Email on the mac | AppleVis

By Kerry Fielding, 2 September, 2020

Forum

macOS and Mac Apps

Hi all. I'm an avid user of the iPhone, have some experience with the iPad but have recently acqcquired a Macbook Pro in the last month or two. It's a 13 inch running the latest OS. I'm taking things slowly but find, with mail in particular, I'm really struggling to get my head around the native mail client. I just can't get a good visual of it in my head and I know I'm not being as efficient with it as I could be and it's really frustrating. I've found some helpful bits on here but it's just not clicking into place for me at all. Is the mac's native mail client the best to use? Would I be better using gmail in some form or other (all of my accounts bar one are gmail) and the other is iCloud). Any help whether that be suggestions on how to set the mail client up in terms of views or or anything else to make using mail more efficient would be grately appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

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Comments

Mail Client Is Actually Quite Good

In my experience, the Mail app on the Mac has been excellent. For me, once I got the hang of it and also the other changes over the past couple of years, it was, And Still is, very easy to use. What do you see yourself having problems with? I may be able to help. That's of course what we're all here for.

My issue with mail client

Hello,
For the most part I find the Mac mail client very good. The one issue I have is that I keep my inbox filtered by unread. This way when I open the mail client I only see my unread emails in the inbox. This makes it easy to go thru them and delete all of them if need be. The problem comes in when I want to disable the filter so I can see all my emails. I cannot reliably find the enable or disable filter button. Is there and easy way to find this button?

Greg Wocher

Use Item Chooser

First, I found this AppleVis article very helpful when I first learned the MacOS mail client. But I don't think it answers your question.

I was able to find, enable, and disable the filter with the Item Chooser (VO+I, then type filter).

I hope that helps.

New mail client on the way?

I heard rumors that the next major MacOS release will completely redesign the Mail client. Just like someone rearranging all my living room furniture. Yay!

Mac Mail Client

I also got a 13-inch MacBook Pro about 2 months ago and have found it pretty easy to use. I'm not sure what other accessible mail clients there are for the Mac at this time.

Setting Up Mail on Mac

Here are the settings I use to make Mail efficient. Press command comma to enter Preferences. navigate to Viewing tab. List Preview set to None. The rest of these settings can be left the same. Under the View Menu: Hide the tab bar. The preview pane can be turned on or off. I find that it's helpful to hear a few lines of the message when I arrow up or down. It helps me delete the "Thank you" messages from mailing lists that much quicker. I use the Favourites bar to navigate between different mailboxes. Since Drag and drop on VoiceOver is a huge waste of time, here's an easier way to move mailboxes into your Favourites bar:

Navigate to the Mailboxes list.
Interact.
When focused on the message you want, route your mouse cursor to the VO cursor. VO+Command+F5.
Press VO+Command+Shift spacebar to lock the mouse down on that folder.
Stop interacting.
VO up to the Favourites bar. Interact.
When you find the spot you want to drop the mailbox, repeat the previous VO key combination. This will mouse up on the favourites bar.
Repeat this process for other mailboxes.
You can now use Command+numbers in your number row to quickly move between mailboxes.