Lion Mail: Show “to” line (or details view) in messages

Question

Mail in Lion hides the "to" address by default in the message view pane -- you have to click "Details" to show it. Is there a way to always show the "to" address? I need to know if messages went to a group, me directly, or several people.

Answer 1

1. Go to Mail;
2. Preferences;
3. Select the Viewing tab
4. Choose "Custom" on the "Show header detail:" pulldown. This will present you with a list of fields. Remove the ones you don't want using the minus button, then click Ok.

For some reason, if you choose the other settings in that pulldown, the email you're viewing updates immediately to show your new preferences, but when choosing custom, you have to click away to another email first. This can be confusing because it looks like the Custom setting isn't doing anything.

Answer 2

It's not possible. It would show two or possibly more addresses (imagine multiple recipients, both via To and Cc) without labels, none of which need to be actually you, so from a design point of view, it doesn't make sense to show those fields.

Mail remembers which headers view you've chosen last: the reduced or the detailed one. Just keep the detailed view with your (possibly custom, like @ian explains) headers, and forget about this feature.