Mail App Opens Randomly Mojave 10.14.5

I’m sure we all appreciate your effort. But if they told you to just call back and talk to whoever happens to answer the general phone line, that sounds like the rep just swatting you away. By comparison, if you go to the Microsoft boards, if you report a serious enough issue someone from the actual product team will come on the board and ask you to post or message them, directly, the bug info. It sounds like you were given busy work by a customer service rep. If Apple gave a crap, or if they were even lifting a finger on this, they could easily replicate this widespread issue themselves.

No, the person I spoke with actually did give me their name, their phone number and extension, and email address. I get that this would be very useful to share with the whole board, but a part of me feels bad about doing that (I don't want to be the reason one apple tech gets inundated with snarky emails and phone messages). But the info they shared with me should still be useful for everyone -- you could save the terminal file and share it with someone else at apple support. I'm getting the impression though that you'd prefer apple just fix this on their own (maybe in the next MacOS update), and that your main purpose on this board to is to vent (at apple, at me), which his fine. Others on this board are looking for a solution, which no one seems to have shared yet (changing google calendar notifications hasn't worked for most people, nor has making sure the mail setting for auto-opening in split view is de-selected), so my post I guess is more meant for them.

Not venting at you. I said your strides are appreciated. I just don’t trust that a call center rep is going to be able to do anything even with the info. If someone told me it would “help” to call in and talk to some other random rep, and they agree to give me their personal contact info, I’d do it too. But if Apple doesn’t monitor these boards for widespread problems and fix them, I similarly don’t think the call center rep has the ability to help. I’m glad you’re trying though.

Thanks for sharing. Glad you're having some luck. I did this weeks ago and just double-checked to make sure, based on your screenshots. All my settings are same as yours. Mail continues to spontaneously open itself. I'm a regular Gmail user, not G-suite.

Thanks @chazz26FTD for taking the time to create this and post it here... I also did this weeks ago, have checked and all my settings are the same as your screenshots, and the issue continues unabated...

I'm not sure what the difference is between G-Suite and having regular gmail accounts, but I have a couple gmail accounts and use a lot of other things Google provides for free, including google cloud and on very rare occasion some of their other offerings, but also a lot of things relating to the building of websites that require other account setups, and it is all of it gathered together under my g-mail accounts, which re also linked up with each other at google, so I can quickly switch between the two of them...

It also occurred to me earlier today to wonder about the gmail app I've never used but is available for phones and mobile devices, so I installed it on my iPhone and examined the settings... I found that notifications was activated by default, and so I turned it totally off... I had my fingers crossed, but I am finding that the issue continues...

So you think that changing settings in their mobile app might help with our desktop problem? If so, I'd still want my notifications for the Gmail app (only using it because the native app on the iPhone doesn't support regular push notifications - a bit of a joke to be honest)... Have any of you experienced macOS Mail app opening itself but in the background as well? Because I noticed that sometimes when I close it with the red cross, it reappears after a while just not in the foreground. Really weird stuff going on here.

I fixed the problem. I downloaded and installed Airmail - wow, I didn't realize there was an app better than Apple Mail - so I guess I am thankful Apple Mail sucks because now I have a better program to admin my email accounts. I probably won't be back unless Apple fixes this. I have 28 business gmail accounts I administer - there is just no way I am logging into Gmail 28 times and manually shutting off calendar notifications. Funny thing is calendar is actually disabled on these accounts so there is definitely a MacOS bug at work here.

This thread was a big help though - good reading.

@Jac0l - No, more like I wondered before I installed the app if it might have an effect, but, as I said in my post , it did not fix it... And I agree all around, weird stuff with Apple Mail... For me as a website designer/developer I find Safari is no less so, in regards to being in the weird terrain...

So after battling this for a while, I decide rather than go into 20 gmail accounts and shut of notifications, I would research other mail app options - WOW ! I had no idea how lame Apple Mail was until I purchased and installed AirMail. I will never go back to Apple Mail. I literally just got an hour of my day back ! What a difference !

If any of you are looking for a fix to this NAGGING problem - and you administer multiple email accounts I highly suggest you look at Airmail. Seriously, I wish I knew about this a long time ago - SO much nicer, faster and more customizable .

I guess I can thank Apple for a buggy POS, I would never had needed to look at other apps. Best $26 I've ever spent !

@ Auqatree - actually that is not true. Apple iCloud may require permission via a secondary password - but Gmail does not. All the app is doing is passing through IMAP info from the server they have zero access to anything and since everything is still stored on IMAP its actually more secure than if you left it on your computer. When you log in you are actually logging in via the Google login console, not a separate window like you do when you use Mac Mail. We have never used iCloud mail - just G-Suite business email - it is far more secure than any free service and their spam filters are far more effective. G-Suite also offers encryption and HIPPA security which iCloud does not. I've been a security consultant for a long time - I feel this solution is pretty bomb proof. I am amazed at how nice this app is , actually.

All that said - its never a good idea to store highly sensitive info on any system - unless its highly encrypted.

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...

I have to tell you - I am almost happy this failure with Mail surfaced - for if it were not I never would have sought out another app or never tried AirMail - that app is so much better on every level than Apple Mail I wish I knew about it years ago. If you are struggling with this problem - and the other nagging issues within Apple Mail - I highly suggest checking out Airmail. Especially if you using Google G-suite or have multiple google accounts it makes managing them SO much easier. I will never go back to Apple Mail - its that effective and elegant - it also is completely seamless in the way it integrates into MacOs.

I am having the same problem with the mail app opening. Doesn't Apple test these updates before sending them out? I know that Apple does not monitor these boards. How can we get through to them about this issue?

The only way I guess it to file a bug report which we've already done... But you can do it as well. The more, the better. If they don't do anything about it in the near future, we might reach out to some tech publishers :P

I have been experiencing this problem as well, I thought I was alone until I found this thread. I've wanted to THROW my mac air across the room when this happens. I actually have some online tests to take, and I'm afraid that if my mail pops up, it'll mess up my test.