Some time after you’ve sent an email message, you may find you want to follow up. Perhaps you realize you need to add more details, or that you haven’t heard a response from your recipient.

Is your default behavior to create another new email message? Or, do you view your sent email and issue the Forward command?

The former results in a disconnected result as your prior message is lost from the conversation. The latter creates an experience that is inefficient and less elegant.

The alternative is to follow up. In macOS Mojave and earlier, this required a third-party plugin. Starting in macOS Catalina, Mail gained the ability to natively follow up, using the Reply commands.

View Sent Message

The first step is to go to the message you sent. You may find this in your Sent mailbox or by searching your email. Or, if you asked a question and haven’t received a response, Mail may put your sent message at the top of your inbox and invite you to follow up.

The latter feature, which I previously mentioned in Happy Unbirthday!, is available in macOS 13 or later and iOS 16 or later. In macOS Mail > Settings > General and iOS Settings > Mail, you can toggle Follow Up Suggestions.

Simply Reply

When you’ve found your sent message, simply Reply (or Reply All) in your normal fashion. Instead of replying to yourself, Mail is smart enough to put the original recipient(s) in the To, Cc, and/or Bcc fields.

That’s all there is to it! If Mail is set to quote previous messages above or below, your message appears there just the same.

Occasionally, I receive a play-by-play from a client, one new-subject email at a time, after we started corresponding about her Mac issues. Or, someone sends a separate followup email with a different subject after sending their initial message.

Such messages are difficult for me to manage and follow, because each generates a separate case in Salesforce. I prefer that you reply or follow up on existing email threads so the whole conversation sticks together and retains context.

So, when you send me a request for help and you realize you needed to add more information or wonder why you haven’t heard back from me, feel free to reply to your previous message in order to follow up.

When possible, I also appreciate when you wait to send an email until you’ve amassed more details. Or, you can text me to connect about little things.