Reading Email

There are two ways to read a message: using the Reading pane, and opening the message into its own window.

When you click a message’s name in the List pane, the body of the message appears in the Reading pane below or to the right. Don’t forget that you can adjust the relative sizes of the List and Preview panes by dragging the border between them up or down.

UP TO SPEED: Selecting Messages

In order to process a group of messages simultaneously—to delete, move, or forward them, for example—you must first master the art of multiple message selection.

To select two or more messages that appear consecutively in your message list, click the first message, and then Shift-click the last. Known as a contiguous selection, this trick selects the two messages you clicked and every message between them.

To select two or more messages that aren’t adjacent in the list (that is, skipping a few messages between selected ones), Ctrl-click the messages you want. Only the messages you click get selected—no filling in of messages in between this time.

After using either technique, you can also deselect messages you’ve managed to highlight—just Ctrl-click them again.

To open a message into a window of its own, double-click its name in the List pane. An open message has its own Ribbon, along with Previous and Next buttons.

Once you’ve read a message, you can view the next one in the list either by pressing Ctrl+ (next message), by pressing Ctrl+U (next unread message), or by clicking its name in the List pane. (If you haven’t opened a message into its own window, you can also press the or keys to move from one message to the next.)

Tip

To mark a message you’ve read as an unread message, so that its name remains bolded, right-click its name in the List pane and then choose “Mark as unread” from the shortcut menu.

Here’s another timesaver: To hide all the messages you’ve already read, click the Ribbon’s View tab. From the “Filter messages” pop-up menu, choose “Hide read messages.” Now only unread messages are visible in the selected folder. To bring the hidden messages back, choose “Show all messages” from the same icon.

When Pictures are Part of the Message

Mail comes set up to block images, because these images sometimes serve as “bugs” that silently report back to the sender when you open the message. At that point, the spammers know that they’ve found a working email address—and a sucker who opens email from strangers. Now you’re on their hit list, and the spam flood really begins.

To view blocked images in a message, press F9, or click “Show images” in the yellow strip above the message. Or, to make Mail quit blocking pictures altogether, choose File→Options→Mail→Security; next, turn off “Block images and other external content in HTML messages.”

Figure 16-6. To view blocked images in a message, press F9, or click “Show images” in the yellow strip above the message. Or, to make Mail quit blocking pictures altogether, choose File→Options→Mail→Security; next, turn off “Block images and other external content in HTML messages.”

You’ll know if pictures were meant to appear in the body of a message; see the strip that appears at the top in Figure 16-6.