed to sort by date by default. That's what mine does in Ventura and earlier.
Default sort when using search in Mail
