Mail.App shortcut: jump to body on Compose Window

Hi guys,

I would like to know if there’s a keyboard shortcut on Mail.App that lets me jump straight to the compose field of a message.

When composing a message on macOS Mail.app I like to keep every address fields available, there’s also the signature field and even a tracking (Mailbutler) button, so there’s quite a few Tab keypresses to-do everytime.

I was about to create a KBM macro to do just that, but that wouldn’t help if I hit those keys from the cc field.

I did a little experimenting, and it looks like pressing Shift+Tab twice will move the cursor from the To field to the message area.

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I found the same, but it would not be the same if you’re in CC or BCC fields for instance.

Nevertheless, it’s a quick and easy work around. Thanks!

You’re welcome @ldebritto.

I don’t think there’s an easy way to jump directly to a specific field…though it could probably be accomplish with Keyboard Maestro (e.g. using an image search for the labels).

It’s potentially something that Mailbutler could implement. I recommend dropping them a line with this request.

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This is more of a rant than a solution for you, but the subject is a bit of a peeve of mine: Most email clients encourage users to fill in the fields in an order that doesn’t make sense. They default address > subject > body order results in lousy subject lines and mistakenly hitting send before you’re ready.

It’s much better to start by writing the body of the email. Once you have the email written, it’s much easier to come up with an informative subject line that fits the actual content of the email (rather than guessing what subject is appropriate for an email you haven’t written yet). Waiting until the end of the process to fill in the address field means you can’t accidentally hit send and fire off a half-finished email. It also gives you the chance to look at the email you’ve written and decide that it really needs to go to a different recipient or additional recipients.

So, really, Apple Mail (and every other email program) should start you off in the compose field to begin with. :grin:

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Thats’s exactly the reason why I like to compose in Drafts and use a send to mail action when I have proof read it :grin:

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Love that, @ChrisUpchurch! The window could also be redesigned as such!

Perhaps they add this action to macOS soon as they leave the beta phase

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Hi Lucas (@ldebritto),

I know this is an old thread, but I just stumbled upon it by accident.

Like you, I have Full Keyboard Access (in System Preferences --> Keyboard --> Shortcuts) set to make the tab key jump between all controls (and I want to keep it that way).

So, what I do in Mail.app is that I use the return key instead.

While this isn’t the solution you were looking for, it does speed things up nicely, because with the return key, at least the focus doesn’t jump to UI elements like dropdown menus (such as the message priority and signature dropdown menus).

This way, you can still use your tab key to move between all those elements if you need to, but you can also get to the message body relatively quickly with the return key :slightly_smiling_face:

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