Do you use Mac Mail

I have a mac, but don't use mac mail.

Menu > View > Customize Toolbar

You should familiarize yourself with all the functions and configurations of MacMail (and any program) by exploring all the drop-down menus from the Main Menu. If you don't know what something does, then simply try it, and if you don't like it, reset it.

You can also get to Customize Toolbar by right-button clicking on the Email tool area and selecting Customize Toolbar.

Thanks Ros, I presume you mean those selections to the right of the bitten apple but I've searched through them a number of times with no luck

That's the first thing I tried. Of course you're right, it should be selectable from this facility but it isn't. At the last rev Mac simply forgot to establish it there as a selection

I use MacMail all the time and to be honest, I'm not familiar with the options on the toolbar that you described, so I don't know how to help you with this one.

Thank you Ros

If you click on the toolbar you get a list of icons that you can drag into it, but unfortunately the facility I seek is missing for some reason

Hello Friends,


My advice is to use a Computer based email program unless you often bounce from one computer to the next in the course of your day. I also advise you still create a web based email account as a backup plan when you find yourself without your Mac or your email is not working for one reason or another. Side note: You often can use both web based and computer based email on the same email account, but for the sake of simplicity, I suggest you pick one route for its strengths and stick with it.
If you decided to go with Web based email, I suggest selecting from these three options:
1. Gmail (Google email) for integration with other Google services like Googles Docs.
2. Yahoo for integration with iPhone "push" email services.
3. Mac (Apple) email for intergration with the other .Mac services. Don't buy .Mac just for the email.

Best Regards,
Duncan Jones

Dunmc thanks for those tips. But isn't Mac Mail a computer-based email program

My grasp of PC terminology being somewhat lacking

Well Ros by the sheerest chance today, with another inadvertent keystroke, I discovered how to recover them: Just click on A-Format

What's so remarkable, among 100,000 participants, about 130 of whom are accessible at any moment, nobody else had the right answer

I thought I was kidding when I suggested that today maybe nobody but me is still using Mac

What do you mean by "A-Format"?

It's an icon,"A", in a box up there in the toolbar. Underneath the box it's labeled "Format"

Ahhh, now I finally understand what you are talking about. That "A" option only appears in the composition window of MacMail, not in the main toolbar.

And yes, I can see how clicking it removes the basic formatting commands from the upper toolbar.

While I can understand how it could be frustrating to a novice to have those formatting options "go away", I still think the whole problem is rather easily solved by simply exploring more of the functionality of the MacMail application (by exploring all the options available up in the main menu bar) so that you will have a better understanding of the tool you are using. The same could be said for any application you are using. Ultimately you would spend less of your time worrying about minor annoyances and you could focus on what you are trying to write, rather than the tool you are using to write it.