View missing text in Mail.app messages
Over in the macOSXHints forum, highlandlaker wonders why text is missing
from his emails:
I am using Mail 2.0 and System 10.4.5. Occasionally I receive an email message that is truncated. The first two or three sentences appear okay then it stops …. dead in its tracks !! Has anyone else experienced this anomaly and what can I do to correct it?
Some people on the Apple Discussion board
have a similar problem.
Often (but not always) this is the result of a HTML rendering glitch in Mail.app. Mail is trying to render the message but can’t. The rest of the text is there, you just can’t see it.
If this happens to you, the fix is simple.
Emails often contain their text in a variety of formats. By default Apple Mail will display an email’s HTML content first if it exists, then the Rich Text content if HTML is not available. Lastly it will display plain text is there is nothing else.
If the HTML is not rendering properly, you can “force” Mail to show the plain text version using the keyboard shortcut “Command-Option-Pâ€, or toggle through the available formats using “Command-]†and “Command-[â€. Most likely, the text will appear as you cycle through the available views.
Hawk Wings has some more tips for dealing with HTML emails.
Similar Posts:
- Setting a minimum HTML font size
- Viewing HTML messages in Apple Mail
- Betalogue ponders slow death of plain text
- Sending HTML messages in Apple Mail
- Composing HTML messages in Apple Mail
Tags: empty messages, HTML, keyboard shortcuts, missing text, plain text, rendering

March 15th, 2006 at 8:41 am
I have this problem with all my friends who use AOL. Thanks for the tip!
March 15th, 2006 at 12:09 am
No worries. I have a few friends who cause this problem too.