I just noticed a subtle but useful Apple Mail feature. If you drag or save an attachment from Mail to your desktop (I assume anywhere else on the Mac as well, though I’ve not tested this), the attachment includes a small mail icon. When you CLICK ON THAT ICON, rather than the document itself, it will open the mail message containing that attachment.
That is useful.
Would I be right in assuming this is in MacOS Sonoma? It doesn’t seem to happen when I drag an attachment to the desktop on a computer running Ventura.
Yes (at least, I’ve only noticed it since Sonoma).
You may be correct. I’ve not noticed this until just lately. So it could be a Sonoma specific feature, But I’m not certain. It’s possible it has been there before but I never noticed it.
Just checked, this also works in iPadOS 17. Drag an attachment to the Files app and you’ll see the mail icon surfaced in column view where it shows the mail icon and also notes who sent it. Tap it and it opens the email in Mail app. In icon or list view use the get info and that presents the same icon and button to go to the email. Or, control click and there is an option to reply to the sender.
Thankyou both, @Funkydan2 and @Bmosbacher. I’m on Ventura and dragging attachments on to the desktop doesn’t show the link as described by @Bmosbacker.
I tried it on my iPad running 17.1.2… The little icon for an email showed up alongside the downloaded file. tapping on it just opened the file itself although, if I long pressed, I did get an option to Reply to the sender (amongst an array of others such as Move, Delete etc.)
You can create a link to an email by dragging on Mac, iPad and even – with some contortion – on the phone. And the link opens the right email (in Apple Mail) on all platforms.
Very cool! thanks for bringing it to my, and everyone else’s, attention.
