Apple Event: May 7th at 7 am PT
Mail.app seems to have completely lost the ability to display plain text alternatives, much less display them preferentially or exclusively.
Is there some secret way to recover this functionality?
Or is this yet another in the long list of reasons that 10.6 was better than anything that's come since?
OS X Mavericks (10.9)
It seems this functionality has been removed.
It seems this functionality has been removed.
Well, I guess that settles it. Back to 10.6 it is.
Properly working Exposé, Spaces, and URL field, here I come!
Wow. Why would they do that? How hard could it be to keep the ability to read/compose/reply in Plain Text?
Rich Text is essentially useless to me. When replying to a message in Rich Text, the quoting of the previous mail looks terrible, it is hard to edit/trim the quoted text, etc. This is a huge step backward for Mail.
ptw wrote:
Wow. Why would they do that? How hard could it be to keep the ability to read/compose/reply in Plain Text?
I miss this particular feature too, but you can, at least, still change your reply to plain text (Cmd-Shift-T) while you're composing it, which often (but certainly not always) helps to better trim/quote from it.
Keeping features isn't necessarily hard, but it's also not necessarily a good idea if they have reason to believe that only a small percentage of users ever use it. Such features make code harder to maintain and test, and there inevitably comes a time for such features when it's no longer worth the effort.
Yes, I see that I can switch to plain text, which means they still have support for it. All they have taken away is the preference that says I _prefer_ plain text. So, they are already maintaining all the code, just no longer supporting the ability to easily use it. Seems short sighted, especially in these days of privacy concerns where HTML mail opens you up to all sorts of tracking. Plain text email just doesn't support that, which is another reason I prefer it. (And I know about turning off images, but sophisticated email trackers no longer rely on images...)
Yes, I see that I can switch to plain text...
Can I ask how you were able to do so? Even aside from the desired behaviour of displaying it by default, I haven't found any way to display the plaintext version at all.
I meant that in response to Calum, who points out that you can switch replies to plain text with Cmd-Shift-T. I agree there is no apparent way to say I would like to view the incoming mail in plaintext. There used to be a menu option to display the message in plain text, and you could set that as the default with the `defaults` command (in the terminal). Both of those seem to have been left out of Mavericks Mail.
HTML mail is nifty for spam, but useless for actually getting work done. It's really unfortunate that Apple felt they had to remove the plain text options.
Thanks for the thread, gang. I just upgraded to 10.9 two days ago and -- I feel like a single-issue voter. I have no problems with 10.9 except that, to me, e-mail and plain-text are synonymous!
I chatted with a supporter, who confirmed to me that they done broke it, and left feedback at www.apple.com/feedback/macosx.html, and downloaded and tested three other mail clients. Which are all way uglier than Mac Mail, but all capable of displaying the plain-text alternative in a multipart/alternative message.
Makes me wonder what kind of thinking goes on at Apple.
This support page
http://support.apple.com/kb/PH14904
says you can switch the display text in Mavericks's Mail, but the information is not true: the Message>View menu doesn't offer the multipart alternatives promised here.
Very disappointed. In fact, it's simply unacceptable. I'm switching to Thunderbird.
This is yet another example of Apple losing touch with its users and dumping user friendly touches in favor of some theoretical view of how the world should be, i.e. plain text is obsolete. I receive hundreds of poorly formatted messages where plain text viewing is a lifesaver for readability. How hard could this have been for Apple to retain this legacy feature? Is it really that difficult technically? I cannot believe it is, but it is a royal pain to live without it.
What mail client should I switch to if I dump Apple mail?
That depends on who provides your email,
But you didn't tell us that.
In Mavericks Mail.app, View > Message > Raw Source is what I use. Not what you want, but it's the closest I've found.
As for the Mail.app feedback that's lurking here, Apple may or may not see this thread, where Mail > Provide Mail Feedback will let the folks at Apple know you want this capability restored.
MrHoffman, thank you for the tip on how to provide feedback to Apple on Mail. I have now done so. I was unaware of this option.
Also switched 20+ users to Thunderbird many moons ago.
It has so much more functionality and control.
Plain text alternatives in 10.9's Mail.app?
