Mail App Opens Randomly Mojave 10.14.5

For anyone who did not see my solution/workaround from a while back in this thread, i'll link to it here https://discussions.apple.com/thread/250385204?answerId=251388086022#251388086022. It includes quite detailed instructions, but the basic idea is that two step authentication for gmail does not work properly in the Mail app. The workaround is to not use the built-in google preset when adding the account. Instead manually set it up (which is quite easy as well) with an "App password" set up in the google account. For me, this has worked for over two months without mail ever opening since.

Thank you so much, I think this is the right solution. I also noticed that every time when the Mail app popped out, it tried to reconnect my gmail accounts. So I think the reason is the Mail app does not support 2-step authentication well. After I switched to the App password, the randomly open issue never happened again to me.

I KNOW THE ANSWER. I was plagued for many months with this problem and tried everything I could think of. Whenever I watched a video full screen the Mail program, sooner or later, would pop up demanding half the screen. It was infuriating. Then on another site I read a suggestion, have followed it, and can say that it works. When you are done with Apple Mail and want to put it away, DO NOT CLICK THE RED X (the leftmost dot). Instead, CLICK THE YELLOW MINUS SIGN (the middle dot) to minimize it Then the app thinks, okay, I am still on but I am minimized, and it stays off the screen. Apparently if you click the red X the app thinks, I am closed -- but I may have to open, and it will open apparently at random. But if its minimized it won't intrude on the screen unless you tell it to. I watched a whole movie full screen without the Mail app opening.

Hey everyone. I think I found a fix or at least it's working for me.

I have only two email accounts on my computer - an exchange server for work and a gmail for my personal email. Mail was popping up randomly and it was becoming super annoying. Once, it popped up during a presentation. I was less than thrilled.

My solution:

Delete your Gmail account from your Internet Accounts in System Preferences. I don't use my Google Calendar too much so I wasn't worried about losing it from the Calendar app so this might be a bummer for those who rely on their Google Calendar if they are using it in the Calendar app. You might be able to add your Google Calendar separately, but I've tried a couple of things setting it up as a CalDAV account but I haven't had much luck yet.

So I added my Gmail in the options where it asks to "Add Other Account..." and chose Mail Account. When I went to sign in, I was getting an error that my user name and password were incorrect. That's where I found somewhere online that I need to go to https://myaccount.google.com/lesssecureapps and turn this on. Once I did that, I was able to sign in through mail with my Gmail username and password and all my mail was instantly back.

Haven't had Mail popup since.

Hope that helps.

This new version 2 of the Mac OS did not cure the problem for me. BUT I have had success with a very simple workaround, which is that when I close Apple Mail, I use the yellow center button in the line of red, yellow and green buttons in the upper left. This command minimizes the application window , which does not then seemingly randomly pop up again until I deliberately reopen Mail. This has worked for me. If I close Mail by clicking on the red button, then it is subject to being reopened by some flaw in the application or the OS. But if you click the yellow button and minimize it, then I think that the application still thinks of itself as remaining open, so it remains minimized and off the screen.

The problem that I had was that when I was watching some video using the full screen, Apple Mail would, seemingly randomly, open next to it, taking up half the screen. I would close Mail, only to have it reopen later, by itself, again taking half the space of the screen. But if I minimize Mail rather than closing it, I don't have this problem. I had hope that Apple would solve this in their next revision of the OS, but it has not. I think that it is outrageous that they do not even acknowledge this problem. But the workaround still works.

Google calendar notifications (was not the solution for me):

https://www.google.de/amp/s/amp.reddit.com/r/MacOS/comments/7d81ak/solution_for_those_who_have_the_mail_app_randomly/

And for the gmail app password go to

https://myaccount.google.com/intro/security

or just google for „security gmail“

then login to your gmail account

there you will find „app passwords“

generate a new password for „mail“ + „macos“ and use this password for your set up in Apple Mail. I set up Apple Mail manually and used this password for imap and smtp. (And am using 2factor authentification)

Hope you get it fixed, it was very annoying for me, too. I invested several hours to fix this. :(

Create a new test user account https://support.apple.com/en-in/HT204443

And then configure mail account https://support.apple.com/en-in/guide/mail/mail35803/mac

Might be issues with disk utility see this article https://support.apple.com/en-in/guide/disk-utility/dskutl1040/mac

This method is only to verify the disk performance and harmless .

I was hoping that with Catalina the problem would be solved, instead here I am.

Looking for a solution I tried to activate the logging of the connection status (from Mail menu: Windows -> Connection Status).

Examining the log when the Mail app is popping up, I found out these error messages at the exactly same time and on every occurrence of the problem (when the app doesn't pop up the error messages don't show up):

READ Oct 10 20:41:21.323 [kCFStreamSocketSecurityLevelTLSv1_2] -- host:imap.gmail.com -- port:993 -- socket:0x6000003b7de0 -- thread:0x60000322d080
5.659 NO [AUTHENTICATIONFAILED] Invalid credentials (Failure)
--
READ Oct 10 20:41:21.427 [kCFStreamSocketSecurityLevelTLSv1_2] -- host:imap.gmail.com -- port:993 -- socket:0x6000003b7de0 -- thread:0x60000322d080
6.659 BAD Invalid SASL argument. z66mb54202756wmc
--
READ Oct 10 20:41:21.732 [kCFStreamSocketSecurityLevelTLSv1_2] -- host:imap.gmail.com -- port:993 -- socket:0x6000003b7de0 -- thread:0x60000322d080
7.659 NO [AUTHENTICATIONFAILED] Invalid credentials (Failure)

(Just posting the lines containing the errors)

The error messages are present only on the log file of my Gmail account, every other mail account doesn't show any error message.

So as many of you, I also think that the problem is due to the Gmail accounts.

Hope this can help to solve the problem in any meaningful way.

disabling gmail calendar notifications did the trick for me. Stable for 2 weeks and counting

This is not a solution for everyone, but I have fixed this for myself by creating two special email addresses in one of my websites' mail-servers, adding their accounts to apple mail, and then in my gmail accounts forwarding my two gmail addresses to these two new email addresses... It only adds a few seconds to the transit of email... I also disabled the two gmail accounts in apple mail (a simple checkbox to uncheck)...

I took a hint from someone earlier here in this thread who it seems did similar using their iCloud account email to forward to... Using two new dedicated email addresses enabled me to set it all up essentially the same as before, in terms of mail folders in apple mail here on my computer... The forwarded email comes through still addressed to my gmail accounts, and into their account folders that I have labeled as such...

This had become such an annoyance, as everyone on this thread knows... None of this took very long...

Did you change the account settings? I mean when you set an account in settings you can do it with google or with an mail account. The problem is solve for me adding the gmail as a mail account and using application password.

Emm...given your DP, I think the root reason is the dedicated gmail portal is buggy. Maybe it is designed with the 2-step authentication function in mind so no matter the gmail account is using 2-step authentication or not, it will be affected by the bug. If you don't want to turn on the 2-step authentication, I think directly adding your gmail using the mail portal but not the dedicated gmail portal can solve the problem.

I turned off my Gmail in Mail's Accounts preference and logged into to Gmail on the web and set it to forward to my iCloud mail. There have been no Mail window pop-ups since.

I think it worked for me when I add the account has a mail account instead of Google and using the application password.

Calendar notification was not the solution for me.

Thank you!

Another alternative is "command-h" which will hide Mail as if it were closed instead of minimizing it in your dock. These are work arounds, not fixes.