How do I get to the bottom of a dialogue box that isn't visible? Critical Mail problem!

Question

How do I get to the bottom of a dialogue box that isn't visible? Critical Mail problem!

I tried sending an email to a long list of recipients in a group. For some reason, I got a werid dialogue box about how it my SMTP server didn't recognize some addresses (though they all seem fine). No big deal, normally I would just edit the message and fix/delete the offending email addresses. However, the bottom of the warning dialogue is off screen and I can't scroll down. All I can do is hit "enter" and try to resend. But then I get a repeat.

The message in question is not seen in either my Outgoing, Sent, or Drafts folders. At least not when the dialogue box is open. So I can't just kill the message.

I also can't quit Mail while this message is up. I can go to the Finder and force quit. But then if I restart Mail the dialogue box pops right back up and I'm stuck where I was before.

Basically, I just need to know how to get to the bottom of the warning dialogue box so that I can click on the "edit message" button.

Help?!

Oh, I'm running the most updated version of OS X Lion.

Mac OS X (10.4)

Posted on Sep 25, 2011 10:25 AM

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Answer 1

Jun 29, 2017 1:11 AM in response to tjk

Hi,

I too have this problem. Tried restarting but the mail app is trying to resend the same mail again and again showing the warning dialog box. Number of recipients in the email is 100.

Normal view

3 finger swipe view

What should I do?

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Answer 2

eww

Level 9

53,052 points

Sep 25, 2011 11:10 AM in response to Miguel Centellas

You can close any dialog box by pressing Enter, which selects whatever is the default button in the box, or Command+Period, which selects "Cancel" whenever that's an option in the box.

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Answer 3

tjk

Level 9

51,192 points

Sep 25, 2011 10:30 AM in response to Miguel Centellas

Hi Miguel,

If your display is not at maximum resolution, go to Sys Prefs > Displays and set it to max and this should resolve the issue.

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Answer 4

Sep 25, 2011 10:36 AM in response to tjk

Unfortunately, it was already set at max resolution. I tried resizing the resolution a few different ways to no avail.

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Answer 5

tjk

Level 9

51,192 points

Sep 25, 2011 10:44 AM in response to Miguel Centellas

As a workaround, I would close the dialogue box, go to sent or drafts or wherever the message appears, send it to half of the addresses, then again to the other half. This should reduce the number of bad emails in the dialogue box and allow you to see all of it.

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Answer 6

Sep 25, 2011 10:47 AM in response to tjk

But I CAN'T close the dialogue box. The red bubble is not available, so I can only make it full screen (green) or minimize (yellow). If I use a three finger swipe I can see all the windows in my workspace (and therefore hte bottom of the dialogue box). But when I release, it goes back to the normal view. So I can't do anything other htan hit enter. How do I force the cursor to go down to the bottom of the dialogue box which is off the screen?

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Answer 7

tjk

Level 9

51,192 points

Sep 25, 2011 10:53 AM in response to Miguel Centellas

Miguel Centellas wrote:

But I CAN'T close the dialogue box. The red bubble is not available, so I can only make it full screen (green) or minimize (yellow). If I use a three finger swipe I can see all the windows in my workspace (and therefore hte bottom of the dialogue box). But when I release, it goes back to the normal view. So I can't do anything other htan hit enter. How do I force the cursor to go down to the bottom of the dialogue box which is off the screen?

OK. How many email addresses are we tallking about here? Have you restarted the Mac yet?

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Answer 8

Sep 25, 2011 11:00 AM in response to tjk

I did that twice. Once, about an hour ago. And nothing changed. I did it again about twenty minutes ago, and still nothing. A few minutes ago I tried yet another force quit. And .... that seemed to do the trick. The offending email message is gone.

So my problem seems to be solved.

But the larger issue remains of a major bug in Mac OS, it seems. If a dialogue box is larger than the screen size, how is someone ever going to be able to deal with closing it or anything else? It would make sense to automatically allow the cursor to scroll down to the very bottom of any dialogue box, regardless of its size. After all, that's how windows work, right?

Crazy!

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Answer 9

Sep 25, 2011 11:00 AM in response to tjk

BTW. Thanks for the help.

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Answer 10

tjk

Level 9

51,192 points

Sep 25, 2011 11:05 AM in response to Miguel Centellas

Miguel Centellas wrote:

But the larger issue remains of a major bug in Mac OS, it seems. If a dialogue box is larger than the screen size, how is someone ever going to be able to deal with closing it or anything else? It would make sense to automatically allow the cursor to scroll down to the very bottom of any dialogue box, regardless of its size. After all, that's how windows work, right?

All computers and software have limits. All. You didn't answer how many email addresses you're trying to send to . . . .

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Answer 11

tjk

Level 9

51,192 points

Jun 29, 2017 10:30 AM in response to D.Lakshan

I would start a new thread.

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