No Mail since Catalina. Stuck on Updating for four days now. Can I delete Mail?

Thanks Wolfgang,

None of the suggestions in the help pages address the problem. Mailboxes don’t even look active. Can’t get any mail views. Last little upgrade gave access to the menu bar across the top but no access to choose a mailbox or compose a new message. Just the mail icon in the middle of the desktop with the progress bar stopped at the completed end of the bar and Upgrading Mail on its menu bar. No action despite several force quits and restarts of computer etc. I was hoping the update would fix it but no such luck. Fast approaching backing up my photo files and erasing. If the stupid progress message would go away I could accept not having mail on computer until next update.🤭

Hi Wolfgang (again),

Tje situation with mail on my computer is now quite bizarre, My husband has an account on my computer for emergencies if his is down for some reason, and I logged out of my account and logged into his. Mail works perfectly there. NO update message. It was there for second but I clicked on it and it vanished and he is receiving mail and appears to have his usual mail accounts fully operational.

:logged back into my own account and "Mail Upgrading" screen and mailboxes and mail all missing. Application unusable.

Any thoughts welcomed. Thanks

Thanks Wolfgang,

No. not on Beta. I did realise that the download can’t be broken if my husband’s mail is working on the same computer. I will try signing out of iCloud and back in and if still nothing working in Mail will contact support. Thanks so much.

Hi Wolfgang,

Found an Apple Help article some years old, on how to restore things from backup in Time Machine. Following this advice I

opened the Mail folder in User Library and dragged out the last two V folders (one labelled Migrating but clearly not) and replaced with one copied from ten days ago. Mail took about 30 seconds to copy all the messages in and magically my mail reappeared and the sidebar appeared and I have at least my POP account back working and right up to date.

Also the Mail Update page has gone. Need to dump those two in the trash now. Not convinced my iCloud account is yet working but time will tell.

Now to see if the same trick can repopulate my empty Contacts app.

Thanks for your encouragement along the way

Sherry

I think the folder labelled "V7 Migrating" had become corrupted and that was the cause of Mail hanging on Update.

As to it working for other apps, well the only other app affected was Contacts and apparently it resided in the same folder because my blank Contacts had magically repopulated. All better now!