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Mail Preview Pane Missing

M

martosprint

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jun 1, 2010
337
15
Florida
As the title suggests I somehow lost the preview column in Mail. I don't know what I did if anything to cause it. I want to show the emails in the left column and the preview them on the right. Right now it just shows the emails in the left column. I googled the issue many times but could not resolve it. Some said that there was a dot on the right side to change the layout but I don't see it. Is there an easier way to do it?
thanks for a reply.
 
Yes, the preview part of the Mail window can be closed, and is tricky to open up again. There's no dot (that I could see), and it took some playing around for me to get the preview window back, too.
Carefully mouse along the right edge of your Mail window.
If you move your mouse around a bit, you will see the cursor change to either a double ended arrow, or a vertical bar with a left-facing arrow. When you see the vertical bar/arrow, click and drag to the left. Release when you see the window divider appear. There's your preview window. Now you can position the divider where you like.
The cursor position for moving the pane is a little finicky, so experiment until you get it to work.
 
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Hi DeltaMac, it took a bit of trying but I got it to work...thanks a lot for that info..it was driving me nuts trying to figure it out..thanks again
 
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DeltaMac said:
Yes, the preview part of the Mail window can be closed, and is tricky to open up again. There's no dot (that I could see), and it took some playing around for me to get the preview window back, too.
Carefully mouse along the right edge of your Mail window.
If you move your mouse around a bit, you will see the cursor change to either a double ended arrow, or a vertical bar with a left-facing arrow. When you see the vertical bar/arrow, click and drag to the left. Release when you see the window divider appear. There's your preview window. Now you can position the divider where you like.
The cursor position for moving the pane is a little finicky, so experiment until you get it to work.
Click to expand...
[doublepost=1457592982][/doublepost]OMG I have spent ages trying to do what other people said to do with a dot and classic view. Rubbish. I did what you said DeltaMac and in seconds the Preview Pain was back. THANK YOU SOOOO MUCH!
 
Wendy.Carroll said:
[doublepost=1457592982][/doublepost]OMG I have spent ages trying to do what other people said to do with a dot and classic view. Rubbish. I did what you said DeltaMac and in seconds the Preview Pain was back. THANK YOU SOOOO MUCH!
Click to expand...

I spent over an hour with Apple Support yesterday to no avail. Your advice is the best I've seen but it's not working yet for me. I'll keep trying. I have an older iMac and the mail preview pane is fine.
New iMac not fine. Now I'm wondering because the computers are right next to each other could that be the problem?
 
DeltaMac said:
Yes, the preview part of the Mail window can be closed, and is tricky to open up again. There's no dot (that I could see), and it took some playing around for me to get the preview window back, too.
Carefully mouse along the right edge of your Mail window.
If you move your mouse around a bit, you will see the cursor change to either a double ended arrow, or a vertical bar with a left-facing arrow. When you see the vertical bar/arrow, click and drag to the left. Release when you see the window divider appear. There's your preview window. Now you can position the divider where you like.
The cursor position for moving the pane is a little finicky, so experiment until you get it to work.
Click to expand...
[doublepost=1479922751][/doublepost]If you are having trouble grabbing the "finicky" tool, switch View Full Page. I did this and was instantly able to grab and move the bar.
 
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iambenfuego said:
[doublepost=1479922751][/doublepost]If you are having trouble grabbing the "finicky" tool, switch View Full Page. I did this and was instantly able to grab and move the bar.
Click to expand...
THANK YOU!!! That solved my issue. UNREAL how long it took...until I found your trick.
 
martosprint said:
As the title suggests I somehow lost the preview column in Mail. I don't know what I did if anything to cause it. I want to show the emails in the left column and the preview them on the right. Right now it just shows the emails in the left column. I googled the issue many times but could not resolve it. Some said that there was a dot on the right side to change the layout but I don't see it. Is there an easier way to do it?
thanks for a reply.
Click to expand...
[doublepost=1519839901][/doublepost]I had with this issue - couldn't find a small dot, but simply hovered arrow over right side of panel until it turned into a small vertical line with an arrow pointing left, then dragged it about 2 to 3 inches to the left, and voilà!
 
martosprint said:
As the title suggests I somehow lost the preview column in Mail. I don't know what I did if anything to cause it. I want to show the emails in the left column and the preview them on the right. Right now it just shows the emails in the left column. I googled the issue many times but could not resolve it. Some said that there was a dot on the right side to change the layout but I don't see it. Is there an easier way to do it?
thanks for a reply.
Click to expand...
[doublepost=1544543071][/doublepost]I hate when this happens! Here is what you do: In classic mode, mouse over the grey dot on the bottom bar of your mail screen until you get the "up" point arrow. Then mouse upward and KEEP MOUSE PULLING UPWARD for like 3 or 4 inches. Don't quit the the up-drag of your mouse. That is the secret. It will look like nothing is happening at first, then the preview box will reappear. I used to try repeatedly to do short little grabs from the dot and it never worked. The secret is to click and pull-up LONG and straight from the grey dot, not short, quick attempts then quit when you see nothing happening. It won't happen right away, there is a short delay before the preview box appears. 1)Mouse over dot, 2) Up arrow appears, 3) Click and pull upward for 3 or 4 inches - don't quit pulling up at 1 or 2 inches or it won't work. A long, sustained mouse upward is the secret to get the preview pane to reappear! Good luck!
 
Last edited:
DeltaMac said:
Yes, the preview part of the Mail window can be closed, and is tricky to open up again. There's no dot (that I could see), and it took some playing around for me to get the preview window back, too.
Carefully mouse along the right edge of your Mail window.
If you move your mouse around a bit, you will see the cursor change to either a double ended arrow, or a vertical bar with a left-facing arrow. When you see the vertical bar/arrow, click and drag to the left. Release when you see the window divider appear. There's your preview window. Now you can position the divider where you like.
The cursor position for moving the pane is a little finicky, so experiment until you get it to work.
Click to expand...

Thank you for including the portion about releasing AFTER you see the window divider appear! That was what I was missing!
 
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freshjessie said:
[doublepost=1544543071][/doublepost]I hate when this happens! Here is what you do: In classic mode, mouse over the grey dot on the bottom bar of your mail screen until you get the "up" point arrow. Then mouse upward and KEEP MOUSE PULLING UPWARD for like 3 or 4 inches. Don't quit the the up-drag of your mouse. That is the secret. It will look like nothing is happening at first, then the preview box will reappear. I used to try repeatedly to do short little grabs from the dot and it never worked. The secret is to click and pull-up LONG and straight from the grey dot, not short, quick attempts then quit when you see nothing happening. It won't happen right away, there is a short delay before the preview box appears. 1)Mouse over dot, 2) Up arrow appears, 3) Click and pull upward for 3 or 4 inches - don't quit pulling up at 1 or 2 inches or it won't work. A long, sustained mouse upward is the secret to get the preview pane to reappear! Good luck!
Click to expand...
GOOD GOD. I'm so annoyed that was it. I just was pulling up far enough? SHEEESH Anyway - Thanks!
 
losclintos said:
GOOD GOD. I'm so annoyed that was it. I just was pulling up far enough? SHEEESH Anyway - Thanks!
Click to expand...
freshjessie said:
[doublepost=1544543071][/doublepost]I hate when this happens! Here is what you do: In classic mode, mouse over the grey dot on the bottom bar of your mail screen until you get the "up" point arrow. Then mouse upward and KEEP MOUSE PULLING UPWARD for like 3 or 4 inches. Don't quit the the up-drag of your mouse. That is the secret. It will look like nothing is happening at first, then the preview box will reappear. I used to try repeatedly to do short little grabs from the dot and it never worked. The secret is to click and pull-up LONG and straight from the grey dot, not short, quick attempts then quit when you see nothing happening. It won't happen right away, there is a short delay before the preview box appears. 1)Mouse over dot, 2) Up arrow appears, 3) Click and pull upward for 3 or 4 inches - don't quit pulling up at 1 or 2 inches or it won't work. A long, sustained mouse upward is the secret to get the preview pane to reappear! Good luck!
Click to expand...
OMG I can't believe how long I've been working on this! THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU! I was SURE there was something wrong with MY mail. Lost that window over a year ago, and today I finally decided I was going to figure out how to get it back! I read this whole thread repeatedly trying these things over and over, finally got to this one and again THANK YOU!
 
martosprint said:
As the title suggests I somehow lost the preview column in Mail. I don't know what I did if anything to cause it. I want to show the emails in the left column and the preview them on the right. Right now it just shows the emails in the left column. I googled the issue many times but could not resolve it. Some said that there was a dot on the right side to change the layout but I don't see it. Is there an easier way to do it?
thanks for a reply.
Click to expand...
[doublepost=1566309795][/doublepost]I lost my preview pane when I accidentally moved it too far to the bottom and couldn't get it back. I finally realized that if I moused over the bottom and got the arrow with the 2 lines and dragged it way up towards the top of the screen it came back. Easy, peasy. The trick is to drag it way up far enough to make it reappear.
 
I got my Preview pane back but it's now a column on the right side and I want to get it back to the bottom, beneath the mail list. How do I do that? Thanks for any help with that.
 
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