Stop Mail from automatically marking emails as read (before I have read them)?
The default, and really only behavior, is for a mail message to be marked as Read immediately upon being selected when message Preview is active. I categorically HATE this behavior of Apple Sonoma Mail. I want the message to remain Unread until I either manually mark it as Read or fully open the message. Previewing a message should leave the message Unread.
To be fair, Apple Mail has behaved this way for as long as it has existed. The difference, however, was that there was a plugin that changed this behavior, or rather, gave the user a choice for how messages get marked as Read. But this changed thanks to the removal of plugins with macOS Sonoma. Thanks Apple! Super UNHELPFUL. I'm one step closer to feeling forced to use Microsoft Outlook. And believe me, just writing that makes me want to gag. However, at least Outlook has a simple setting that controls this behavior. Simple.
Of course, using Outlook causes all sorts of other issues, namely the buggy interaction with Contacts and Calendar. So yeah, email works, but Calendar sometimes stays in sync, and sometimes not. Usually, it syncs in one direction, not the other. Same with Contacts. Rendering the whole enterprise a mess of inconsistency.
All of which would be solved by Apple where it just change this one behavior. Remember what it is? At least I don't have to pay for the plugin I was using anymore....
MacBook Pro (M3 Max, 2023)
