How to Change Fonts and Text Size in Mac Mail (2026 Guide)

To change fonts in Mac Mail, open the Mail app and go to Mail > Settings > Fonts & Colors. Click Select next to Message list font to resize your inbox, or next to Message font to set the font for emails you read and write. To enlarge just the email in front of you, press Command-Plus (+).

Small type in Mail creeps up on you. The inbox looked fine on the desktop display, then you open the laptop on a train and every subject line is a squint. Below are the settings Apple gives you for each part of Mail: the inbox list, the email you're reading, the one you're writing, your signature and the sidebar. After that come the reasons a font sometimes refuses to change. Steps are for macOS 27 and match Apple's current Mail User Guide; on older versions the menu says Preferences instead of Settings.

Where Mac Mail keeps its font settings

Every default font in Apple Mail lives in one pane: Mail > Settings > Fonts & Colors. Apple's Fonts & Colors page lists four controls there, and each one changes a different part of the app.

The column on the right matters as much as the middle one. When a font change seems to do nothing, it's usually because the email belongs to the column on the right, and there's a section on that further down.

How to change the default font in Mac Mail

Your default font in Mac Mail is the Message font in Fonts & Colors. It sets the typeface and size of every new email, reply and forward you write, and the font Mail uses to show messages that don't name a font of their own.

1. With Mail open, pick Settings from the Mail menu.
2. Click the Fonts & Colors tab.
3. Click Select next to Message font. The Mac's Fonts window opens.
4. Pick a family (Helvetica, Georgia, Avenir and so on), then a typeface and a size.
5. Close the Fonts window and the settings window. New messages use the font straight away.

One condition: your emails have to be rich text for the font to travel. Apple's plain and rich text page says plain text drops formatting such as bold, italics, tables and images, so a plain text email carries no font at all and the recipient's own app chooses one. To check your default, go to Mail > Settings > Composing and look at Message format, which Apple's Composing settings page describes as plain text or rich text (HTML).

I changed my message font from the default to Georgia after noticing that my long replies read like a wall of text, and a serif at 14 points made them easier to scan. It didn't change how other people's emails looked to me, though, because most of those arrive with fonts of their own.

How to make the text bigger in Mac Mail

There's no single "text size" slider in Apple Mail. The inbox list, the open email, the email you're writing and the sidebar are each resized in a different place, so start with the part you're squinting at.

Make the email you're reading bigger

Press Command-Plus (+) while an email is open, and keep pressing until the text is comfortable; Command-Minus (-) takes it back down. Apple's guide to reading emails gives both shortcuts, and also suggests adding text size buttons to the toolbar if you'd rather click. To add them, Control-click any icon in the toolbar, choose Customize Toolbar, and drag the buttons in, as Apple's guide for people switching to Mail describes.

This is the fix I reach for most. Newsletters set their own tiny type, and no setting of mine changes that, but two presses of Command-Plus does.

Make the inbox list bigger

The size of the sender names, subjects and preview lines in your inbox comes from the Message list font in Mail > Settings > Fonts & Colors. Click Select next to it and choose a larger size. One or two points is often enough: going from 12 to 14 fits fewer messages on screen, and that trade is worth thinking about on a laptop.

If the list feels cramped rather than small, the number of preview lines may be the problem. Mail > Settings > Viewing > List Preview sets how many lines of each message appear in the list, according to Apple's Viewing settings page. I keep it at one line, which leaves room for a bigger font without losing half the inbox below the fold.

Make the email you're writing bigger

For every new email, raise the size of the Message font (steps above). For one email, select the text and press Command-T to open the Fonts window, then drag the size slider or pick a size from the list. Apple's Fonts window guide notes that some apps put the same window under Format > Show Fonts or Format > Font > Show Fonts instead.

Keep in mind that a size you pick for one email goes to the recipient too. Bumping the default to 16 points makes your writing easier on your own eyes, and it also lands in a colleague's inbox at 16 points.

Make the sidebar and mailbox names bigger

Mail's sidebar follows a Mac-wide setting. Open System Settings from the Apple menu, click Appearance, and pick a size from the Sidebar icon size pop-up menu, as Apple's guide to making items bigger explains. Because it's a system setting, other apps' sidebars grow with it.

Make text bigger across the whole Mac

For larger text everywhere, open System Settings > Accessibility > Display, scroll to Text, and click Text size. Apple's guide to making items bigger says the slider enlarges text on the desktop, in app sidebars and in apps set to Use Preferred Reading Size, and that you can pick a size app by app from the pop-up menu next to each one. Apple's page doesn't say whether Mail is in that list on every Mac, so check yours. If Mail isn't listed, use Command-Plus for the email you're reading and the Message list font for the inbox.

What the fixed-width font is for

The fixed-width font in Mac Mail is the font for plain text messages, and it only applies once you tick Use fixed-width font for plain text messages in Fonts & Colors. In a fixed-width (monospaced) font every character takes the same width, which Apple's Fonts & Colors page says helps when text is lined up with spaces.

That makes it useful for a narrow set of emails: server alerts, log excerpts, a table someone typed with spaces, receipts from older systems. When a plain text email arrives with its columns all over the place, turning the setting on often snaps them back into line. It only changes what you see; the sender's message is untouched.

How to change the font in a single email

To change the font of one email in Mac Mail, select the text in the message window and press Command-T, or use the toolbar's Format button along with the Format menu in the menu bar. Apple's formatting page says the Format button shows a bar for text color, background color and alignment, with more options in the Format menu.

• A different font or size: select the text, press Command-T, then choose a family, typeface and size in the Fonts window.
• A color: in the Fonts window, click the Text Color well and pick a color, per Apple's Fonts window guide.
• Pasted text that won't match: choose Edit > Paste and Match Style instead of Edit > Paste, and the pasted words take on the style around them.
• Back to a clean slate: choose Format > Make Plain Text to strip all formatting from the message, or Format > Make Rich Text to switch back. Shift-Command-T toggles between them, per Apple's keyboard shortcuts.

Paste and Match Style earns its place on this list. When I paste a paragraph from a Google Doc into a reply, it arrives in the doc's font and size, and the email ends up with two typefaces in it. Paste and Match Style keeps the whole message in my default font.

How to make your signature use the same font

A signature in Mac Mail can keep its own font, which is why it sometimes looks like it belongs to a different email. To fix it, open the Signatures pane in Mail > Settings, select the signature and tick Always match my default message font. Apple's Signatures settings page says the signature then uses the message font from Fonts & Colors.

I noticed the mismatch after changing my default font: the email body was in the new typeface and the signature underneath was still in the old one. Ticking that box on each signature brought them back in line.

How to color quoted text in replies

Color quoted text in Mail > Settings > Fonts & Colors shows the quoted parts of replies and forwards in color, with a separate color for each quoting level. To change one, click the color pop-up menu for that level and pick a color, or choose Other for the full color picker, as Apple's Fonts & Colors page describes.

On a client thread that has bounced back and forth five times, the colored levels are how I find who said what without scrolling up and down. I keep the default colors; the point is that each level looks different, not which color it gets.

Why Mac Mail ignores your font settings

Mac Mail ignores your default font in a few specific cases, and almost all of them are by design rather than a bug. Work through these before resetting anything.

1. The sender chose a font. Apple's Fonts & Colors page says that when a sender used a specific font, Mail shows the message in it. Many newsletters and marketing emails do. Press Command-Plus to read it bigger instead.
2. The email is plain text. Plain text messages use the fixed-width font only if Use fixed-width font for plain text messages is ticked. When you reply, Use the same message format as the original message in Composing settings can turn your reply into plain text too, as Apple's Composing settings page explains.
3. Pasted text brought its own font. Use Edit > Paste and Match Style, or select the text and set the font again with Command-T.
4. The signature has its own font. Tick Always match my default message font in Signatures settings.
5. A Mac-wide text size is overriding Mail. Apple's guide to making items bigger says that for an app set to Customized in App, changing the size in System Settings > Accessibility > Display > Text size replaces that app's own setting. Check what Mail is set to there.

One more case comes from users rather than Apple. In an Apple Community thread about macOS Tahoe (macOS 26), the message list font shrank after the upgrade and changing its size in Mail had no effect. Several people there reported that resetting fonts in Font Book fixed it, and one said the Accessibility text size setting helped. Apple hasn't documented this as a fix, so I'd keep it for last.

A setup that works on a laptop screen

If you'd rather copy a setup than build one, this is mine on a 14-inch laptop. None of it is Apple's recommendation; it's what stops me leaning toward the screen by early evening.

• Message list font: one size up from the default, with List Preview at one line.
• Message font: Georgia at 14, so long replies are easy to scan.
• Signatures: Always match my default message font ticked on every signature.
• Fixed-width font: on, for the plain text alerts that come from older systems.
• Reading: Command-Plus for any newsletter with tiny type, rather than changing a setting for it.

If dark backgrounds help your eyes as much as size does, our Apple Mail dark mode guide covers that switch. For the rest of Mail's settings, start with the Apple Mail app guide, and the Apple Mail keyboard shortcuts list has more ways to stay off the mouse.