How to View Richly Formatted Mail in Plain Text with Mac OS X Mail

Messages with rich formatting are nice to look at, but Mac OS X Mail can also satisfy your need for simple plain text by displaying a plain text alternative, if available.

View Richly Formatted Mail in Plain Text with Mac OS X Mail

To view emails using rich formatting and remote images in plain text with Mac OS X Mail:

• Open the message.
• Press Command-Option-P.
  • Alternatively, you can select View | Message | Plain Text Alternative from the menu.

If you want to go back to the rich formatting, select View | Message | Best Alternative from the Mac OS X Mail menu.

You can also have Mac OS X Mail show you available plain-text alternatives by default.