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How to configure OSX Mavericks 10.9 Mail to Text Wrap / Word Wrap

Fresh install of 10.9 Mavericks.


Having trouble with OSX Mail where text is not text wrapping / word wrapping to the size of the window. This happens in the preview pane, as well as if an email is double clicked and opened in its own window. In order to read the email, you must scroll right to the end of each line. The text as in previous versions of the OS wrap to the size of the window so you do not have to scroll horizontally, only vertically.


I have upgraded a second computer with the same problem.


This seems to be for all accounts (Google Apps) as well as icloud accounts.

MacBook Pro with Retina display, OS X Mavericks (10.9)

Posted on Oct 28, 2013 10:49 AM

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77 replies

Jun 21, 2017 7:42 AM in response to azuremedia

I have to agree with you - Apple's arrogance and failure to provide support on issues like this is getting a bit boring. They have lost a lot of cred from users over the years because of this. They used to be so on top of this. With all that money they make you would think they could focus on support for their mistakes. I was shocked to see this wrapping issue.

Oct 29, 2017 11:13 AM in response to chazt

Sadly, I have to join the voices with this problem! I've used 9.1, Snow Leopard, Lion, Mountain Lion and I've NEVER had this problem until now. My brand old 2012 running Sierra has this problem!! What a shock. Something that was fixed and working was broken, and hasn't been fixed in the 4 years and 5 major updates since.

My situation is limited to an email forwarded between my Mac, my Android and 2 other people who are probably using Outlook.

Has anyone found a way to fix this other than forwarding the email to oneself?

I'm seriously disappointed with Apple.

Nov 14, 2013 9:56 PM in response to highvoltz

Seeing the same problem. Here's one clue I found, at least for the emails I am having a problem viewing. They are long email chains and at the very end is one of those generic corporate disclaimers ("This email may contain confidential or priviliged information....") and the font for the disclaimer is Courier New, which is a fixed-width font, wheras all the other fonts in the email chain are either Arial or Calibri (and the email chain has bounced back and forth between my Mac and various PCs, probably using Outlook on their end).


If I forward the whole email chain to myself including the disclaimer, then the received email still has no line wrapping. If I forward the whole email, but delete just the disclaimer, then the received email has correct line wrapping. So maybe it's a problem with having fixed-width fonts and non fixed-width fonts in the same message / email chain?


Also, when printing the emails with the wrap problem, there is no wrapping in the printed version either, plus all of the printed fonts become really really tiny.


But none of this was a problem before Mavericks. Frustrating that something as basic as a Mail client isn't properly QA'd for fairly basic requirements by Apple before they release it.


I'm also seeing the tiny fonts for printed email problems when an email in the chain has an image in it....I need to start a new discussion for that.

Dec 7, 2013 11:56 AM in response to Kevin Strong

I have been having this problem too, seemily started with Mavericks. I was completely stumped, but Kevin's comment above led me to figure out a few more details. The emails exhibiting this problem for me also have a disclaimer at the end of the message. If I reply or forward the message, the message looks OK (correctly word wrapped) while editing, but when I receive a copy of the forwarded or replied mesage, the non-wrap problem appears when viewing the message (and the width of the non-wrap


HOWEVER, as Kevin points out, if I delete the disclaimer, then the sent message is correctly word-wrapped when viewed. Following up on that clue, I discovered that the disclaimer for the emails where I see the problem is in an HTML <PRE> environment (i.e., pre-formatted) with no carriage returns, so it seems that the Mail application is respecting that HTML formatting for the disclaimer, and the length of that <PRE> formatted text defines the width of the window for wrapping all other text in the message. Similarly, if I forward the email and delete only PART of the disclaimer (remember the disclaimer appears to be word-wrapped in the email as you edit, with no hint of the embedded HTML formatting), then when I receive the email the window now "wraps" to the width of the shorted length of the disclaimer text.


So, we need Mail to be able to wrap text to the window width in ALL cases, either by ignoring the HTML <PRE> environment or disable HTML . Even just showoing a message in plaintext is fine, but it sounds like this option no longer is available in Mavericks:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5485133

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5473035

Dec 10, 2013 1:28 PM in response to highvoltz

10.9 has been the worst upgrade I've ever done since using MBP (2002), what a mess. This mail text/word wrap is indeed the next issue (along calendaragent eating up my RAM), non-sync with Google. Apple, always trying to distinguish themselves from the crowd, did it again.

Easiest way out is just to use Postbox ($10), even gives you a "spinning wheel"/activity indicator when checking multiple mailboxes ;-) http://www.postbox-inc.com/

How to configure OSX Mavericks 10.9 Mail to Text Wrap / Word Wrap

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