FIXED: Apple Mail showing wrong bold/condensed font (macOS 14)
After days of troubleshooting, I finally solved the issue — and it turned out to be a rogue installed font overriding Mail’s fallback font, not a system corruption.
If your Mail messages suddenly appear in a weird bold, condensed font, this may be your fix.
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Symptoms
- Mail ignores your chosen message font
- Plain‑text or simple emails appear in a heavy condensed sans‑serif
- Changing fonts in Mail doesn’t help
- Safe Mode doesn’t help
- Reinstalling macOS doesn’t help
- The wrong font appears even while typing
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The breakthrough
In Mail, go to:
Format → Show Fonts
This reveals the actual font Mail is using at that moment — not the one you selected in Settings.
In my case, Mail was secretly using: Helvetica Bold Condensed
This font was installed in my Font Book and was hijacking Mail’s fallback font system.
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How I fixed it
- Open Font Book
- Locate the rogue font (mine was Helvetica Bold Condensed)
- Remove or disable that font
- In Mail → Settings → Fonts & Colors, temporarily change your message font to something else (I used Arial)
- Quit and relaunch Mail
- Send yourself a test message
- If everything looks normal again, you can reinstall the font you removed
- Relaunch Mail — the issue stays fixed
Mail rebuilds its fallback font map without the rogue font, and the problem disappears.
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Why this works
Mail uses fallback fonts for plain‑text or minimally formatted messages.
If you have a condensed or bold variant installed, Mail may incorrectly choose it as the fallback.
Removing the font forces Mail to reset its fallback mapping.
Reinstalling it afterwards is safe — Mail won’t reassign it.
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If you’re seeing this issue
Open Show Fonts in Mail and check what font is actually being used.
Whatever appears there is the culprit.
