HT201065: What to do before selling or giving away your Mac

Learn about What to do before selling or giving away your Mac
nrhbrussow

Q: I ONLY want to remove Apple mail

I ONLY want to remove Apple mail without doing a full reformat. How can I do this?

MacBook Pro (15-inch Late 2008), OS X Mavericks (10.9)

Posted on Aug 30, 2015 12:24 PM

Close

Q: I ONLY want to remove Apple mail

  • All replies
  • Helpful answers

  • by Csound1,Helpful

    Csound1 Csound1 Aug 30, 2015 12:26 PM in response to nrhbrussow
    Level 9 (50,252 points)
    Desktops
    Aug 30, 2015 12:26 PM in response to nrhbrussow

    You don't. Mail is a part of the OS, just don't use it, or if it is not working please explain.

  • by MrHoffman,Helpful

    MrHoffman MrHoffman Aug 30, 2015 12:38 PM in response to nrhbrussow
    Level 6 (15,612 points)
    Mac OS X
    Aug 30, 2015 12:38 PM in response to nrhbrussow

    Load Linux or BSD.  That's how you get full configuration access, and the ability and the control to maintain or delete or add... anything. 

     

    Or you can delete Mail.app, and go fully unsupported — not something that's known to work, and you'll be learning what might happen, if anything.  The Mail.app stuff will get returned by various repair and upgrade procedures of course, so you'll have to delete it after recovery and likely also after upgrades.  (This assuming that something doesn't expect Mail.app to be present and tip over.)

     

    Otherwise — and this is the preferred and the supported approach — control-click on the icon in the Dock and select Options > Remove from Dock, and continue onward with whatever tools you do use, and whatever apps are shown in your dock.

  • by Allan Eckert,

    Allan Eckert Allan Eckert Aug 30, 2015 12:40 PM in response to nrhbrussow
    Level 9 (53,469 points)
    Desktops
    Aug 30, 2015 12:40 PM in response to nrhbrussow

    Why do you want to remove Mail?

     

    What do you hope to gain by doing that?

  • by nrhbrussow,

    nrhbrussow nrhbrussow Aug 30, 2015 1:52 PM in response to Allan Eckert
    Level 1 (0 points)
    iPad
    Aug 30, 2015 1:52 PM in response to Allan Eckert

    I'm letting my grand-daughter use my secondary MacBook and she doesn't need access to my email.

  • by Csound1,

    Csound1 Csound1 Aug 30, 2015 1:55 PM in response to nrhbrussow
    Level 9 (50,252 points)
    Desktops
    Aug 30, 2015 1:55 PM in response to nrhbrussow

    Then just remove the email account, leave Mail onboard but without an account it will not function.

  • by Király,

    Király Király Aug 30, 2015 3:36 PM in response to nrhbrussow
    Level 6 (9,807 points)
    Aug 30, 2015 3:36 PM in response to nrhbrussow

    Make her her own user account (System Preferences -> Users & Groups -> + button) and have her use that. She won't see your email or any of your other files in your home folder.

  • by MrHoffman,

    MrHoffman MrHoffman Aug 30, 2015 4:56 PM in response to nrhbrussow
    Level 6 (15,612 points)
    Mac OS X
    Aug 30, 2015 4:56 PM in response to nrhbrussow

    Enable parental controls on the account, and keep the admin account to yourself.

     

    FWIW, your granddaughter will quickly know more about computing than you or I do, and will learn much about you, too.   Kids are smart like that, and very perceptive.  But you know this.