Disabling 'preview' mode in Mac Mail?

I'm new to Apple computers and OSX. I'm just now setting up my Mac Mail is Tiger (1.4.10). I want to disable the preview pane but I can't find out how. Until I get my spam filtering working I'd rather not have to 'preview' the spam when I click the email to mark it junk, as I fully believe this is one of the ways the spammers gauge what gets read (hidden html in the email giving response back to a spam server). In fact, I think that it was proven at some point a few years back that some spammers do this.

Yes, I know I can turn off loading html or loading images, but I'd rather just turn off the preview pane.

Thanks.

dpaanlka said:

The bar between the mail list and the preview pane, there is a dot. Click and drag it all the way down.

Click to expand...

Doesn't that just shrink the preview pane? I want it disabled so emails don't load until I double click them.

dpaanlka said:

Once it jumps the rest of the way, it is no longer shrunk but disabled. You'll notice that after a certain point, you can't make it any smaller it just jumps down.

Try it, then click on one of the emails you know has images or what not in it. Then drag the pane back up into view. You'll see that it takes a few moments to load the content of your email.

I believe this is how it works, anyway.

Click to expand...

Cool! Thanks

kainjow said:

Also, if you prefer to display the plain text version (if there is one) of the email instead of the HTML version, you can use this tip.

Click to expand...

Right on. Thanks ! I'll keep that in mind.