Apple mail crashes

May sound silly but shame I cannot just remove the Apple Mail inbox from my computer and let the app create a new inbox on launch.

That is exactly what my instructions will accomplish.

John Galt wrote:

In that case the fix involves removing that Account from your Mac, followed by adding it again. That action will not affect any messages that remain undeleted on the server.

Instructions are described in Add or remove email accounts in Mail on Mac - Apple Support. You will be following them in reverse order—in other words, remove the email account, and then add that same account again.

If you are unable to even open the Mail app due to its crashing immediately upon launch, you may not be able to access Internet Accounts from within Mail as it describes. Instead, amend those instructions as follows:

Click the  (Apple menu) > System Preferences... > Internet Accounts, select the affected account, and then deselect the Mail checkbox for the account. To stop using the account in all apps, make sure the account is selected, then click the Remove button [—].

Please note that merely deselecting the Mail account won't remove it. It just temporarily turns it off in the Mail app, and selecting it again turns it on again in Mail. You need to follow the last (boldface) sentence above to actually remove the account. Adding it again will cause Mail to repopulate its contents. Since messages that remain on the server will be repopulated, you need to find and delete that message first. That can be accomplished through your email service provider's webmail interface, provided it offers one (most do).

Be advised that if Mail is crashing due to the way a particular message is formatted, Mail's crashing problem is certain to occur when another similarly formatted message is eventually received. Only Apple would be able to fix that, and the likelihood of them doing so with an update to a macOS version as old as "El Capitan" is just about nil.

In that case the fix involves removing that Account from your Mac, followed by adding it again. That action will not affect any messages that remain undeleted on the server.

Instructions are described in Add or remove email accounts in Mail on Mac - Apple Support. You will be following them in reverse order—in other words, remove the email account, and then add that same account again.

If you are unable to even open the Mail app due to its crashing immediately upon launch, you may not be able to access Internet Accounts from within Mail as it describes. Instead, amend those instructions as follows:

Click the  (Apple menu) > System Preferences... > Internet Accounts, select the affected account, and then deselect the Mail checkbox for the account. To stop using the account in all apps, make sure the account is selected, then click the Remove button [—].

Please note that merely deselecting the Mail account won't remove it. It just temporarily turns it off in the Mail app, and selecting it again turns it on again in Mail. You need to follow the last (boldface) sentence above to actually remove the account. Adding it again will cause Mail to repopulate its contents. Since messages that remain on the server will be repopulated, you need to find and delete that message first. That can be accomplished through your email service provider's webmail interface, provided it offers one (most do).

Be advised that if Mail is crashing due to the way a particular message is formatted, Mail's crashing problem is certain to occur when another similarly formatted message is eventually received. Only Apple would be able to fix that, and the likelihood of them doing so with an update to a macOS version as old as "El Capitan" is just about nil.

I think they misunderstood you. Removing a Mail account from a computer does not affect messages stored on an email server.

Think of it this way. If you had a Mac that you were selling you would want to erase it, thereby removing all the Internet accounts on it, correct? Same principle applies.

All you need to add an email account to your Mac (or anything else for that matter) are that account's login credentials. Make sure you know what they are.

Perhaps they thought you were asking about deleting an email message. Yes that deletes it from the server.

I have just joiined the chat. My mail app crashes much as that of monoray does. Always in inbox. I tried to remove the account from internet accounts and then re-enter it but when I do it insists on setting the account as imap.bell.net while my account is a pop account with sympatico.ca with server pophm.sympatico.ca . Whenever I add it back it automatically resets it to imap. I don't know how to alter that. And when I add the account back, mail crashes again leading me to suspect that this is the problem. Is that possible? And if so, how to resolve the problem? Your help is very welsome. Thanks in advance.

From bad to worse ... I removed my account (the incorrectly identified as imap) and tried to restore it today only to be told by the mac that that account already exists ! However it does not show up in the box of accounts and the mail app does not use it ... or anything for that matter. When I click on get mail, I get a connecting notice and then nothing. The icloud account is the only one that appears in internet accounts and when I click on it I receive a prompt to go to preferences (which is where I was !) and just above the log out sign I am prompted to sign in which I do and then I receive another window saying there is a problem with my icloud account and to go to internet accounts in preferences ....... and on and on. Still no mail and an empty inbox ... which is the only reason it does not crash ! Sigh .

👍

Just be advised it's bound to occur again when Mail receives one of those problematic emails. At least you know how to fix it, but it may become so intolerably frequent that you will want to retire that Mac.

Hello again. I have by some strange occurences finally regained my inbox and received some (not all) of the mail I have been missing for over a week. The trick was to go to the mail menu, not internet accounts, and select not mail preferences but menu item Add an Account !! That did the trick ... much to my surprise. Thank you to John Galt for his patient explanations and help. It really is greatly appreciated. Thanks again.

Press and hold a Shift key while launching Mail from Applications or the Dock. Release the Shift key when Mail opens.

That action causes the Mail app to open with no message selected.