Tip: customizing the toolbar of your Mac’s Mail app

os x mail app icon

Your Mac’s Mail app is a powerful email client, and for many, the default app configuration in plenty for getting day-to-day email tasks done.

But for those who demand more power and functionality, it’s a great idea to customize the toolbar at the top of the Mail app so you have quick and easy access to the functions you use the most.

In this tutorial, we’ll show you how to customize the toolbar at the top of your Mac’s Mail app so you can get more out of it.

Customizing the Mac Mail toolbar

Since every email user’s needs are different, it’s a good thing Apple makes it possible to customize the toolbar in the Mac Mail app.

Apart from all the stock buttons and features you see at the top of the Mail app right now, there are also a hidden array of buttons that can be added to the toolbar for your convenience.

To customize the Mac Mail toolbar, you’ll want to right click anywhere in the toolbar and then choose the Customize Toolbar… option from the menu that pops up.

Customize Mac Mail Toolbar

This will bring up the toolbar editing interface. From here, you will get a load of buttons and features you can add or remove from the existing toolbar:

Customizing Mail Mail App Toolbar Interface

By default, you only get the following buttons in the Mac Mail toolbar:

  • Get new mail
  • Compose new message
  • Archive message
  • Delete message
  • Mark message as junk
  • Reply to message
  • Reply to everyone in the message
  • Forward message
  • Flag message
  • Search your emails

When you open the editing interface for the toolbar, all of the following buttons become available to you:

  • Move message
  • Copy message
  • Redirect message
  • Hide or show the sidebar
  • Print message
  • All headers
  • Mark message as read
  • Mark message as unread
  • Take all accounts offline
  • Add person to contacts
  • Change colors
  • Make font smaller
  • Make font larger
  • View conversations
  • Mute
  • Show or hide related messages

As you can see, there is actually a very long list of additional buttons that you could have in the Mail app’s toolbar that you don’t by default. The fact that they’re not there by default really limits your capabilities without knowing keyboard shortcuts or digging into the Menu Bar menus.

To add a new button, simply drag it from the interface into the toolbar. You can also remove items you never use out of the toolbar to remove them and reduce clutter.

Wrapping up

Because so many people send and receive emails each day, it’s good to be able to customize your Mail app to your own needs. Everyone uses their Mail app differently, and having the ability to tailor it to the way you’re going to use it is going to make the app that much easier for you to use on a day-to-day basis.

Also read:

Have you customized your Mail app’s toolbar yet? Share your setup in the comments!