denwah

Q: Mail - OSX Lion - Can't change font in mail list

OSX Lion seems incapable of changing the font in the mail list on the left side. The default is a horrendous, teeny tiny font. Going to Preferences > Fonts and Colors and choosing message list font reveals a font picker. All the other font settings work in this view except the message list font.

 

If you go to the "Classic" (aka ugly) view, your message list font changes work.

 

I am a big believer in software aesthetics, particularly in an app you are staring at all day.

 

Please, oh please, Apple tell me this is not a default behavior! At the very least, if is truly is impossible to change this, and the over-50 crowd must squint at mail all day, indicate somewhere in the prefs panel that this will not work in the new view.

 

I'm really hoping there's a solution for this. As cool as the new mail app is, this would be a deal breaker that would send me running back to Sparrow.

Mac OS X (10.7)

Posted on Jul 21, 2011 7:01 AM

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Q: Mail - OSX Lion - Can't change font in mail list

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  • by alessioT,

    alessioT alessioT Feb 11, 2012 2:14 PM in response to octothorpe
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Feb 11, 2012 2:14 PM in response to octothorpe

    I found out!

     

    I don't know why, the cmd+F search did not find it...and my eyes did not do a good job The second try was better...thanks a lot!

  • by Buzzfuster,

    Buzzfuster Buzzfuster Mar 4, 2012 1:35 PM in response to eMOeSTe
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Mar 4, 2012 1:35 PM in response to eMOeSTe

    Wow, the fact that you can't change the font size is an incredibly backward and asinine situation. It makes having a large screen monitor a waste of money.

     

    Whatever you do, don't use Tinkertool to try to get around this absurd limitation.  I have spent the past 2 hours playing with every possible configuration to get the fonts to a size where I can actually read them, and voila! Safari no longer works.  Neither does iTunes.  Or iCal, or mail, or anything that requires an Internet connection (now that's brilliant)!  I can verify my Mac is connected to my router, and every other device works just fine through birth wired and wifi connections.  It's only my Mac and only since I changed the fonts (I haven't changed anything else with Tinkertool).

     

    I am simply dumbfounded at Apple's inability to let users change something so mundane as a font size.  Unbelievable.

  • by orcnyc,

    orcnyc orcnyc Mar 23, 2012 10:51 AM in response to Foovius Foo
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Mar 23, 2012 10:51 AM in response to Foovius Foo

    Foovius Foo wrote:

     

    Open ~Library/Preferences/com.apple.mail.plist

    Search for:

    <key>RichMessageList</key>

    Change the true value to false

    Save the .plist file and re-launch Mail

     

    The list will have returned to the "classic" layout (and will now show the fonts in the size you want), while keeping the rest of the app in the new layout.

     

    The down side is that you'll lose the multi-line preview, but you can make the thing readable this way.

     

    Foovius Foo, THANK YOU!  This classic message list layout combined with the side-by-side panes makes mail in Lion usable again.  I don't ask much of my mail program, but it must be able to display message lists in a table format so that I can quickly scan and sort them.

     

    In case anyone else wonders how to make the above changes to the .plist file under Lion without installing the XCode developer tools, see http://sveinbjorn.org/install_property_list_editor_app_on_mac_os_x_lion.  This worked fine for me. 

     

    Finally, if you have the Property List Editor installed but then wonder how to open the ~Library/Preferences folder, which is unlisted by default in Lion:  Go to your home folder, press Shift-Command-G and type in "Library/Preferences".  I wasn't able to search for the key, but keys are listed in alphabetical order.

     

    Again, THANK YOU for posting this solution, Foovius Foo!

  • by octothorpe,

    octothorpe octothorpe Mar 23, 2012 10:58 AM in response to orcnyc
    Level 1 (24 points)
    Mar 23, 2012 10:58 AM in response to orcnyc

    Foovius Foo, THANK YOU!  This classic message list layout combined with the side-by-side panes makes mail in Lion usable again.  I don't ask much of my mail program, but it must be able to display message lists in a table format so that I can quickly scan and sort them.

     

    I'm very happy with this modification as well.

     

    It does require a bit more horizontal space to be useful, but once you tweak the columns a bit, it's the best of both worlds -- you have a legible mail list with lots of info, and you have a nice vertical preview pane. Even works on my 11" Air screen.

     

    It also helps to drag your most-used mailboxes to the toolbar area up top, and use "command+shift+M" to hide the list of mailboxes when you don't need it.

  • by Jun T.,

    Jun T. Jun T. Apr 4, 2012 9:55 AM in response to denwah
    Level 4 (2,185 points)
    Apr 4, 2012 9:55 AM in response to denwah

    If you are familiar with Termial.app, you can use the following to try the

    Foovius Foo's great solution:

     

    Quit Mail.app, type the following command in Terminal.app, and restart Mai.app

     

    defaults write com.apple.mail RichMessageList -bool FALSE

     

    replace FALSE with TRUE if you want to go back to the new list (with preview).

  • by octothorpe,

    octothorpe octothorpe Jul 27, 2012 12:17 PM in response to Jun T.
    Level 1 (24 points)
    Jul 27, 2012 12:17 PM in response to Jun T.

    Just confirmed: this works in Mountain Lion as well. It's unfortunate that it *has* to (in other words, they didn't fix Mail ignoring the user's font choice in the three-column view). But at least it does work.

     

    I found that if you toggle "use classic view" on, then off again, you'll lose the fix and Mail will go back to using the wrong fonts again. A quick trip back to Terminal and it's fixed again.

  • by jkusachi,

    jkusachi jkusachi Dec 12, 2012 9:06 PM in response to Foovius Foo
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Dec 12, 2012 9:06 PM in response to Foovius Foo

    foovius, this is AMAZING

  • by codydhorner,

    codydhorner codydhorner Mar 27, 2013 1:38 PM in response to jkusachi
    Level 1 (15 points)
    Mar 27, 2013 1:38 PM in response to jkusachi

    Just found that the following works as posted above:

     

    defaults write com.apple.mail RichMessageList -bool FALSE

     

    All you need to do is go back to Mail preferences, then click on Viewing and toggle on and off the option to 'Use Classic Layout' and it will retain the ability to change the default font size while also retaining the nicer multi-line preview.

  • by octothorpe,

    octothorpe octothorpe Mar 27, 2013 1:49 PM in response to Jun T.
    Level 1 (24 points)
    Mar 27, 2013 1:49 PM in response to Jun T.

    From what I can tell, that just does what was said earlier — your two choices are still either single-line preview that respects your font choice (in my case, Lucida Grande); or the multi-line preview in Helvetica only. Did you really get a multi-line preview with a font other than Helvetica?

  • by Robert Wilkins2,

    Robert Wilkins2 Robert Wilkins2 Dec 5, 2013 10:25 AM in response to denwah
    Level 1 (24 points)
    iPhone
    Dec 5, 2013 10:25 AM in response to denwah

    Thanks to Jun T. for his great snippet of terminal code to use. Worked like a charm for me.

     

    defaults write com.apple.mail RichMessageList -bool FALSE

     

    Then I changed my font to what I wanted. After setting that, I quit mail and went back to terminal and entered

     

    defaults write com.apple.mail RichMessageList -bool TRUE

     

    Seemed to stick and do the trick. I hope it stays this way!

  • by LarryDuff,

    LarryDuff LarryDuff Feb 8, 2014 3:14 AM in response to Foovius Foo
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Feb 8, 2014 3:14 AM in response to Foovius Foo

    Hi Foovius Foo - thank you! You really helped me to work with Mail in Lion and ML! I have now updated to Mavericks - and I am stuck again with with the silly "new" Mail layout.

     

    ~Library/Preferences/com.apple.mail.plist is now at

    /Library/Containers/com.apple.mail/Data/Library/Preferences/com.apple.mail.plist

     

    But changing <key>RichMessageList</key> to false ist not working anymore. Do you have any ideas? This layout is driving me nuts...

     

    Thanks a lot in advance!

  • by linda2009,

    linda2009 linda2009 Feb 19, 2014 1:53 PM in response to Foovius Foo
    Level 1 (65 points)
    Mac OS X
    Feb 19, 2014 1:53 PM in response to Foovius Foo

    Thank you, Foovius Foo.  This worked for me as well.  While I would like to try the new Message List, it is just too small to read - I sent feedback, too.

     

    It's really not user-friendly.  Most mail clients do provide a way to increase these fonts.

  • by RobertReiz,

    RobertReiz RobertReiz Jun 6, 2014 1:32 AM in response to denwah
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jun 6, 2014 1:32 AM in response to denwah

    I have the same issue. I can't change the font size in Mail. It's supper annoying. I guess I will switch to Thuderbird!

  • by nick1922,

    nick1922 nick1922 Sep 9, 2016 9:42 AM in response to denwah
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Sep 9, 2016 9:42 AM in response to denwah

    Not sure if anyone here is still having this problem with El Cap, but I've had it and just resolved it more easily than I thought I might be able to. In "non-classic" layout, the Message list font box was greyed out, but the other two were OK and I could change the font size. I noticed from earlier posts here that other people had been able to change the Message list font size in classic layout, so I switched to that and changed the size of the Message list font, (Incidentally using the slider on the right hand side enables you to choose font sized between those listed in the column.) I then switched back to "non-classic" layout and the new Message list font size was preserved. Closed Mail and opened it again and the new fonts were still preserved. So that's fixed it for me.

  • by octothorpe,

    octothorpe octothorpe Sep 9, 2016 9:55 AM in response to nick1922
    Level 1 (24 points)
    Sep 9, 2016 9:55 AM in response to nick1922

    I tried to replicate that but couldn't. I changed to "non-classic" layout, switched the message list font -- fine -- but the minute I uncheck "use classic layout", the message list reverts back to what it was before. Interestingly, the setting for message list font remains what I chose, but is now greyed out when I swich back to non-classic.

     

    It sounds like you might have a "bug" that is letting it work -- interested to hear if anyone else is able to do it the way you did.

     

    Screen Shot 2016-09-09 at 12.53.04 PM.png

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