Resolving Mail Problems After OS X 10.10.4 Update
Some Mac Mail users have discovered that Mail app misbehaves after updating to OS X 10.10.4 (and some with OS X 10.11 El Capitan) particularly with Exchange and Gmail accounts, but it can happen with other email provider services as well. Typically the problem manifests in one of a few ways; eMail logins suddenly stall or fail, Mail app fails to check for new email, Mail app fails to send emails, or Mail app just doesn’t do anything at all and will basically hang on launch as a never-ending server connection is attempted but fails to establish.
If the only issue you are experiencing pertains to sending email out of Mail app, then try these two tricks to fix SMTP sending errors in Mail for OS X, that fix continues to work in this situation. On the other hand, if you’re having login errors and problems checking for new email as well as sending, we have another solution which many users report to be successful.
Fix Problematic Mail Account Settings After OS X Updates
- Open Mail app in OS X, then pull down the “Mail” menu and go to “Preferences”
- Now go to the “Accounts” tab, and select the email account which the problem is occurring for, then click on the “Advanced” tab
- Look for the box titled “Automatically detect and maintain account settings”, then do as follows depending on what situation you find:
- If it is unchecked, check it – then relaunch Mail app
- If it is checked, uncheck it, then quit and relaunch Mail app, then go back to the same preference setting and check the box again, then relaunch Mail app yet again
- Repeat this process for other email accounts in Mail app if necessary
Yes relaunching and re-checking a box is a little frustrating and can be a little tedious, but it does seem to work to resolve any problems with Mail app, as the automatic detection of mail account settings will adjust server settings to accommodate the Mail app configuration.
If you’ve completed this and OS X Mail app still hangs on launch but does not offer any obvious errors, your next troubleshooting step should be to rebuild the Mailbox as described here, which should resolve that issue.
That should resolve whatever Mail problems have occurred in OS X after installing OS X 10.10.4 or OS X 10.11 El Capitan, but if you continue to encounter trouble, specifically with
SMTP mail accounts, these solutions should do the trick.
Not all users encounter this issue with Mail app after installing an OS X update, and though the reason is unclear, it’s possible the problematic setups had configured an email account some time ago, and could be using legacy settings for a specific mail server. In some situations, you may find the port number or mail server address has changed once the new settings have been detected from the mail server, and the problem will resolve itself accordingly.
I got to this directive
Now go to the “Accounts” tab, and select the email account which the problem is occurring for, then click on the “Advanced” tab
But there is NO ADVANCED tab on my Email preference accounts page. I have MAC OS High Sierra V. 10.13.3
Also when I click on a new email, I have to double click it for it to open. I did not have to do this before. All I did was click on the new email and it opened.
That’s what I ran into on High Sierra: no Advanced tab.
I did notice the double-clicking for a new email, but what troubles me more is that the email I click in the list is not the email text on the right. I’m hesitant to reply to or delete anything.
For instance, the list says I have an email from Susan, but the text on the right says it’s a message from my bank. When I click Reply, the response says “Susan wrote:” but the quoted message is from the bank.
I’d appreciate suggestions.
outside emails that come in with attachments of Excel spread sheets are received in as a winmail.dat. They are unreadable and they us to come in as an Excel spread sheet. What can I change or do the receive a readable Excel spread sheet?
Thanks! I could not receive email (AOL) on my Macbook (OS Mavericks) I re-entered my PW and changed my port setting to 993 and that did the trick!
After years of IMAP timeouts and related headaches, this solved it for me: PRAM reset.
https://discussions.apple.com/message/26974748#message26974748
Finally!
I cannot create a new POP mailbox anymore!
I had been having problems with Mail in OS X 10.11, El Capitan. It kept asking for my password and then telling me it was incorrect. I use Yahoo mail and had my Mail program on my MBP set up for POP3. Worked fine for the last 8 years but now… I tried everything I could think of including erasing the keychain password entries related to Yahoo mail. I logged off Yahoo Mail in my web browser and logged back in using the same password and it worked fine in the browser, just not via the Mac Mail program.
Finally I thought, fine, I will delete this mailbox in OS X and build a new one and see what happens. That’s when I discovered I can’t create a POP mailbox anymore. Under “Add Account” I click “Other mail account”. I put in my Yahoo.com address and it creates an IMAP account for me instead of giving me the option of creating a POP account. I tried doing the same thing with Gmail with the same results (and I already have a Google POP account) so it’s not just Yahoo. It seems to be in the Mail program. Any solutions?
I agree with you James. I have also given up on Apple Mail after good five years of using it with fun and excitement. In addition to Mail, I am also getting issues with my Apple Calender syncing with Office 365!
I am going back to boring Microsoft Outlook! I should add I am finding the Outlook ‘search’ accuracy and speed better than Apple Mail now!
And as you said, if Steve Jobs was still alive! A good case study showing how vital is the role of a great leader.
I have a solution (maybe some of you have done the same). My time is too important to troubleshooting weekends and evenings on-end like many of you. I finally decided to download Mozilla Thunderbird, install (took only 80 sec) put in my email address & password and BAM! Problem fixed!!! All my IMAP messages previously read and unread are there. I checked the box to integrate Apple Mail and all the mailboxes show with exception to Smart Boxes. I have yet to figure out how to transfer and setup those in T-Bird.
But, after three weeks of not being able to check mail and ripping out hair, screaming explitives, I now have peace. APPLE get your OS right! Man o’ man, if only Steve Jobs were alive today!
With my problem when I click to send a composed email the Mac Mail App starts flashing between the composed mail and the main view.
I cannot implement the instructions above because in Mail Preferences where the above shows “Advanced” the same tab is shown as “Server Settings” on my App.
BTW, I’m running Sierra 10.12.1 OS
I cannot use this advice because my Automatically detect and maintain account settings is grey and not checkable.
Still having the same problems on El Capitan, and none of these things fix it. I cannot send mail, and it says the outgoing server is offline. I’m not sure what to do, and I’ve tried these fixes plus several others. I hope they put an update out soon.
Same problem here … mail cannot be fixed .. will not accept an outgoing sever and I can’t send no matter what little fix they propose. I can go into my fatcow account and get all my mail and it functions fine. This may well be my last Apple…
Fully agree… with Apple losing its way. I used to hail Apple’s integrative and functional simplicity to PC users – but now they’ve gone the same way.
EL CAPITAN, ABSOLUTELY JUNK!! NO MORE APPLE FOR ME! i HAD IT WITH THIS PISS OF JUNK!
Joo, you should take some classes for that.. El capitan is working fine without any issues. sometimes the issue is with the user you know :)
Great! suddenly it was impossible to send messages and to put anything to the trash; I had to force the quitting ’cause Mail standing by… after your medicine everything seems to work again: I would be curious to understand what happened but thanks a lot!
/Users/hugoknight/Dropbox/Screenshots/Screenshot 2016-03-23 10.13.59.png
It seems to get stuck here. It shows the little loading symbol then…. nothing. It just stops there. I even reduced the amount of mail it downloads from gmail so as not to slow down the process
Tried to show a screenshot there. Don’t think it worked
Hi All,
I cannot even meet the first step:
“Open Mail app in OS X, then pull down the “Mail” menu and go to Preferences”
When I open mail, it goes immediately to trying to connect to my google account via asking for my email and password etc.
The preference option does not exist.
Any suggestions?
My best
Hugo
Thank you!!!
On top of all the issues listed here, my Mail disappears after I receive a notification. It’s like the Notification actually deletes the mail.
I see the Notification long enough to read the Subject then poof, gone!
However when I log into the Godaddy webmail the missing email is right there.
I’ve checked all my SMTP settings but nothing is wrong. I’m just hoping someone else is experiencing this and it’s not my Machine.
Thanks
A.
I was able to fix the issue after changing to port 587 with SSL enabled. 993 would not work for me.
I experienced a lot of Mail problems after upgrading to El Capitan. A number of people suggested rebuilding mailboxes, which doesn’t fix all problems but may fix some. Others suggested removing the evelope index and rebuilding the database http://c-command.com/spamsieve/help/how-can-i-rebuild-apple This is probably a good idea. It didn’t fix Mail for me which sometimes gets caught in a loop of “apparently” downloading huge numbers of messages (which don’t exist). I found a fix…
1. Quit mail
2. Go to web mail (access your inbox via a browser with same login as in Mail)
3. Delete one message (preferably spam)
4. Open Mail
It should be functoning normally. So far this has worked for me, but as they say, the mileage varies. Good luck.
PS It doesn’t have to be web mail, it can be any access to your mail where you can actually see the inbox with messages in it. I set up mail on an older Mac (leaving messages on the server so as not to lose them) and I could see the real messages in the inbox and delete one. After doing this I restarted El Capitan Mail and it worked.
El Capitan should be called El Crap! I shouldn’t have upgraded it. Sigh.
Hi…,
If the title box is not active, what should I do first.
So that I can do what you suggest, thanks b4.
Hi. For some reason it’s not an option for me to uncheck this box as it’s greyed out. Any ideas? My problem is just that it doesn’t show me when I have attachments, but I have no problem downloading them from the menu.
I have El Capitan v. 10.11.2.
Thanks
Repeated password requests from “Internet Accounts” preferences pane resolved for us by clearing out all KEYCHAIN entires to email accounts/hosting domain (un/checking did nothing, nor did allowing “unsecure” connections – prob. not advisable anyway). I noticed that the new credentials are stored as “com.apple.account.IMAP.password” and may have been in conflict with the old ones, say, “mail.mywebsite.com”.
YAYYYYYY! Thank you for the correct solution after an hour of frustration. The unchecking and rechecking the box worked for me. My Gmail and Yahoo/ATT/SBC Accounts were fine, it was the two for my websites provided through Godaddy that got fouled up. All fixed now.
Similar to above comment i had no incoming/outgoing mail using my POP GoDaddy managed email, GoDaddy advised me it was Apple phasing out being able to use POP? and that i would have to upgrade to an IMAP account at considerable cost, Apple blamed GoDaddy. Un-checking and restarting allowed it to work immediately.
Many thanks.
I have a problem since upgrading to El Capitain which only relates to my i Cloud account, my own POP accounts work fine.
If I delete or move an email from my iCloud account I get a default box to tell me an error has occurred, so nothing gets deleted. I have tried rebuilding and deleting/reinstalling the iCloud account both work for a few minutes then the error message comes back any suggestions
After upgrading to Max OS El Capitan, I could no longer use Apple Mail to get new email from my POP account from GoDaddy. However, the webmail interface to GoDaddy email continued to work. Apple Mail would complain “username not recognized”.
After reading the article I turned off “Automatically detect and maintain account settings” and it immediately got my emails. I have not reset to flag.
I rarely add comments to discussions, however, this really helped.
Thank you very much!!
Apple’s quality control has gone into the toilet across all their products. I’ve been using their products since 1987.
Thank you very much for this post. Luckily, I found it, and it solved my problem in 5 minutes, while I read somewhere people spent 3-4hours trying to fix their mailboxes. So you saved me my time.
Thank you!
hi, today imail stop working :( (OSX EL Capitan ) i try everithing but nothing, im not receiving mails i can send but no receive, i see that each time i launch again the app some information change port / server, i have installed 7 mail accounts and al worked properly until EL Capitan :(
this article is so helpful would have helped me before i had to complete reinstall my mac… i had a complete meltdown and it appears that the mail program was the problem…i chatted with apple for 8 hours and then we reinstalled everything from my time machine… first we thought its the virus program…
would it not be easier if you have an update that it comes with an explanation what might happen?
i am scared to download new updates and i haven ‘t downloaded el captain as i am very happy that my mac now runs fine!!!
Remember the adage “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”, because it applies to software updates as well. If you like the way it is now, don’t try to change it. The updates often break more than they help. All the more so now that software quality has degraded with OS X and iOS!
Perfect! Worked great for me. My problem was with reply. It wouldn’t fetch the correct account to reply from.
Thanks a lot!
//DM
Worked great for me! Thank you! I was having issues receiving POP emails.
Not sure if this will work for everyone, I am no Apple expert but after downloading El Capitan was horrified to find all my emails and folders had disappeared, was looking to take the computer through the Time Machine back to upgrading but saw this solution on here and tried it, it worked for me but the windows I expected to open didn’t! I must point out that I upgraded at 3pm the previous day and went through this process at 9am the following morning – not sure if that will make any difference.
Go to restart, as the Apple logo appears hold down ‘cmd’ and ‘R’ (I had no Apple chime so just held the keys down for about 30 seconds whilst the Apple logo was on screen), then a whole set of various screens appear like you get after upgrade, but once it had processed through all the screens my previous system was back, took some time with a window in the corner saying it was “optimising your Mac”, BUT I got all my emails back…. result! Don’t think I will be changing my OS for some time, can’t risk losing all my emails!!! Good Luck hope this helps others too!
the problem(s) I am having with Mail in El Capitan is
a) when I first launch Mail, it just sits and does nothing and I have to force quit it and relaunch to get it running
b) I have 32G memory on my machine, and when I launch Mail, it eats up almost all of my memory available
I am looking for solutions…..
I downloaded El Capitan last night, but when I try install it I get a crash error report. I looked for solutions online and they suggested to use a USB drive which I tried and it still didn’t work. Now I can’t access my user account at all. I’m using a Macbook Pro 15″ Retina with 16GB RAM. How can I solve this?
I downloaded El Capitan last night, but when I try install it I get a crash error report. I looked for solutions online and they suggested to us a USB drive which I tried and it still didn’t work. Now I can’t access my desktop at all. I’m using a Macbook Pro 15″ Retina with 16GB RAM. How can I solve this?
I just would like to thank, as this had worked for me. Did the uprgrade yesterday to OS X 10.11 El Capitan .
Wow iOs9 major muck-ups and now this. ALL MY MAIL related to gmail didn’t work – the guy on the phone told me to remove the email address and add. All my mucking signatures are gone. For those of you who don’t know what that is, they are like draft emails so I don’t have to write the same thing over and over (I’m in sales)
What bull.
After updating to os x yosemite 10.10.5 my mail keep crashing. When open the app is working for about 2-3 minutes and then crash. Within this time I can receive and send emails. Anyone can help?
sometime it happened to me but now it doesnt hang but unable to receive mails
Our tech person at the organization providing us with hosting services told me yesterday that they have a number of customers with Mac mail problems similar to those reported here. After numerous unsuccessful attempts to help us fix our own problem(s), it was finally suggested that we delete the email account that is not working and reset it up again from scratch (after saving our current emails in a temporary mailbox). I’m going to try this this AM and will report on what happens.
Meanwhile..of interest I was told that most of the problems seem to be occurring with “older” Mac computers..(5 years plus). I have been unable to find anything referring to this possibility via the internet (so far) so would be very interested in hearing any related experiences or comments folks here may have..if any.
Thanks…
What to do if “Automatically detect and maintain account settings” is grayed and cannot be changed?
I’ve been a PC guy since the early 80’s and started with an iPad 4 years ago and MacBooks about 3 years ago. Loved the MacBooks, but lately it’s been horrible. Thanks for the help with the mail hang up, although I monitor 6 separate mail accounts (no link the IBM Verse yet but…)
I also have to say that this last release eats memory like none other. Might be time to look at a Surface…
Good morning,
Firstly thanks to all the previous posts on this issue. I had exactly the same issue and I performed the following steps which has solved the problem:
a) Stop Mail / (Force Quit)
b) Deleted The exchange account from Accounts
c) Moved /Users//Library/Mail/ They get re-downloaded anyway (delete when working)
d) Add new Exchange account (Email Address / username and password)
e) added the External Address of my Exchange URL : https://x.x.x.x/ews/Exchange.asmx ( entered this into the browser first, where it asked me to authenticate and then displayed the x.x.x.x/ews/services.wsdl
f) added the internal address x.x.x.x
g) all worked fine.
You may need to get the URL from your internal IT team or if you have a Windows PC, and are running Outlook 2010 or 2013 you can obtain this information my starting outlook and holding the CTRL key down and right clicking the Outlook icon in the system tray and selecting the Test email Auto configuration. It will pick up your email address, put your password in and hit the TEST key. By doing this the Results page if successful will display the Availability Service which you enter in the external URL as above.. Happy times…
Once again thanks for those that helped.
Hi
I finally figured out the something was fishy with the setup automatically retrieved from the ISP.
It had Internal server = nodename.isp_domain.local
I changed it to = nodename.isp_domain.com
And all my problems went away. Notably doing ping on the new string didn’t resolve to any ip-address. So things are going on that I only can guess about… :-)
/tan
Hi
I looks as if I have the same problem as Tiziano Tazzi.
I have Mac OS X 10.10.5 (14F27) and Mail Version 8.2 (2104).
I have an Exchange account.
When launching Mail it shows two activities in the activity window: (freely translated from some exotic language I use…)
Opening mailbox, requesting latest information
[Exchange] Synchronising with server, examining mail box hierarchy
This “hangs” for about four minutes without Mail consuming any network traffic or CPU.
If you try to fetch mail it seams just to be queued behind the “hanging” activities.
The Mail log say things like:
Sep 6 13:11:20 luckyture-Retina.local Mail[22450] : Fetch asynchronously, already fetching: NO
Sep 6 13:16:11 luckyture-Retina.local Mail[22450] : Background fetch completed
Sep 6 13:16:11 luckyture-Retina.local Mail[22450] : Clearing all background fetches in progress
As you can see it took from 11:20 to 16:11 before any mail could be fetched.
Once the condition has resolved Mail works fine and fetches mail quite snappy.
Could this have anything to do with automatic server configuration detection to do?
/LuckYTure
My Mail app on MBP has started hanging at startup since June.
I’ve tried every possible solution: I even made a clean install with no other programs and then inserted any single mail account: after 3-4 times Mail started to hang while opening it (it does’t download the mails from servers).
The only solution I found up to now is to open Mail while pressing the left shift button, which avoids mail downloading.
Afterwards I can download normally all my accounts.
i just updated to the latest beta 10.11 Beta (15A262e) and MAIL WILL NOT OPEN AT ALL. It is useless on my iMac right now. I have restarted, reset the RAM…not sure what else to do.
Well you’re running a beta OS X version, you shouldn’t be surprised if Mail or other apps don’t work as intended. You’re running a beta, that means it’s not a final version, that means it’s buggy. Maybe if you actually ran OS X 10.10.4 or OS X 10.10.5 you wouldn’t have the same problems.
If you want stable software, don’t run beta software.
The above unfortunately didn’t work for me.
What did (weirdly!?) is going to “Mailbox” > “New Mailbox..” and creating a new mailbox, and then going to “Mailbox” > New Smart Mailbox…”.
Both of these brought up their corresponding dialog boxes with the Mail program in background (previously not showing), and the latter resulted in it staying in the foreground.
For what it’s worth (in case the above doesn’t work for anyone else).
Luke
I have just upgraded to 10.10.5 and the issue still persists. Are they really serious?? This is simply outside my understanding ..
Is your mail ok now though?
After a month of being between apple and my ISP telling me it is not the other I am really hoping this update fixes everything.
It all started a month ago, my emails were all marked as ‘sent’ but some people were not receiving them randomly without any common factor (I would be in the middle of an email conversation and they would just stop getting my emails)
I deleted and re-added my accounts and that worked for about a day and then started again.
I tried a different ISP, which worked for about 36 hours and then the problem kept up.
Anyone have trouble like this before? is it firewall related, or maybe some weird glitch with 10.10.4?
It has been 24hrs and everything seems to be running ok for now…
Anyone else have this issue?
completely the same issue with late 2012 rmbp after 10.10.4 upgrade I started having these kind of issues and non of the solution really worked for me. They break one of the most important app and don’t give a cr*p to release a quick fix .. this I probably hate the most on appl, as they almost NEVER release quick fix if they screw something. What a shame.
Been experiencing problems sending mail from 10.11 Mail app. When trying the password update in article, noted on the outgoing SMTP menu that the port had been changed, “Use SSL” had been unchecked, and in some cases, selected server was changed to “none”. In some cases, I was unable to reconfigure these items. Also noted Apple has changed the Mail file configuration in the Library to now have a V2 and a V3 folder, versus the previous V2 only.
After encountering a strange download in Safari called “Partners”, feel very uncomfortable continuing with 10.11.
So, I have done the check uncheck thing a dozen times, and even restarted my MBP after as well. No luck on getting mail to come in. Any more ideas?
I am pretty dissapointed to say the least, at this issue. I have a starightforward Mac Air with latest updates. Not a complex systems. And the OS update breaks mail? Seriously? I have tried resetting setting settings, rebuild etc. Still wont send any email.
Such an obvious, glaring issue is ridiculous to ship a product with. And if its a security enhancement, there should be a clear and auto upgrade script. Just sending people an OS update that breaks the most basic of user functions is mind boggling.
I use Macs because the ‘just work’ but this was a major foobar.
I feel so embarrassed asking this…
What is the difference between relaunching an app and quitting an app?
The directions say: “If it is unchecked, check it – then RELAUNCH Mail app
If it is checked, uncheck it, then QUIT AND RELAUNCH Mail app,”
I thought relaunching and quitting were the same thing.
I upgraded to OSX 10.10.4 yesterday and immediately following it I could no longer send email from my Gmail accounts.
When I follow the directions for this fix it results in taking down both the IMAP and SMTP. Prior to trying it only the SMTP was down.
I’ve been quitting the mail program after either checking or unchecking the box and maybe that’s the problem. I don’t know how to relaunch while on my iMac.
I also deleted and then re-added them one by one but that didn’t work either.
Quitting an app exits it, relaunching it means opening the app again immediately.
So in this case:
“If it is unchecked, check it – then RELAUNCH Mail app” – This means just quit and re-open Mail app for changes to take effect
“If it is checked, uncheck it, then QUIT AND RELAUNCH Mail app” – This means uncheck the setting, then quit the Mail app, then re-open the Mail app, then check the setting, then relaunch the Mail app again
In the latter scenario it means you have to quit the app for the first change to take effect, then reopen it and apply the change, then reopen it again.
THANK YOU for the tip. Totally worked!
I finally found a solution to my no-send problem out of anger.
After spending an unfruitful 30 minutes on the phone focused on my primary account, I hung up and vengefully DELETED ALL of my #$%& Mac Mail accounts.
I then re-added them one by one. Eureka! Problem solved! I recently migrated to a new computer, so that may have had something to do with it.
who is your ESP ?
My macbook pro running 10.10.4 can access my mail server, but my older macbook pro, also running 10.10.4 with the exact same Mail configuration can NOT access the same mail server with the same account. Makes no sense. I have tried recreating the mail account, removing everything mentioning my server in Keychain Access, creating a totally new login, using Disk Utility to repair permissions, many, many reboots, and now tried the above suggestion 4 times. Nothing works.
Updated to Yosemite 10.10.4. When I try to open the Google account under the Internet accounts preference, it won’t even load that so I can enter a password. Safari won’t open either. Insanely frustrated.
The same Problem… Ist frustraded. I Try clean install, the same problem, NOW back to MAVERIC…… In Mavericks is it without problem….
I have owned and used Apple computers since 1984. I have never used anything else. It seems to me that after Steve Jobs died, the company is putting out crap that doesn’t work. I am on this page because last night, I upgraded to Yosemite 10.10.4 — and today, my e-mail doesn’t work.
Davidpb – Absolutely. Same issue here. Thank goodness for these posts because Apple support sure doesn’t help.
Ok, the update to Mail in last update has fixed the sending Mail issue, however now I have a new problem in mail. The little icons showing if I have replied or forwarded the e-mail now don’t show up beside the messages! A few of them get recorded, but now most of them are just blank. even though the forward of that message is in sent items!
hi
I recently bought a mac book pro in 2015.
the operating system is Yosemite 10.10.4
I unlocked the root account but does not connect with the email app. with the primary account I do not have any problems. in console gives me this error
specifically that this problem gives with all applications by using https with the root user.
the error is reported as follows
“NSURLSession / NSURLConnection HTTP load failed”
how do I fix?
this problem there and also on beta developer el capitan. (beta 3)
MacBook Pro with Retina display, OS X Yosemite (10.10.4)
I lost access to my well.com account when I installed El Capitan Beta.
Long story short, I installed the supplemental update the next day, and regained access.
I typed in my password in the new “Internet Accounts” pane in System Preferences, which has changed, BTW. So the method given above didn’t work.
To reiterate what others above have said, installing a beta version means you want to find bugs and notify the programmer.
If you don’t want bugs, just buy a new computer that works, and never upgrade anything. In ten years, when it stops working because it’s not compatible with the latest version of HTML, or something, trash it and get a new computer that works.
This can be helpful too:
“To make sure that your iOS and OS X clients can connect to your server, use Diffie-Hellman keys with a group size of 2048 bits or greater.
To ensure security and privacy for your users, and interoperability with Apple products, server administrators should use a group size of 2048 bits or greater when using Diffie-Hellman key exchange.”
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204932
I had this problem with two gmail accounts. I couldn’t find a fix anywhere! Resetting the “Automatically detect…” worked like a charm. Thanks so much for the info!
Not had any of these mail problems with 10.10.4.
They failed to mention the third option. By a Late 2011 MacBook Pro switch back to Snow Leopard and enjoy a smooth trouble free existence on ALL fronts. I just can’t update past Snow Leopard (And I’ve tried 10.7, 10.8, 10.9 and 10.10). I’m a producer and DJ and all subsequent releases have introduced bloat and extra processes I don’t need running in the background stealing precious CPU that I could devote to Pro Tools for instance. I don’t need to check Twitter and FaceBook or Stocks. I just need my system to be stable and trouble free which I haven’t found beyond Snow Leopard. Like someone mentioned above every update breaks something vital which they should ever do. Yes you can bring new features but not at the expense of the core functionality. One day I will be forced to switch I’m sure but I’m going to milk this 10.6 (I almost forgot Rosetta!) experience for as long as I can.
I had the same problem after OS 10.10.4 upgrade on a MacBook Pro.
I found the following solution: to start the Mail application, press the SHIFT key and simultaneously click the Mail icon. And the Mail application will function normally.
Pressing the shift key and simultaneously clicking or holding down the Mail icon seemed to work for me. Thanks Gilbert Litzistorf.
YES!!! Gilbert, you are a true Apple genius! The SHIFT key was the answer!
Hello,
I have the same problem here. I have no other choice than opening Mail with shift key down :-(
Can anybody tell me what is happening (or not happening) when shift key is down ?
This could help me to find out why Mail is hanging everytime I try to launch it normally …
Thanks
(Mac OS 10.10.5)
tried looking for -/Library/Mail/V2/MailData/ and states file not found. Do I have a problem?
For those who do not use Mail, but do use home wi-fi, is it safe to download 10.10.4?
Is the function to have MAIL reorder it’s inbox (or other) list by sender, subject, etc?
This is VERY useful, but I can no longer find it.
Maybe this is another topic.
Thanks
I had the same issue after I downloaded the update. First, I could not get mail to download from gmail then mail just crashed every time I opened it.
I had to erase each mailbox I had and download the emails again from the server. Took me the day to do. Frustrating. Called applecare and they were truly professional at the senior level and worked through the issue with me, but still a frustrating day at the office.
There have been several Mail problems in past updates to. Why Mail in particular seems to keep having problems is beyond me and in beta releases, that is one are that should be tested even more. As for me, I am on OS X 10.8.5 on my 2011 iMac and Mail works fine for me. The updates are nice but since everything works for me as is, I am not going to rock the boat. It’s a shame things have to be that way. It would be nice if we could just download updates and they just work.
I guess I can understand Apple’s desire to add this “feature” to Mail, but it has caused problems for my Mac using customers. It is because of this that I published a knowledge base article describing how to turn this off. The “feature” still exists in El Capitan, but Apple added something to the setup process that was not there before. Users can now custom define their incoming and outgoing ports. Before El Capitan, we had to change the setting after setting up our mail account. This is a welcome change.
You will find as comments to many of the Yosemite updates–and now El Capitan it seems–about the breaking of a basic feature: Mail.
Because no one uses e-mail these days. What I hear is The Kids These Days actually manually compose their angst infested poem on a thing called “paper” which they then fold and insert into what is called an “envelope” to which they then affix a “stamp” and then trust Your Government to lose within two weeks. That an The Hip Hop.
Along with dropping WiFi signals it is nice to know that after two major OS releases we have only “minor issues.”
Now excuse me, I need to find my quill so I may compose a strongly-worded missive to Cupertino where I really give them a piece of my mind tell you what!
After 10.10.4 update I am not able to download attachments to a specific folder. Only drag and drop or “download all” are working…
Me too. Any tip to solve it?
I have tried all the solutions provided here. My Mail App still crashed as soon as I open my Mail App.
Same here. Mail works fine on my iMac but not on my MacBook Air. :-|
To Mark, you mean for every 5,000 items that work seamlessly, you intend to complain in general about the 1 or 2 that don’t? The issue is yours. Get real man… I’m here begin the login fails after updating to 10.10.4. The solution shared here works. It took 3 minutes. When you wear clothes, you have to do your laundry too!
Most people cannot adequately communicate a message verbally to the people in their car and the complaints here have to do with international licensing, and likely software conflicts and personal maintenance habits. Read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and rethink your personal attitude before you post next time. Ridiculous!
Right on😊
I think Mark’s point is that such a modern OS should kind of “sandbox” all the proved and working features in some way that new features wouldn’t never affect them. It’s not a question of how many features break but I can tell you that, since OS X Lion, it’s not just 1 or 2. You have to be a beta-tester every day you use your system to find the most incredible and annoying bugs. Software conflicts and personal maintenance habits have nothing to do with the bugs I find on a clean system install.
This. I realize creating an operating system is a monumental task, but rather than refining/improving the OS with each new iteration Apple’s approach now involves incorporating new half-baked ideas that often don’t work as described (e.g. Handoff/Continuity, Screen share in iMessage, Wifi/bluetooth connectivity issues, and the list goes on…). Apple is really dropping the ball on creating the seamless, relatively glitch-free experience they were once known for. I wish they would give the same attention they give to the hardware that they do to the actual operating system. I want Apple to succeed because I have invested in a lot of their products. However, they really make it tempting to jump ship when they produce substandard bug-filled products.
Worked for me, however I had to follow the procedure twice for one account. Perhaps there is a lag for the new settings to be detected and changed?
We all know that since Jony Ive was put in charge things don’t have to work anymore to pass muster, they just got to look pretty.
Updating has become a farce for example the latest iTunes now include apple radio, but ONLY if you live in the US, so what is the point of the update for the rest of the world.
That might be fine if it actually looked pretty. It doesn’t even do that.
So true, those icons ( or rather lack of ) in the finder windows I thought should have gotten someone fired immediately…
They have remove the ability to disable cloud in iTunes as with the older version you could. Since I don’t use cloud I found another method at system level to disable cloud completely.
Who’s “we all”? I don’t know that.
I have the new MBP Pro 13 at home and everything’s working perfectly, at work I use a 2012 MBPr 13 and have no problems, either, and I use Word and Exchange since we’re on MS.
Seems to me people should manage their expectations. And maybe wait for normal release. It’s one thing for a current build to be buggy, which is rare with Apple products anyway, but wih betas it’s reasonable to expect bugs, it’s not the final product.
Your living in a make believe world. Apple products are going downhill…period! They have been for a few years now. It’s getting worse and worse.
Manage expectations?, I expect my systems to work. Clearly you work for Apple or think you are smarter than everybody else (you’re not).
I’m having a similar issue using with Oulook for Mac 2016 and OSX 10.10.4.
Outlook stops checking for new mail all of a sudden. I have to shut it down and open to get new mail.
Any recommendations on what to do?
Stop using Outlook in OSX. I never understood the benefits of using Outlook in OSX. Under windows I have used it a lot, there it was ok.
Furthermore, I’m not experiencing any problems, Mac Mini late 2009, 10.10.4.
Keep using Outlook I do with no issue , it not the app that’s is is the issue . It’s Yosemite poor network issue still which will cause you endless grief.
Apple is rowing a boat with one oar..!
Apple Mail must be the worst app that Apple has written. It is miserably unprepared for the enterprise and cannot be used effectively in a business setting because it is way too unreliable. I have no tried to switch 4 times after monumental announcements about its new functionality and its improvements. Unfortunately, it’s simply untrue.
Beach balls, endless hangs, no rhyme or reason to all this.
Apple has forgotten it’s core customer in the name of flashy iOS and Watch branding, and left OSX users in the dust.
The exact problems I’m having with my outgoing mail. But I’m on Maverick!
Well even if its for OS X El Cap and Yosem, Give it a try in OS X Mavericks and let us know if it works there too?
Gilbert Litzistorf had the answer: Hold down the SHIFT key while opening the Mail application.
Thank You Gilbert!!!! :) I had a problem that Mail kept flashing between different messages and the message viewer which caused the processor to go nuts. Holding down shift when starting Mail fixed the problem and the problem messages were then able to be closed.
Every OS X update nowadays breaks something while supposedly fixing something else, Apple is really letting loose. It’s hard to believe there is a public beta where people test this stuff, and yet the release comes out and breaks something else.
My strongest lesson with OS X and iOS for the past two years: if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Seriously, unless you have a day or two to spend all troubleshooting, there’s rarely a “feature” worth updating and breaking everything for!
you’re absolutely right Mark. But I have found with my iPad mini that if I don’t eventually download the update-which I’d really rather not as much of it is just memory eating crap-i.e. The iPhone watch and a few others I can’t get rid of, my iPad starts to act wonky and DL’ing the update is the only way to get it to act right again. Yes, Apple techs must be justifying their pay checks with this garbage
This is so true. Seriously, who has that much time to troubleshoot these constant bugs? Sadly, Apple has really lost its focus on producing smooth running software. The Apple “magic” is transforming into Apple frustration.
You’re right Mark. After El Capitan, I could not send POP mail. The only solution that I found finally worked was to delete the mail account, close and re-open Mail and re-establish the account. Irritating to say the least!
Keith, when I opened Outlook all my email and folders had disappeared after upgrading to OX El Capitan Ddi this happen to U too?
Have you managed to retrieve your emails. Mine have all disappeared too after upgrading to EI Captain. And some of the emails are really important. I didn’t think we still had to print off important stuff anymore. Upgrade – more like downgrade. Some one please help
I have the same problem; but when I delete the account, close and reopen mail (or even restart the MBP – twice!) it says the account already exists, so I cannot re-open it or re-enter the passwords and settings for it. So Mail is unusable with El Capitan so far! I think I have more trouble with this than since my first Mac in 1987!
I was hesitant to ‘upgrade’ to el capitan however did so out of need as the latest MS excel would not work with an online version without it, apparently. Now my mac mail inbox does not display message body and no idea how to fix it. I am starting to despise Apple as i did Microsoft. Guys, why not just leave things alone that work! Trying to run a business and wasting time on this is infuriating to say the least. Why can’t Apple have their own beta testers test, bug fix, test and approve once 100% as opposed to having us guinea pigs waste valuable time, resources and money. If anyone knows the fix to this, I’d be delighted to hear from you. Thanks
Same exact problem. Not every mail and not every time but often enough that I want to throw my MAC Book Pro out the window. Have you been able to resolve this problem?