Mail Bottom Preview not working

In the thread “Has Apple MAIL become a bit messy?” Nathan Duke (sinaredes) wrote:

You don’t mention your OS, but in my setup with Big Sur 11.6.1, Mail > Menu bar > View > Show Bottom Preview toggles that on, and Show Side Preview toggles it off.

Correction:

Show Side Preview just replaces the Bottom Preview with one on the side. If the Bottom Preview window is closed, though, Show Bottom Preview opens it up again.

The OP mentions that he used DiskUtility to achieve a temporary fix. What exactly did he do in DU? What were the messages?
Regardless, it might have been an attempt to repair permissions, but I somehow can’t see how that would repair a setting in MAIL.
We need to hear more details.

If you move the cursor/pointer to the very bottom, you should see a short line with an arrow above it. Similar to what you see when you move the bottom line to the bottom - except only one not two arrows (one above and one below the line).

Once you have the cursor/pointer positioned at the right point to get the line and arrow, just move it up and it will restore the view without the entire list of messages.

David

| David Brostoff davbro
November 28 |

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In the thread “Has Apple MAIL become a bit messy?” Nathan Duke (sinaredes) wrote:

Has Apple MAIL become a bit messy?

Apple Mail provides an adjustable horizontal slider/divider that allows one to view the content of individual emails while looking at a mailbox’s list of available messages. This allows reading of emails without having to open individual emails.

Recently, I lowered the slider/divider to the bottom of the mailbox window and it became non-functional…I can’t move it back up. I have been able to correct the situation by running Disk Utility, but the corrected state only lasts as long as I don’t turn off my MBP. When I restart the laptop, I have to run Disk Utility again to get things working…until today. The Disk Utility repair no longer fixes things.

Any thoughts as to what the issue might be and how it might be repaired?

You don’t mention your OS, but in my setup with Big Sur 11.6.1, Mail > Menu bar > View > Show Bottom Preview toggles that on, and Show Side Preview toggles it off.

I was grasping at straws using First Aid on MacIntosh HD and MacIntosh HD - Data. I, too, doubted it would do anything but thought it couldn’t hurt. For a few days it seemed to make a difference… then it didn’t. I now believe whatever caused Mail to revert was coincidental.

Messages for MacIntosh HD: “The volume… appears to be OK”; “Restoring the original state found as mounted.”; "Operation successful.”

Messages for MacIntosh HD - Data: same as above

I’m still using Catalina 10.15.7.

In Mail> MenuBar> View, “Show Side Preview” is offered, but not "Show Bottom Preview”. Toggling off “ShowSide Preview” causes the slider to appear at the bottom of the pane.

Also, under “View” there is no item listed as "Show Bottom Preview”.

David, I am familiar with the ability to do what you describe. The bottom line (with the dot) simply remains static when I try to raise it.

I’m still at Mojave, so I don’t know if this has changed. But the following is the way it has worked for a number of versions: When you drag the divider to make the preview panel appear, at first there is no visual confirmation that you are dragging anything. But keep going. About halfway across the window, the panel suddenly appears. At that point you can adjust the size as desired.

Perhaps “wonky” is the right description. You have to drag an invisible divider much farther than intuitively you would expect before it appears.

Thanks. I’m aware of the behavior you describe. My preference is to drag the divider up from the bottom to see previews, but that divider will not move. For now, it appears I will have to get used to side previews until Mail is fixed or a better alternative comes along

Thanks for this tip – it’s the same in Big Sur.

In the view menu, make sure “Use Column Layout” is selected. Then you should see Show Bottom Preview. (Monterey) In earlier versions of mail, in Preferences (viewing, maybe or general), select use classic view (or something substantially similar)

With Catalina—at least on my 16" MBP running 10.15.7–the option “Show Bottom Preview” is not in the View menu.

Apple: “You are dragging it wrong.”