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I'm having a problem with Mail app. It will not launch. Just get a spinner and I have to force quit it eventually. The main mail window never appears.
I have restarted which does not fix the issue.
Running Big Sur 11.6.
MacBook Air 13″, macOS 11.6
The next thing would be to delete the Mail Container.
Look in ~/Library/Containers for the first item named Mail. Get info on it and make sure the name and extension says com.apple.mail. Delete that folder. If it isn't com.apple.mail, select one of the others and repeat until it is the correct one.
Try starting again.
The final try would be to delete the Mail folder from ~/Library.
~/Library is your user Library and you can get into it by holding down the Option key and select Library from the Go menu in Finder.
The next thing would be to delete the Mail Container.
Look in ~/Library/Containers for the first item named Mail. Get info on it and make sure the name and extension says com.apple.mail. Delete that folder. If it isn't com.apple.mail, select one of the others and repeat until it is the correct one.
Try starting again.
The final try would be to delete the Mail folder from ~/Library.
~/Library is your user Library and you can get into it by holding down the Option key and select Library from the Go menu in Finder.
Try starting Mail while holding down the Shift key.
That should prevent it from trying to open a mailbox and message.
If it opens, select a mailbox. If it crashes or hangs.
Open again holding down shift key.
Drag the divider between the message list and preview pane all the way to the edge so the preview pane is closed.
Select the same mailbox.
The first message in the mailbox might be corrupted and cause mail to hang or crash.
You can try to open it by double clicking, or try to view it from your email provider's web portal. You may have to move or delete the message to get Mail to work correctly.
Gary Looft wrote:
Thanks Barney. I opened Mail holding shift key but it still hung and beachballed. I guess the problem is with the app?
Not really. It is with some configuration file the app uses. That's not easy to figure out.
Are all of your accounts IMAP (or similar server based)?
Do you have any email in On My Mac?
First, I noticed that Mail is eventually launching. If I let it spin for 4-5 minutes Mail will open. So I quit it and tried again. It took 4-5 minutes again.
I removed the iCloud email account in Internet Accounts, relaunched Mail and once again, it beachballed and it took 4-5 minutes for the Mail window to appear which contained no accounts.
Is there some preference files that should be trashed?
Thanks Barney. I opened Mail holding shift key but it still hung and beachballed. I guess the problem is with the app?
Only one iCloud account - IMAP. No email on the Mac. I have another Mac with the same email account and Mail works fine on that one.
First, try removing the iCloud email account (deselect iCloud Mail in Internet Accounts).
See if Mail will open. It might ask to add an account.
Then, re-add the iCloud Mail (opposite way).
Deleting the ~/Library/Containers/Mail (com.apple.mail) folder did not fix the problem but deleting ~/Library/Mail did fix the problem. Thank you Barney!
Gary
That's great, cuz there was nothing left.
Mail will not launch
