10.3: Add new buttons to Mail's preference panels

Nov 24, '03 10:44:00AM

Contributed by: claudio

Warning: This hack will cause some problems with Mail -- you may not be able to add new accounts, you will not be able to save signatures, etc. To undo what you've done, repeat the hint but change the "1" back to a "0."

Here is a way to restore the buttons "Apply," "Cancel," and "OK" to the Apple Mail 10.3 Preferences panels. With these buttons in place, one does not have to close the preference window or switch to another preference pane to apply changes, and changes can be undone with Cancel.

  1. Make sure Mail isn't running
  2. Navigate to Mail in the Finder (probably inside the Applications folder)
  3. Control-click it and select "Show Contents"
  4. Navigate inside the Contents -> Resources folder
  5. Open the file PreferencePanels.plist with a text editor. I suggest one should use the Property List Editor (Developer Tools must be installed)
  6. Change the String Value for "UsesButtons" from 0 to 1 and save the file
  7. Quit the editor
Start Mail, open Preferences from the "Mail" menu, and now you should find the three new buttons at the bottom of each preference pane.

[robg adds: This worked as described and is much more useful than the simple "OK" button.]

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