Mac Mail Window - Doesn't Fit on MacBook Screen

Regarding the issue of not seeing the window when you command-tab, go to the Mission Control settings and make sure that “when switching to an application, switch to a Space with open windows for the application” is checked.

Hello jcorroon,

You should be able to resize the Mail window manually.

1. Please check out this link, which outlines how to manage app windows, and may help: Manage app windows on Mac

Maximize or minimize app windows

On your Mac, do any of the following in a window:

• Maximize a window: Press and hold the Option key while you click the green button  in the top-left corner of an app window. To return to the previous window size, Option-click the button again.

You can also double-click an app’s title bar to maximize the window (as long as the option to do so is set to “zoom” in Desktop & Dock settings).

• Minimize a window: Click the yellow minimize button  in the top-left corner of the window, or press Command-M. 

You can set an option in Desktop & Dock settings to have a window minimize when you double-click its title bar.

Most windows can be manually resized. Drag the window’s edge (top, bottom, or sides) or double-click an edge to expand that side of the window.

2. As for the issue when trying to switch between apps, to help us better assist you, can you let us know if other apps don't appear, or only Mail? The "Quickly switch between app windows" part of the above link also has information on the correct process to switch between app windows, which maybe helpful as well:

Quickly switch between app windows

On your Mac, do any of the following:

• Switch to the previous app: Press Command-Tab.

• Scroll through all open apps: Press and hold the Command key, press the Tab key, then press the Left or Right arrow key until you get to the app you want. Release the Command key.

If you change your mind while scrolling through the apps and don’t want to switch apps, press Esc (Escape) or the Period key, then release the Command key.

Thanks!

In order to see the full email message you can do a few different adjustments...

1) Adjust the Mail pain sizes by clicking and holding on the vertical lines:

Use the sidebar in Mail on Mac - Apple Support

2) You can hide the sidebar:

View > Hide Sidebar

3) You can change your entire view to columns (this will put the subject and preview text above the message).

View > Use Column Layout

4) You can double click on the message subject/preview text panel. It will show the message in a separate window.

Now, for the reason why your email message is not showing completely in the viewer... This is because most emails sent are HTML (like the Apple email you referred to in your post). Therefore, they most likely have a width set depending upon the code and size of screen. Thus, the message will stay the same width while you have made the viewer smaller. Email clients are not the same as browsers, where it resizes as you make the window smaller or larger (once again this will depend upon how it was coded). Email clients read the screen size and render that size.

Please refer to image below.

The little vertical Line between the two rows can be moved to left or Right ( within Limits ) to present a larger viewing area in the Preview Panel on Far Right of your screen.

jcorroon wrote:

Unfortunately, that doesn't work either! It resizes the overall window so that the left border conforms to the left side of the screen, but the right side still hangs off the right side of the screen.

Do you, by any chance, have zoomed in your screen? For example, do you see the whole menu bar, including the clock? Or does that go out of view as well?

Only today someone had accidentally zoomed in. Holding down the Control key and doing a scroll up gesture zooms in, the converse zooms out.

If this is not the case, and the window somehow just got to big, you can reduce its size by holding down the Option key on one edge and dragging inward. It will reduce the size symmetrically on both sides, or vertically if you Option-drag from the top or bottom.

Option-click the green button should make your window fit the screen and NOT put tge application in full screen mode.