Filed under: Mac 101
Mac 101: Where'd my send button go?
More Mac 101, TUAW's series for beginners. My mom called me up last week with this question about Mail: "Where did my send button go?"
Turns out she had mistakenly clicked the white chiclet (pictured) in the upper-right hand corner of her message's compose window, hiding her toolbar. When she clicked it once, Mail remembered her settings and hid the toolbar for other message windows, too.
So, just clicking that chiclet showed the toolbar again, and brought her send button back. Magic.
Also, you can hold down command and click the same chiclet to show and hide icons and text labels in the toolbar. Repeatedly clicking with the command key held down cycles through all your options.
Now that my mom is happily sending emails again, I can sleep well knowing all about the new Bob's Big Boy and the local woman who was on Survivor.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Charles said 3:12PM on 9-28-2008
Chicklets are square and look not unlike the keys on a Macbook. Clearly the button you are referring to is a Tic-Tac
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Tony said 3:21PM on 9-28-2008
I thought chicklets were minced chicken in breadcrumbs. They certainly were when I ate metric tonnes of them in my student days.
I'd call the think at the top of the window a button, personally, to avoid confusion.
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james said 9:44PM on 9-28-2008
also, to avoid confusion, maybe we'd want to start by calling it a "thing" not a "think".
sorry, couldn't resist.
i think "chicklet" is an obnoxious but frustratingly convenient name, for what it's worth.
John Russell said 3:42PM on 9-28-2008
Now, is there a way to stop all of the forwarded pictures of kittens that she will undoubtedly send?
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Tom said 4:09PM on 9-28-2008
I went through apple documentation a while back to see if there was an official name for that button. It is only referred to as "the oblong button". So that is its name.
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Michael Rose said 5:01PM on 9-28-2008
Ha! I glanced through the Mail.app help while editing Robert's post and could only see it referred to as "the toolbar button." Perhaps there's something in the developer docs with a more descriptive name, but for now "chicklet" or "tic-tac" will do fine.
Ed said 6:52AM on 9-29-2008
Posts get edited??
a ham sandwich said 4:17PM on 9-28-2008
i always thought that button was called the "jewel".
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albi said 5:51PM on 9-28-2008
where'd Safari's Go To button go?
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Rafe H. said 7:06PM on 9-28-2008
Wow, what a great tip! I wish this behavior was found in other applications too, and not just Mail.app as the post suggests.
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grull27 said 7:09PM on 9-28-2008
If somebody really needed this tip, shame on them for being so stupid. lol
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Robert Palmer said 10:44PM on 9-28-2008
You're talking about my mom, so stow it, Flappy.
RobK said 8:46PM on 9-28-2008
I wish there was a way you could DISABLE (or LOCK) this oval button.
It would reduce the number of calls I get. (ie Where did my toolbar go).
There are users who ALWAYS want the toolbar and NEVER want it to go away.
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Nic said 9:54PM on 9-28-2008
I always thought it was called the 'lozenge' button, 'cos that is the shape lozenges usually are. Now I realise I have been embarrassing myself for years :(
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Jash Sayani said 2:48AM on 9-29-2008
Nice tip. But I guess most Mac users knew this as everyone must have tried it out.
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peter said 3:51AM on 9-29-2008
the send button in mail is also grayed out if you dont have an SMTP server setup for your email account, it's fooled me a few times.
You can have SMTP servers setup - but you've gotta tie them to your actual email address.
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sysbat said 4:03AM on 9-29-2008
hi all Im this site to search http://google.com
This sait very cool/
Sori my inglich очень блядь неудачный.
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Djuff said 10:38AM on 9-29-2008
Thx 4 all
чувак, эта блядь пять!
THJ said 4:05PM on 9-29-2008
Noob Q, and Off topic (-2 internets for me):
Any way to force cmd-enter or ctrl-enter to send an email in mail.app (like Entourage/Outlook)?
Thanks.
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Samuel said 10:32PM on 9-29-2008
I was wondering what this button was for, always have done. I think its a useless and stupid button. Its non-descript, not exactly intuitive or useful. I think it should go.
Actually I think if you cycle through enough combinations, it should disappear.
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