Q Silence the spam
> If you have Mail notifications
turned on, but get pestered when
someone copies you into an email
thread that lots of people reply to
but isn’t relevant, you can ≈-click
a message and choose Mute
Thread to turn off notifications
for all responses.
You can also ≈-click a name
and choose Block Sender. The
consequence is set in Mail >
Preferences > Junk Mail > Blocked.
The blocked sender won’t know
you blocked them or receive
bounce-back messages. Also look
out for Unsubscribe links at the
top of mailing list messages.Q Edited highlights
> In Mail, you can tick View >
Organise by Conversation to
collapse each sequence of emails
that are replies to each other into
a single entry in the message list;
clicking this shows the whole
thread in the preview pane. If you
find this means you miss emails
when browsing, untick it, and each
email is listed separately. In the
latter case, you can now tick
Highlight Conversations: messages
in the same thread as the selected
email are highlighted in the list.
And View > Show Related Messages
loads this thread into the preview.You can also try quitting Mail, deleting
preference and status files associated
with it, restarting your Mac and reopening
Mail. For peace of mind, you could just
move the files to a temporary folder,
noting what you took from where, and
move them back in the unlikely event that
you seem to have done more harm than
good. From ~/Library/Containers/,
delete com.apple.mail and com.apple.
MailServiceAgent. From ~/Library/
Preferences, delete com.apple.mail.plist.
If Mail keeps crashing when opened, try
deleting the com.apple.mail.savedState
folder from ~/Library/Containers/com.
apple.mail/Data/Library/Saved
Application State/.
You can access these folders in
the Finder either by using File > Go to
Folder (ß+ç+G) and entering the
path, or by holding å while clicking the
Go menu to open your Library, then
navigating from there. For Apple’s
general advice on Mail problems, see
bit.ly/appleemailproblems.S
ome people initially reported
serious issues in Mail when
upgrading to Catalina, including
messages disappearing – a particularly
worrying problem, since deleting
messages from iCloud Mail and other
IMAP-based platforms on your Mac
will also delete them from the server.
However, many more users (including us)
have seen all their email update with no
trouble. Some of the issues may have
been associated with third-party
platforms, including Microsoft Exchange,
and others with transient iCloud server
problems not directly related to Catalina.
Rule out simple problems: ensure
you’re logged in with your Apple ID in
System Preferences > Apple ID and Mail is
ticked. In Mail, use Window > Connection
Doctor to check for any problems
accessing mail servers. In Mail >
Preferences > Accounts, ensure your
iCloud IMAP and any other accounts you
use are set up and enabled. Deleting
accounts and recreating them may help.
T
he Messages app is little changed
in Catalina, which is something
of a disappointment: the range of
fun effects that can be added to
chats in iOS and iPadOS (see bit.ly/
applemessageeffects) is still missing
from the Mac. Nor can you add
Memojis or other stickers yet.
Business Chat is a new feature
in Catalina and iOS 13 that enables
organisations to offer support via
iMessage. When you find a business
in Safari or Maps or via
Siri, you’ll see a Message
icon in its card. Tap this
to start a chat. Messages
doesn’t pass on your
contact info or any
personal data to the
business (except what you
type in replies), but it’ll be
able to continue replying
to you until you delete
the message thread.Ta i l o r i n g yo u r
Mail inbox
Make sure you never miss
a message... except the
ones you’d rather not see
Get the Message
30 | MACFORMAT | APRIL 2020
FEATURE Catalina tips & tricks
30 | MACFORMAT | APRIL 2020 macformat.com #macformat @macformat