increase mail viewing font size???

I have been tolerating this for years and am finally tired of it as there MUST be a way to fix this that I am unaware of.

I have my MacMail set to use an 11 pt Arial font when writing messages, which is a standard font size for letters, etc. However when you are reading or writing your message, it does not DISPLAY as 11 point, but teeny weeny as if you are using a 6 point font.

Increasing this in preferences to something like 18 point simply makes your display look larger (like 11 point) but then the message your recipient gets is monstrously huge because you are really sending them 18 point type!

Why is this not a normal Apple WYSIWYG view? I don't have this issue on anything else on my Macs (viewing Safari, Quicken, Quickbooks, Excel, Word, Text, Messages, whatever - only Mail messages.

There must be a fix for this - no? I literally am to the point where I have to use a magnifying glass to read what I'm typing! LOL!

Any help is appreciated.

iMac, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.5)

Posted on Jul 4, 2015 5:04 AM

Top-ranking reply

mwally28

Level 1

9 points

Posted on Feb 5, 2018 1:41 AM

Not sure if this has been answered yet but if you go Mail>Preferences>Fonts and colours and change the "Message Font" to something larger (click Select) and select a larger font there this will change the font as you see it when typing your email. However, it will not change how the recipient sees the received message.

I set mine to Arial 24 and it reads when typing a nice size but it still arrived as size 11/12ish.

Hope that helps

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35 replies

lilskye Author

Level 1

76 points

Jul 4, 2015 1:25 PM in response to BDAqua

Its always been set on Arial 11 - I use it always for writing letters etc. 11 & 12 are generally used in legal documents, etc. I never changed the "Fixed Width" thing - I have no idea what that is used for. And I made the "level" lines be white since I don't like them in discussions (in case that has anything to do with it). If you Google this issue you will see there are quite a few people asking this for the past few years. It seemed to happen when I first got this computer a couple of years ago (iMac 2012-13), but does it as well on mine at work (iMac 2014) but both are running Mountain Lion. (I think this does it regardless of Mavericks, or Yosemite though) It would be easier to just change this setting to say Arial 14 or 16 so I could read it better but then the recipient would get emails that read in large letters like a toddler - LOL!!!

Thanks!!!

Feb 10, 2017 10:28 AM in response to Eric Root

Thank you so much. This is so helpful.

Eric Root

Level 10

685,275 points

Feb 11, 2017 7:49 AM in response to techmom02

You are welcome.

Jul 19, 2017 10:04 AM in response to Eric Root

Eric, I don't see the solution to this problem, Did I miss something?

Eric Root

Level 10

685,275 points

Jul 19, 2017 1:55 PM in response to SergioBelcamine

Did you try BDAqua's suggestion?

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increase mail viewing font size???