Cowell Computer Consulting

I recently had a reader write in about a problem with their Mail program. Here's what they had to say:

Dear Luke Cowell,

I am a big fan of your blog, where you explain how to make beautiful christmas trees out of incomprehensible code that outputs a hilarious parody version of "The Twelve Days of Christmas" that I don't really get.

Perhaps you can do a blog about why my Mac Mail program doesn't save my window size settings. When I close the program, and re-open it later, the window is small, and the "preview" pane, which I like to have hidden, takes up half the window.

Sincerely,

Murray Inkster
Vancouver, BC

Dear Murray,

Thank you for writing in. Apple mail stores most of its preferences in a file called com.apple.mail.plist. This is located in your home directory, under Library/Preferences. Make a backup of this file.

Quit Mail and open terminal and paste the following lines in: defaults delete com.apple.mail ActiveViewers defaults delete com.apple.mail ActiveSingleViewers

These will delete any information Mail.app has about window position and will hopefully allow you to put your windows in all sorts of compromising positions again.

If that doesn't work you could also try deleting the com.apple.mail.plist file I mentioned above. Be warned that you'll need to set up your mail rules and accounts all over again.

Hope this helps,

Luke Cowell
www.lukecowell.com