Sent Items always opens at the foot of the column

Question

Level 1

8 points

Sent Items always opens at the foot of the column

I set up Sent Items to show in date order with new messages on top, but I am required to scroll up from the bottom of the column each time I open it. I am looking for a way to change this behaviour.

The screen-shot below shows how Sent Items opens, starting always at the foot of the column with the scroll bar next to the oldest message ( in this case dated January 2016):

The second screen shot shows how I have set up the preferences:

Any idea gratefully accepted. So far, AppleCare have not been able to help.

Posted on Dec 10, 2017 10:56 AM

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Answer 1

K33DMT Author

Level 1

8 points

Dec 10, 2017 4:37 PM in response to K33DMT

I found a work-around that works: click in the middle of the menu bar next to "Sort By Date" and the scroll bar shoots up to the top.

I guess no one else seems to have this issue, but at least there is an answer here if anyone might do in the future.

Click here ↓

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Answer 2

K33DMT Author

Level 1

8 points

Dec 10, 2017 11:17 AM in response to K33DMT

An update: I reset everything in sight, such as how many lines per message to show, reversing order of messages, then reset all as before. Now the Sent Items column opens with the scroll bar at the top, as it might be expected to do.

This however is the second time I have achieved that result by resetting preferences then opening and closing the application. After a while it seems to revert to the odd behaviour described previously and I am expecting it to do so again in the near future.

The question is why?

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Answer 3

Eric Root

Level 10

684,033 points

Dec 10, 2017 12:53 PM in response to K33DMT

Might be a corrupt .plist.

Do a backup, preferably 2 backups on 2 separate drives.

Quit the application.

Go to Finder and select your user/home folder. With that Finder window as the front window, either select Finder/View/Show View options or go command - J. When the View options opens, check ’Show Library Folder’. That should make your user library folder visible in your user/home folder. Select Library. Then go to Preferences/com.apple.mail.plist. Move the .plist to your desktop.

Restart the computer, open the application, and test. If it works okay, delete the plist from the desktop.

If the application is the same, return the .plist to where you got it from, overwriting the newer one.

Thanks to leonie for some information contained in this.

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Answer 4

K33DMT Author

Level 1

8 points

Dec 10, 2017 3:19 PM in response to K33DMT

A discovery is that the "Sent Items" mailbox opens in some relationship with other mailboxes I opened previously.

If for example I open Sent Items, after reading an email that is half-way down my In Box, then the cursor goes straight to the bottom and requires scrolling all the way back up.

But if I open it after reading an email at the top of the Drafts mailbox (which has only a few messages in it at all) then it always opens at the top. This is a repeatable effect.

But, what does it mean?

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Answer 5

K33DMT Author

Level 1

8 points

Dec 10, 2017 3:40 PM in response to Eric Root

Thanks Eric Root for your suggestion.

I did as you described, put com.apple.mail.plist on the desktop and restarted.

However the situation is exactly as before.

However the "workaround" I described above no longer works. Right now, Sent Items opens at the bottom of 4800 messages no matter else what I open first.

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