Way to disable the sorting on click within mail.app

emailmail.appsort

Let me first tell you my specific problem:

I'm setting up mail.app for a senior citizen (read as in bad eyesight,
bad hand-eye coordination). I taught a setup were emails would be
sorted by newest first. But every other week it happens instead of
opening the most recent email some sort column would be clicked (and emails will permanently be sorted in some non-intuitive way).
Reproducing the order is a "precision" task the person can not do
alone.

So I'm asking is there a hidden option to permanently disable this feature (similar to iOS)?
Or at least what would it take to program some tool that will revert this "setting"?

Best Answer

Someone might know if you can disable the sorting, but if that isn't possible, you can create a keyboard shortcut to switch the sorting back.

Would that be something the user could type?

  1. Go to System Preferences / Keyboard / Keyboard Shortcuts / Applications.
  2. Click the + button.
  3. Chose Mail.app
  4. Type Date into the Menu Title field
  5. Select an easy to press and remember combination. (You can't overwrite already existing shortcuts. When I tried this to test if it would work I used command shift D )
  6. Click "Add" and you are set.