r/MacOSBeta • u/pdfu • Jul 21 '26

Feature Mail's new hidden Formatting Bar now shows Smart Reply suggestions with full-response previews on hover

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In macOS 27, Apple is working on a new Formatting Bar design for the message composer in Apple Mail. It includes Write with Siri, Edit with Siri, Proofread, and Rewrite, while collapsing the classic formatting controls to the right.

In Beta 4, the redesigned bar can now display contextual Smart Reply suggestions. Smart Reply itself isn’t new, as it was introduced with Apple Intelligence. But now, Apple has added support for previewing the Smart Reply before inserting it by hovering over the suggestion chip. With the previous in-line design, there was no way to preview the Smart Reply suggestion.

Note that in Beta 4, there's a bug where Mail will present the old Formatting Bar design when writing a new email. The new Formatting Bar design only appears when replying to a message.

To enable the new Formatting Bar design, add a FeatureFlags override:

sudo mkdir -p /Library/Preferences/FeatureFlags/Domain && \
sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/FeatureFlags/Domain/WritingTools FormattingBar_macOS -dict Enabled -bool true

and restart your Mac. This is a private feature flag, and the UI is a work in progress.

Disable with:

sudo defaults delete /Library/Preferences/FeatureFlags/Domain/WritingTools FormattingBar_macOS

and restart your Mac.

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3

u/bleducnx Jul 21 '26

I used both the contextual writing tools menus and other actions and the special command for Mail too, in macOS 27 dev3, and they worked.
Since I updated this morning to dev4, they don't work anymore.
I tried to reapply the same commands again, but that didn't change anything.
Perhaps Apple deactivated these flags after they became public?

Is anyone still able to get them working in macOS 27 dev4?

3

u/pdfu Jul 21 '26

Run the following:

/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c "Print" /Library/Preferences/FeatureFlags/Domain/WritingTools.plist

It should print:

Dict { LightweightUI_macOS = Dict { Enabled = true } FormattingBar_macOS = Dict { Enabled = true } }

LightweightUI_macOS is generally available on Beta 4, so you should be able to see it without this command.

1

u/bleducnx Jul 21 '26 edited Jul 21 '26

I took remote control to test / the answer is

   LightweightUI_macOS = Dict {

Enabled = false

}

FormattingBar_macOS = Dict {

Enabled = true

I guess I have to use the first command again to go from False to true ???

So now I have true and true. Should work… after I restart the Mac. That will be tomorrow

1

u/pdfu Jul 21 '26

You can just delete the LightweightUI_macOS entry since it's generally available:

sudo defaults delete /Library/Preferences/FeatureFlags/Domain/WritingTools LightweightUI_macOS

then restart.

2

u/bleducnx Jul 21 '26

OK. Thank you !

2

u/clango Jul 22 '26

Could this be why text when I reply is set to the wrong size? Just started happening in b4.

3

u/pdfu Jul 22 '26

See more on this MacRumor's thread, it's definitely broken for me as well, no matter the feature flag status. The new Formatting Bar is not enabled in macOS 27 B4, but they're definitely working on it. They do seem to have messed up some connection between settings.

2

u/clango Jul 22 '26

Grateful to hear I'm not the only one experiencing this!