Mac Mini Early 2009 Mail keeps shutting down

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Level 1

8 points

Mac Mini Early 2009 Mail keeps shutting down

My Mac Mini running El Capitan 10.11.6 (can't upgrade) has just started shutting down Mail everytime I try to open it. This started last night. I click on it to open. It opens and within 1 second shuts down and shows the message that "Mail shut down, do I want to send a report?"

Everything else is working fine. What can be happening? Can I just reload Mail? Does this mean the end for my computer? I know that I need to replace it with a new one soon...

Thanks!

Janna

Mac mini, OS X 10.11

Posted on Feb 23, 2021 4:49 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Joe Crow

Level 1

45 points

Feb 24, 2021 11:18 AM in response to WeildOne

That was happening to me for a while, about a month or so ago. It's something about specific messages in your inbox pinging back to the server that crashes Mail. It stopped doing it with mine after about a month, but in the meantime, what worked was opening your mailbox on the web server, and figuring out what message(s) are blowing up your app. Timeconsuming, but it does work.

Just open and delete the first unopened message in the queue on the webserver, and then try to reopen the Mail app and see if it crashes. It'll probably take a few messages to figure out which one(s) are doing it. And then you can just repeat the process everytime you get a message from that source, or you can temporarily block them, or whatever you want. Like I said, it's a hassle, but it works.

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Answer 2

WeildOne Author

Level 1

8 points

Feb 24, 2021 1:53 PM in response to Joe Crow

Thanks for your response. I looked up various options online and basically what you described was the first option many people listed. I opened Mail while holding the left Shift key down. This opens Mail without opening any message. Then you can slide the preview window out of view by moving the vertical divider between the list and the preview window all the way to the right. Then you can delete messages and try opening Mail again until the message that is causing the problem is gone.

I actually just went to my email account online and moved the latest 100 messages out of the inbox then opened Mail. Then I could add the messages back to the inbox a chunk at a time until I found the one that caused the problem. I deleted that message and then I was all good. Apparently it is just a message that is corrupt or infected or somehow messed up that causes Mail to keep quitting as soon as it opens. Get rid of that message and Mail works fine!

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Mac Mini Early 2009 Mail keeps shutting down

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