Mail: Gmail like Conversation View

By Dan Hinckley

4868 responsesMail%3A+Gmail+like+Conversation+View2008-10-07+04%3A01%3A14Dan+Hinckley. »

Since Google released Gmail one of its most popular features is its Conversation View. Google built their mail system around the idea that individuals are carrying on a conversation through their emails and that those conversations are weakened when spread throughout an inbox.

To account for that problem, Google built gmail with technology that would automatically link conversations over email together. When someone replies to your email the response is automatically connected to other emails that you’ve received from the individual on the current topic in the email.

I know that I personally was a bit frustrated at first when I started to use Mail with my Gmail account because I lost the “conversation” features. I didn’t want to have to sort through my email to find the other emails in a conversation. Luckily for me, Mail also included a Conversation View, I just hadn’t enabled it yet.

To view your emails in a conversation similar to the way you do with Gmail:

Open Mail and View
Select Organize by Thread

After filtering your email by threads, you’ll notice some additional detail and option in your inbox. Blue arrows will let you expand and collapse emails to see all the others that make up the email conversation or, as Apple has titled it in Mail, the email thread.

Hopefully this quick tip will allow you to optimize your Mail experience. What other features about Mail make it a powerful email client?

About Dan Hinckley

Dan Hinckley is an experienced Mac user who converted to Apple products when they introduced them on Intel Processors. He loves helping others get more out of their devices! Subscribe to Maciverse.com to get the latest from Dan and the Maciverse Team!! Find out more about Dan: Dan's Google Profile

4868 ResponsesMail%3A+Gmail+like+Conversation+View2008-10-07+04%3A01%3A14Dan+Hinckley so far.

Tara
February 15, 2009 at 10:02 am
Is there a way to do this same thing on the iPhone? I LOVE the conversation view in Gmail, but when you access Gmail on the iPhone, it doesn't show the same view. Thanks!
- tbw
  January 19, 2011 at 5:30 pm
  on IPHONE on the main Iphone function menue select SETTINGS
  (Settings has the round gear icon)
  select MAIL, CONTACTS, CALENDARS….
  scroll down to MAIL section
  the last line says "ORGANIZE BY THREAD"
  tap that to OFF.
  Now, your conversations will not be THREAD linked and all of them will enter your mail account as individual emails vs group replies all threaded together. YIPPIE
Yael Cohen
July 4, 2009 at 9:19 pm
PERFECT PERFECT! I can't believe how long that has been frusterating me and I didn't do anything about it until now – THANKS!
Noel
July 8, 2009 at 8:00 am
Not perfect yet!! In your example above, where are the sent and draft emails? The point of "conversation view" is that you can see ALL emails relating to that conversation in the same view (send, received, and draft).
To do this you need to create a smart mailbox which includes all mail, THEN apply the thread view, and now you'll have the true gmail conversation view in Apple Mail.
Doug Lerner
July 9, 2009 at 12:38 am
I agree that the combo of smart mailbox and the thread will do the trick, but my Gmail-fan friend complains that it is still not as good as a Gmail conversation because you can't read the conversation at a glance (expand all) – that you still have to read each message one-by-one.
doug
Mike
March 9, 2010 at 1:41 pm
Yeah for me, it is incorrectly grouping some emails in, thinking they are threads of that particular conversation- but they’re not. It looks like Mail is doing it by subject more than anything else. Hmmm, any solution to this?
Sauter
April 8, 2010 at 4:53 pm
Click the inbox, then cmd-click the sent box. This will open the two mail boxes to the same window that you can view by thread.
DerfDaSmurf
June 8, 2010 at 6:49 am
I FOUND IT!!! I knew, knew, knew I'd seen this before in Mail. If you "left Click" on an email, one of the options is "View Conversation". Really, this was driving me CRAZY!!!