Mac Kung Fu, 2nd Edition

Tip 75

Prefer Plain-Text Emails

Once upon a time all email was sent in plain text, but nowadays HTML emails—that feature alternative fonts, colors, and images—have become the norm. Yet most of these emails come with a plain-text version hidden inside them. This is included for those who might have email clients that can’t display HTML.

While the Mail app in OS X is fully compatible with HTML email, you can hit Option+Command+P to switch the email currently being viewed to a plain-text rendition, sans any kind of formatting.

This is only temporary, however. Just select another email in your email list, and then select the original email again to view it with its formatting intact.

Setting Plain-Text View

To always view emails in plain text, you ...