Today's tip
involves a Mail.app hint I found that I thought was just too handy not to mention. If you use Mail.app and you open
some messages in their own window, you might have noticed that if you hit reply, the original message disappears in
favor of your new message composition window. Understandably, this is a source of frustration for many a user.Fortunately, Rob Griffiths over at Macworld has discovered a simple way around this: hold the option key when hitting Reply, Reply All or Forward, and the original message will stay put while a new, separate composition window opens. This makes it a little easier to refer back to the original message, especially if it's lengthy.
This works on Tiger's Mail.app, but I don't have any older versions of Mac OS X to verify this on. Feel free to sound off in the comments if you've tested this on Panther or even Jaguar. My one complaint about this trick: it doesn't seem to work if you use the keyboard shortcut for Reply. Holding option when hitting cmd - r results in that Funk/hault sound, informing me that the shortcut is a no-go. Either way, this should still be a handy trick for you chronic Repliers using Mail.app.
[via Hawk Wings]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
2-02-2006 @ 11:49AM
steve mazich said...
People still open email messages? Isn't it easier to read the message in the lower preview window and if you want to reply, just hit the reply button?
Reply
2-02-2006 @ 12:07PM
Alex M said...
Can confirm this does not work on 10.3 Panther using Mail 1.3.11
Shame.
Reply
2-02-2006 @ 12:19PM
ToeKnee said...
Yes, that's what I do, but I tested this in Panther anyway, and it does not work. Instead, it seems to apply that "other" function of Option that applies when closing a window holding Option closes all windows-- holding Option while clicking reply closes all Mail windows, including the main viewer.
Reply
2-02-2006 @ 12:24PM
XIV said...
In any case, I activated the quote option. Mail > Preferences > Redaction > and the quote option, just check it and you'll always have the previous message.
That's what I do.
Reply
2-02-2006 @ 2:02PM
Mars said...
Anybody have any ideas why the .Mac webmail sometimes attaches the original message and sometimes leaves it quoted as plain text? It's annoying to try and reply to a mail when you can't see exactly what you're replying to.
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