Bold shortcut not working in apple mail and text edit

OldToad wrote:

⌘-B is not a shortcut burt a menu option:

https://discussions.apple.com/content/attachment/00ee738a-fa6b-4377-a934-2b3beb2a1b55

And it only works in Rich Text mode in Mail. Not in Plain Text mode.

When in Plain Text mode, Command-B should bring up this window asking if the user wants to switch to Rich Text:

But for some reason, in the case of the OP, it is not working (although italic and underlined DO work.

We have not yet found a solution.

I am using macOS Sequoia v15.2 and the ⌘B keyboard shortcut to toggle bold (selected) text works just fine in Apple Mail and TextEdit. The latter requires one to have formatting set to Rich Text, not Plain text.

The first paragraph was true when I took delivery of this M4 Mac Mini Pro in Fall 2024 with an older version of Sequoia on it.

As to why you do not have a standard keyboard shortcut in the two mentioned applications, I have no idea, unless you or an installed application have remapped some keys at some point. This shortcut works reliably even when the keyboard input source is changed to several other choices.

Luis Sequeira1 wrote:

Did you test in Safe Mode? Please do. If the problem disappears in Safe Mode, then it is surely caused by some third party software interference.

If it remains, then probably you have assigned Command-B to something else.

If you Open the Format menu, do you see Command-B listed as the shortcut?

https://discussions.apple.com/content/attachment/40900c8d-21bf-4f81-9f36-4c6901b94a54

FWIW, I write all e-mail in plain text, and if I press Command-B (or Command-I, or Command-U) Mail immediately asks me if I want to switch to rich text. Can you test if it does the same for you, or if it only does that for the other two shortcuts?

Yes, it does the same for me. Bold and underline can't be displayed in plain text. It has to be Rich Text.

Unless you're using a true VPN tunnel, such as between you and your employer's, school's or bank's servers, they provide false security from a privacy standpoint.  Read these articles:  Pubic VPN's are anything but public and Security Risks: The Dangers of Using Free VPNs (eccu.edu).  

Did you test in Safe Mode? Please do. If the problem disappears in Safe Mode, then it is surely caused by some third party software interference.

If it remains, then probably you have assigned Command-B to something else.

If you Open the Format menu, do you see Command-B listed as the shortcut?

FWIW, I write all e-mail in plain text, and if I press Command-B (or Command-I, or Command-U) Mail immediately asks me if I want to switch to rich text. Can you test if it does the same for you, or if it only does that for the other two shortcuts?

Unless you're using a true VPN tunnel, such as between you and your employer's, school's or bank's servers, they provide false security from a privacy standpoint.  Read these articles:  Pubic VPN's are anything but public and Security Risks: The Dangers of Using Free VPNs (eccu.edu).  

You an do what I did, set to use Rich text as the default format in Mail.

This makes me think that the Command-B shortcut may have been assigned to something else. You can try as a test: assign a new shortcut, for example Command-Control-Option-B and see if that works. If it does, check very carefully if Command-B appears somewhere else in the menus of submenus. For a more granular test, assign the shortcut on Mail only and compare how the two applications behave.

Have you installed and run any "cleaning", "optimizing", "speed-up", anti-virus or VPN apps on your Mac?

⌘-B is not a shortcut burt a menu option:

And it only works in Rich Text mode in Mail. Not in Plain Text mode.