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Mail shows as open but no viewer window or message window will open

I have my MacBook Pro (with Big Sur 11.1) connected to a couple of external monitors. Recently I unplugged the MacBook and took to a different location. Now in the dock it shows Mail as open (and I can force quit it) but no view window appears. I can get the Mail menus across the top of the screen, but when I tell it to open a new viewer window, nothing appears. I've force and regular quit a few times, re-booted, upgraded to 11.1, and still no fix. I can't access a Mail viewer window.


Help!

Jazimblue

iMac Pro

Posted on Dec 14, 2020 4:30 PM

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Dec 14, 2020 7:39 PM in response to JazimBlue

I have an early 2015 13" MBP, 2.9 GHz i5, 8GB Ram, 500 GB SSD. I ran the Big Sur beta, then updated to official release. No problems until I updated to the 11.1 update today. The only issue I seem to be having is that none of the windows associated with the Mail app show on the screen. Mail opens, popup menus show up, mail count badges appear in the dock, but no windows. Multiple restarts, including safe mode and nothing has changed.

After restart, mail app is active, but no visible windows. Strangely, if I select minimize from the window menu, the viewer window appears in the dock! I can then click on it to bring it up, but it's unresponsive and contains no mailboxes.

This is now an extra computer, so it has only got Apple software on it. Any suggestions?

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Dec 16, 2020 2:26 PM in response to JazimBlue

Hi Jazimblue,


I had this same problem, but I seem to have fixed it. With Mail open but no windows showing, select "minimize" from the "window" menubar. You should see a minimized mail window appear in the dock. Click on it to maximize it, It should look like the regular viewer window. Look to the top right of the window to see there are NO favorites (ie, inboxes). Click the + next to favorites and select "All Inboxes". This fixed my problem. I read that some people have their favorite mailboxes deleted from the favorites menu...weird, but happy to have mail back.

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Mail shows as open but no viewer window or message window will open

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