Read messages
See at a glance who has emailed you, and preview a few lines from each message in the message list. You can change how messages are shown in the list, and even which messages are shown. It’s easy to read a message or conversation and respond directly from it.
Ask Siri. If you’re too busy to read or reply to a message right away, but don’t want to forget about it, Siri can remind you. Select the message and say something like: “Remind me about this in an hour.” Learn more about Siri.
Read and respond to messages
Mark a message as read or unread: Messages you haven’t read have a blue dot next to the sender’s name. When you select a message in the message list, Mail changes the status to read and the blue dot disappears. You can change the status of messages to read or unread.
Accept events or contacts: Click Add to the right of a suggested event or contact.
Open a message in its own window: Double-click the message in the list. If you set the option in Dock System Preferences to always open documents in a tab, the message may open in a tab.
When you use Mail full screen, messages are shown side-by-side with the message list (or you can have messages slide up from the bottom of the screen).
Reply, forward, or take another action with a message: Move the pointer over the message header, then click one of the buttons that appears. For more information, see Reply to, forward, or redirect messages.
Change which messages are shown
Filter messages: Click the Filter button
at the top of the message list to select or deselect filters.Show messages from one mailbox: In the Favorites bar or the Mail sidebar, click the mailbox.
Show messages from several mailboxes: In the Mail sidebar, select mailboxes.
Show messages from a specific email account: Click the disclosure triangle next to a mailbox (for example, Inbox) in the sidebar, then select an account (for example, your iCloud account).
If you set the Trash Mailbox option to None in an account’s Mailbox Behaviors pane, deleted messages remain where they are but are hidden or dimmed. To show or hide them, choose View > Show Deleted Messages or View > Hide Deleted Messages.
Change how messages are shown
Sort messages: Click “Sort by” at the top of the message list, then choose an attribute, such as From, and a sort order. In classic layout, click a column header.
Show more details: Choose View > Message Attributes, then choose the details you want to see, such as Size or Mailbox.
Resize the message list: Drag the bar that separates the message list and the messages to the left or right.
Show the message list across the top with messages below: Choose Mail > Preferences, click Viewing, then select “Use classic layout.”
Tip: If you don’t want to see emails grouped together, turn off conversations. Choose View > Organize by Conversation—conversations are off if there’s no checkmark next to the command. For more information, see View conversations.
To make text larger, press Command-Plus Sign ( ); to make it smaller, press Command-hyphen (-). You can customize the Mail toolbar to add buttons for changing the text size. You can also change the font for viewing and writing in Mail preferences.
You can change how often Mail gets messages for you in the General pane of Mail preferences.