How to mute a MacOS Apple Mail conversation (and why you should)

Like everyone, I get a ton of emails. The one type of email I get that’s more annoying than anything is the deluge of PR promos and requests. Although I’d like to do a wholesale block of those types of emails, I can’t. Why? Because very often one will come through that actually warrants my attention. When that happens, I respond. 

Unfortunately, sometimes that unleashes a rather drawn-out back and forth or a PR agency constantly “pinging” me for responses I don’t always have time for. When that occurs (at least on Apple Mail), I mute them.

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Muting an Apple Mail conversation doesn’t stop the email from coming through. Instead, it simply blocks the muted email from the notifications. So instead of constantly getting reminded that yet another email from that sender has arrived, it just lands in my inbox where I can peruse it at my earliest convenience. All the while, the rest of my incoming missives can still alert me via the MacOS notification system.

Does the idea of minimizing the interruptions, but not cutting off communication, sound like just the thing to ease your busy day? If so, read on — because I’m going to show you how easy it is to mute those conversations.

Do note, however, that this feature only works on conversation threads. You can’t mute a contact (which would be a handy feature), so if you mute a conversation thread, the contact could send a new email which will bypass the mute. That’s okay because if you’re too busy, you can always do a global mute of notifications by setting your Focus status to Do Not Disturb.

Of course, take caution when muting notifications globally, as you could miss out on something important.

With that caveat out of the way, let’s get to the muting.

Muting threads in Apple Mail on MacOS

What you’ll need: The only thing you’ll need is a MacOS device and Apple Mail configured for your email account. This feature also works on the iOS version of Apple Mail. As an Android user, I don’t use an iPhone. However, the feature works on both platforms, the only difference being how you access the Mute option. In iOS that option can be found by swiping left on the email in question to reveal the hidden options. Then, select More. From the resulting list choose Mute. 

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Now, let me show you how it’s done in MacOS.

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How to unmute a conversation

Now that you’ve muted the conversation, you might want to go back (at some point) and unmute it. Here’s how.

1. Locate the conversation to unmute

After muting the conversation, the entry in the inbox will include a small mute icon. The one caveat to this is there’s no way of searching for muted conversations. Of course, if you remember the sender or subject, you can always search for one of those bits of data. 

2. Unmute the conversation

The process for unmuting a conversation is similar to that of muting one. After you’ve located the conversation, two-finger tap (or right-click) the entry in the inbox and select Unmute. The mute icon will vanish and you’ll then start receiving notifications for the conversation thread once more.

And that’s all there is to silencing an email conversation. This is a great way to help sift through the noise and find yourself with fewer interruptions throughout your day. 

Also: How to quickly see what emails are a part of a conversation in Apple Mail