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Mail strike through keyboard shortcut

For years I'm trying to find a keyboard shortcut for 'strikethrough' or 'struck through' or however you want to call text with a horizontal line through it in OS X Mail. You'd think it is a popular feature since the strikethrough style has been on text editors since the earliest days of the Mac, well at least for decades I can remember and on the other hand it's easy to implement in HTML email since there's a HTML tag for it, <s>triketrough, just like there is for <b>old and <i>talic.


I did manage to add a shortcut for strikethrough by adding a style to 'favorite styles' via the 'system wide' styles menu.


(You can do this by making a text selection strikethrough and then add this style to the styles menu via, for example, using the right mouse button or CTRL-clicking on a text selection and choosing Fonts, submenu Styles. I named it Struck though (or maybe it was already there, I'm not sure).


Then I added a shortcut for it in System Preferences / Keyboard / Shortcuts


(Select Applications in the bottem of the left colomn, click the + sign below the second column, choose 'All applications' else it won't work in Textedit for some reason, name it EXACTLY after your menu item, for example in my case Struck through — and choose a keyboard shortcut that is not already in use. Watch out: somehow it doesn't warn you any more for used shortcuts. If I recall correctly it did warm me in older versions of OS X.)


This shortcut is working in Textedit but still not in Mail. I really hoped this new version of Mail 5.2 would finally have a fix for this. Is there really no way to use a shortcut for strikethrough in Mail?

MacPro3,1 (2008), Mac OS X (10.6.4), working with Macs since 1992

Posted on May 20, 2012 5:00 PM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Jul 17, 2014 7:51 PM

I came here searching for an answer to the same problem. This thread was the first hit in Google. Fortunately, the second result has the answer. See this thread: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4250591?answerId=19432338022#19432338022


A user named paikinator posted this:

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Make your strikethrough a simple keystroke:


1. Create a word with a strikethrough using Format->Font->Show Fonts to bring up the font inspector as Marko said. Highlight a word and apply the desired strikethrough.

2. Next, using the highlighted word you used the strikethough on..... Select Format->Font->Copy Style (option-command-C)

3. Apply your strikethrough as often and wherever you want to using the simple keystroke (option-command-V)


Note: This doesn't preclude you from copying and pasting text too and from the clipboard at will.

The Style will remain in the clipboard until you. Any text you copy paste can be changed without interfering with the style.

sidenote: not sure if the style will stay if you close notes, but I always have mine open so strikethrough is always available by keystroke. No more surfing through menus every time.


I can even apply strikethough to other text such as in stickies after copying the style!!! Haven't tested it with all apps however.

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I've tried it and it worked in Notes and Mail.

29 replies

Mail strike through keyboard shortcut

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