If you have the preview pane open in Apple's Mail, with your list of Inbox messages on the top and the preview of the selected message on the bottom, then the up and down arrow keys will allow you to move the selection up and down the message list, subsequently showing you a preview of the newly selected message. Sep 21, 2015 Instead of opening Contacts and searching for the person, just find a message from that contact. In iOS, after tapping Details, tap the circled i icon. That brings up the card for the contact.

• How To Use Messages On Mac
• Recover Deleted IMessages On Mac – Where Are IMessages Stored?
• Got The Message Mac Os Download
• MacOS Big Sur
• Mac Os Messages Not Syncing

The Messages app on your iPhone, iPad and Mac is obviously used for sending an iMessage or SMS messages to other people. That’s just the beginning. You might not have noticed some special features. That’s a shame, because you’re missing out on some powerful options.

Find Someone’s Location

Find My Friends has been around since iOS 6. Until El Capitan, the Mac OS hasn’t had a dedicated way of accessing someone’s location. That’s because it’s been under Details in Messages. To use this feature the person has to agree to share their location with you.

On any Apple device running Messages, clicking or tapping

Changes in El Capitan: Although you can use the Details tab, now there is a Find My Friends widget.

Get Contact Information

Instead of opening Contacts and searching for the person, just find a message from that contact. In iOS, after tapping Details, tap the circled i icon. That brings up the card for the contact. On the Mac, right click on the name in Messages and select Show Contact Card.

Do Not Disturb

If one contact is bothering you when you’re trying to get work done (sorry Mom), you can essentially mute just that person. The messages go through, you just won’t get notifications they sent you via messages. This feature works the same on iOS and Mac OS.

Start a FaceTime Chat

Text messages and emoji don’t always help you communicate. Sometimes your voice and face help you express yourself. Instead of switching apps, you can start a Facetime session in iOS or Mac OS directly from the Messages application.

Watch your Data:

How To Use Messages On Mac

FaceTime could eat up your data plan, so check out our guide on how to track your usage.

For FaceTime Audio, select the picture of the phone receiver. On an iPhone, if you tap the picture of the phone receiver, you’ll get the choice of FaceTime Audio or a Voice Call. If you’d like to add video, select the camera icon to start a video chat session.

Manage Pictures Sent From that Contact

Pictures people send you from Messages aren’t automatically saved to your pictures. Instead of scrolling up in a conversation trying to remember when the picture was sent, scroll down a bit in details. If that contact sent you a pic, all those pictures will be there. Tap or select a picture and you’ll get a few options. In iOS, you can copy it (great for sharing the picture in another conversation), delete it (that’s a great way to clear up some space on your iPhone or iPad ) or you can save it. The options in Mac OS are similar: Open, Add to Photos Library, or Delete.

It works for attachments too: when I lose an attachment, I know I can always find it again in Messages.

Mac OS: Start a Remote Control Session

This feature only works if both parties are running Yosemite or above. You’ll notice the standard Mac screen sharing icons in the Details tab. Click on that icon. You’ll either invite the person to share your screen or you’ll ask to share their screen. This trick is handy if the other person is non-technical and may not be able to find the Apple screen sharing app. All they need to do is wait for your request in Messages. Sadly, this doesn’t work between Mac OS and iOS.

Want cross-platform remote control? we have some apps that do support cross-platform remote control.

Apple continues to add great features to the Messages app, so keep your eye open for even more features in Mac OS and iOS.

The above article may contain affiliate links which help support Guiding Tech. However, it does not affect our editorial integrity. The content remains unbiased and authentic.

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Click here to return to the 'Go to next unread message in Mail via keyboard' hint

If you have the preview pane open in Apple's Mail, with your list of Inbox messages on the top and the preview of the selected message on the bottom, then the up and down arrow keys will allow you to move the selection up and down the message list, subsequently showing you a preview of the newly selected message.

While it is true you can use the preview pane and scroll through the message list with the arrow keys, there's still a snag. When you hit a message that's longer than the preview pane, you have to either mouse down or tab down to scroll through that message and then mouse back or tab back to move to the next message.
Personally, I like the way you can do it in Eudora. I have the open next message command set to CMND-Down arrow, then I just scroll through the window using the arrow keys. This means all navigation through the mail box can be done with just three keys (CMND, up arrow, down arrow). It would be nice if Mail allowed such a simple system. I just wish Eudora allowed the above to move you only to the next unread message, rather than just to the next in line.

While it is true you can use the preview pane and scroll through the message list with the arrow keys, there's still a snag. When you hit a message that's longer than the preview pane, you have to either mouse down or tab down to scroll through that message and then mouse back or tab back to move to the next message.

Just use the space bar -- space scrolls the previewed message down, shift-space scrolls up. Between the arrow keys and space bar, you can do all that you want.

But only if you use the Preview Pane.
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osxpounder

Recover Deleted IMessages On Mac – Where Are IMessages Stored?

Is there a way to get Mail.app toactually open the next unread msg as opposed to just highlighting it as this script does? This is the same sort of action as Eudora. I tried adding:
open selected messages
as in
tell the front message viewer
set unreadMessages to (the messages whose ¬
read status is false) as list
if (count of unreadMessages) is not 0 then
set selected messages to {the first item of unreadMessages}
else
beep
end if
open selected messages
end tell
and it does work for the first initiation of the script (e.g. it opens the first unread msg), but each subsequent invocation of the script does nothing but highlight the next unread msg.

i dont understand the '___ctl-n cause the script to use ^N as a keyboard shortcut.'
does this work for all scripts in OSX? doesnt seem to work for me.

Got The Message Mac Os Download

Yes - the shortcuts technique listed here works for any scripts (AS, shell, perl, etc) that you can use through the Scripts menu. Seems to be very little documentation on this though.

You can also simply hit spacebar to scroll through all messages. What I would really like is an option to jump to the next unread message in any mailbox when I reach the end of one mailbox like Mozilla does.

Hitting the space bar only works with the preview pane open. And if you've got the preview pane open, you can use the arrow keys as well.
This script is for those of us who don't use the preview pane.

MacOS Big Sur

I don't know much about Applescript, so this may be something easy that I'm missing. However, it doesn't appear that this searches messages that are arranged by thread. I can find all of the messages that are *not* in threads just fine.

I use a smart folder called 'Unread' that shows all my unread messages. In that folder I can use the spacebar to step through all my new e-mails.

Mac Os Messages Not Syncing

[quote]I use a smart folder called 'Unread' that shows all my unread messages. In that folder I can use the spacebar to step through all my new e-mails.[/quote] Ok, that may well be the best use of a smart mailbox I've ever heard of, and now I have to try it for myself! I'm having an specific issue within Mail regarding the 'next unread message', and I wonder if anyone's got a suggestion for this problem. I'm subscribed to a email list, and I have setup a filter to move all incoming emails from that list into a folder for browsing. As I'm browsing the unread emails in that folder, which is sorted both as a 'date received' and 'threaded' view. I will read the first unread message, then hit the space bar to get to the next message. The posters on this list put their new comments at the top of the email, so reading 12 related postings is as simple as clicking to a message, reading the top paragraph withing the preview pane, and then clicking the next unreard message. I'd love to be able to navigate this via the keyboard like Thunderbird allows you to. Pressing 'N' to see the next unread message would be soo sweet. I wonder why Apple has not integrated a feature like this. Once a thread gets to about 10 or 12 postings, there is quite a bit of cruft left over at the bottom of each email. Pressing the space bar 8 times in order to scroll all the way through a message just to get to the next message is NOT GOOD for disabled users.

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Joel Farris
'and that's the way it oughta be!'

In order to run the script you can use the free (at least for now) Butler http://www.petermaurer.de/nasi.php?thema=butler&sprache=english - you can make a hotkey or a script button on a menubar... life-saver ;)