MacOS – Lion Mail: Drag to Select vs. Drag to Move

fullscreenmacosmail.appmulti-touch

I'm using Mail in Lion in three-pane full screen mode. Let's say I put my pointer over a message in the middle pane. I push the touchpad with my thumb to click and hold, and start to move the pointer with my index finger in the direction of the new folder where I want to file the message. Mail does one of two things:

Begin to highlight a range of messages, or
Begin to move the selected message to another folder.

I can never tell which one I'm going to get. I almost always want (2), but maddeningly often I get (1). What am I doing to cause the ambiguity? How do I clearly signal my intent to the UI?

Best Answer

Selecting happens when you start dragging in the empty part of a line and have a major vertical movement. You can prevent message moving from happening by immediately starting to drag across after clicking.

Moving happens when you start in the text part of a line. Moving is also easier invoked when your major movement is in the horizontal axis. If you click and hold on a spot for a moment and then start dragging message moving will be invoked.

Related Solutions

Mail.app – keyboard shortcuts to move mail and jump to folder

MailActOn is an extension that provides fast filing of email messages in Mail.app. It is a paid extension though, but I find the $24.95 price tag reasonable for the productivity gains.

MacOS – Automatically Save Attachments in Mail.app on Mountain Lion

Try this.

   using terms from application "Mail"
    on perform mail action with messages theMessages for rule theRule
        -- The folder to save the attachments in (must already exist)


        -- Save in a sub-folder based on the name of the rule in Mail

        set subFolder to name of theRule
        tell application "Finder"
            set attachmentsFolder to ((path to home folder as text) & "Dropbox:Attachments") as text
            if not (exists folder subFolder of folder attachmentsFolder) then
                make new folder at attachmentsFolder with properties {name:subFolder}
            end if
        end tell
        tell application "Mail"

            repeat with eachMessage in theMessages

                set {year:y, month:m, day:d, hours:h, minutes:min} to eachMessage's date sent
                set timeStamp to ("" & y & "-" & my pad(m as integer) & "-" & my pad(d) & "-" & my pad(h) & "-" & my pad(min))

                try
                    -- Save the attachment
                    repeat with theAttachment in eachMessage's mail attachments

                        set originalName to name of theAttachment
                        set savePath to attachmentsFolder & ":" & subFolder & ":" & timeStamp & " " & originalName
                        try
                            save theAttachment in file (savePath)
                        end try
                    end repeat

                    display dialog subFolder
                end try
            end repeat

        end tell
    end perform mail action with messages
end using terms from

-- Adds leading zeros to date components
on pad(n)
    return text -2 thru -1 of ("00" & n)
end pad

I have posted a more general Automatically Save Attachments in Mail.app on my blog

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Mail.app – keyboard shortcuts to move mail and jump to folder

MacOS – Automatically Save Attachments in Mail.app on Mountain Lion

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