Alternately to just copy the link to the clipboard though you could still use this shortened form to return the link…
tell application "Mail"
set sel to (item 1 of (selected messages of message viewer 0 as list))
if sel ≠ missing value then set the clipboard to "message://%3C" & message id of sel & "%3E"
end tell
In Mojave: Mail > Preferences > Viewing > Use Classic Layout
Mail.app automatically marking mail as read, is my most hated feature of Mail (which otherwise I mostly like). I just tried the above and it doesn’t work on Big Sur. I tried setting it to 300 as well and it doesn’t obey that either.
The only way I know of solving the problem is to install Mail Act-On which has an option which stops Mail automatically marking messages as read. Works great, but I don’t really need any of the other mail features so it’s a bit spendy for my needs.
Dear Community, today I wanted to update to OSX Catalina and read about the Apple Mail Bug, deleting E-Mails?! Some say int he comments, that this bug also appears in Big Sur. Could you all be aware of that problem and tell whether you see any irregularities on Big Sur? (Check for furter Info and also the recent comments of people using Big Sur: https://mjtsai.com/blog/2019/10/11/mail-data-loss-in-macos-10-15/)
I am therefore still holding off on OSX Mojave 10.14.6 on my MBP 15" 2015 Model. Because I love my Apple mail as well and dont want to switch to another program!
I’ve processed thousands of emails on Catalina and Big Sur and I have never encountered this bug.
Thank you very much. To be honest I also idd not really understand what this bug is about and in which constellations it should occur. I would like to Upgrade to Catalina at least, but Im afraid.
When I moved from my 2011 MBP (stuck on Snow Leopard) to my MBA I did a clean install of Catalina and reloaded all my data from my backup and apps from the store or web. No significant problems noted. I had some apps that wouldn’t run on Catalina so didn’t want them mucking things up.
Thanks. I think I willl still wait a bit because of some 32-bits Apps I probably use. I want the scene to grow more. THen I am also thinking about doing a clean install, but probably a clean install of the os after Big Sur.
Like many I have tried a lot of mail clients, for me Mailmate is everything Apple mail should/could have been.
Markdown, insanely powerful Smart Folders, rules, many different view layouts and integrations with enterprise level apps like OmniFocus and DEVONthink.
Simply the best IMO.
Is Mailmate ubscription or one time purchase?
I’m still in experimental phase with email. I want all the nifty features without being locked-in to a specific application.
Currently, my email and mail filter rules are on the Fastmail server. I chose it because they use Spamsieve for email rules. Those rules are portable to many different mail servers, even self-hosted servers like Mail-In-A-Box. Fastmail also has a “learning” email filter that has some default logic plus you can train it over time to learn what you consider to be spam. Finally, it has an per-folder autopurge setting to delete emails past an age threshold.
Their Web mail client is nice as well, I often finding myself using it instead of Apple mail when on my Mac.
Apple mail is still my primary email client on my Mac and iDevices, I don’t need a lot of features in my email client as Fastmail server does the heavy lifting for me.
Something I have recently noticed is that the iOS Apple mail app seems learn where to file messages from certain senders, but the Mac mail app does not. You’d think it would be the opposite as a computer has a faster processor and more resources in general that a mobile device.
One-time purchase - not very expensive either
One time purchase, not the cheapest but the best never is… 
One of the things I’m missing from Apple Mail is the conspicously absent capability of quickly archiving messages into folders (Mailmate, Postbox, and mostly any other mail application out there does this).
I guess Apple has some rationale behind this but for me this is shop stopper, as extensions like MsgFiler seem more like a kludge.
longtime gmail via web user.
but recently switched to apple mail for DT and filemaker.
not a fan of macmail, but learing to be satisfied with it. some of the quirks are inexplicable. but so far, i’m making it work.
i just wish there was a reliable way to tag mail.
PLEASE, be THAT GUY and say, “hey IDIOT; tagging in macmail is EASY. . . . yada yada yada”! that would truly be great!!
My biggest gripe with Mail is how it marks an email message as Read. As soon as you delete an email it automatically goes to the next (unread) email and marks it as read. (Spark on the other hand waits for the users next action i.e select another email to view).
As someone who uses the Unread emails as tasks this is a big headache.
Yes, tagging in Mac Mail is easy.
You need to purchase MailSuite from SmallCubed:
i tried it, but it had a big sur bug and didn’t have time to wade through it at the time.
also, if i recall it had some fairly invasive pop up windows.
admittedly though, i was in the middle of doing a brief at the same time so my attention span was short and irritability was tall.
i’ll take another look
thx much!
There are some good Youtubes for how to use their plugins
Overall they are probably the best known of all the Mac Mail add-ons
It’s not hard to envision a more integrated user experience than MsgFiler. It wouldn’t take much effort to add a keyboard shortcut and other UX to the Big Sur version of Mail.app to add similar functionality to the Move item in the Mail.app toolbar.
But Apple has not done that, and MsgFiler works very well for me on Big Sur. I’m a happy customer, having paid for it more than once (directly and Mac App Store versions, IIRC). It has worked well for me for many years, with only the occasional down time after major macOS upgrades break its integration with Mail.app. (Since I normally wait for the x.1 or later release of a new version of macOS, that’s not a problem.)
It might seem like a kludge, but it’s a kludge that works reliably and efficiently, at least for me. Recommended.