No notification using Apple Mail on MacBook Air

Question

No notification using Apple Mail on MacBook Air

I have used Apple’s native email client on my iPad for quite a few years and it has always worked well. Today I decided to set it up for the first time with my gmail account on my 2018 MacBook Air running 10.14.6. The Mail version is 12.4. The basic functions work but there is no notification of any kind when I receive new mail—no sound, no number indicating a new message has arrived—zero. I set everything up in preferences but it fails. If I open the app then a number appears but the only reason I enabled the Mail app is to be notified when I get a message which is not happening. If this cannot be solved then I will disable the Mail app (and will probably need advice on how to do that) and would like a recommendation on a third party alternative. I don’t require something with a lot of bells and whistles—just something that works the way it is supposed to. Many thanks for any suggestions.

MacBook Air 13″, macOS 10.14

Posted on Aug 15, 2021 12:55 PM

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Answer 1

BDAqua

Level 10

245,189 points

Aug 16, 2021 8:30 AM in response to jakegittes1974

Well, there's Thunderbird that used to be great...

Installing Thunderbird on Mac | Thunderbird Help (mozilla.org)

See if these simpler instructions work for you...

Safe Boot from the HD, (holding Shift key down at startup), does the problem occur in Safe Mode?

Safe mode attempts to repair Disks & clears lots of caches, so if Safe Mode works try again in regular boot.

If you have no POP accounts & they’re all IMAP accounts then in Mail’s Mailbox menu choose Rebuild.

How to rebuild the Spotlight index on your Mac

If searching your Mac doesn’t return expected results, rebuilding the Spotlight index might help.

Choose Apple menu () > System Preferences, then click Spotlight.
Click the Privacy tab.
Drag the folder or disk that you want to index again to the list of locations that Spotlight is prevented from searching. Or click the Add (+) button and select the folder or disk to add.
To add an item to the Privacy tab, you must have ownership permissions for that item. To learn about permissions, choose Help from the Finder menu bar, then search for “permissions.”
From the same list of locations, select the folder or disk that you just added. Then click the Remove (–) button to remove it from the list.
Quit System Preferences. Spotlight will reindex the contents of the folder or disk.

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Answer 2

Aug 15, 2021 5:44 PM in response to BDAqua

Thanks very much for your reply. I followed your suggestion, and opened mail-preferences General. I had chosen the Ping sound and yes I did hear a sound when I changed back and forth from Ping to something else. I am mystified by this issue.

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Answer 3

BDAqua

Level 10

245,189 points

Aug 15, 2021 7:11 PM in response to jakegittes1974

Hmmm,

Safe Boot from the HD, (holding Shift key down at startup), does the problem occur in Safe Mode?

Safe mode attempts to repair Disks & clears lots of caches, so if Safe Mode works try again in regular boot.

If you have no POP accounts & they’re all IMAP accounts then in Mail’s Mailbox menu choose Rebuild.

Manually Rebuilding Spotlight via Terminal

If the aforementioned Spotlight control panel approach doesn’t spur a reindexation of the drive, you may need to initiate it manually through the command line. Open Terminal and use the following command string to do so:

sudo mdutil -E /

This basically asks for temporary super user status, which is why Terminal may ask you for your password (it may not if you’ve used a sudo command recently or are already logged in as a super user or root. The command asks the unix tool mdutil to reindex the spotlight database for everything on the computer, including external drives, mounted disk images, etc. To re-index only for a specific drive, use the /Volumes path. For example, for an external drive named “MiniMe,” the command would look like this:

sudo mdutil -i on /

Rebuilding a drive index can take a long time, so be prepared to wait whether you do it through the System Preference panel or the command line.

If still need be…

Open Terminal and run each of these one at a time

/System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Versions/A/Support/lsregister -kill -r -domain local -domain system -domain user

sudo /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Support/lsregister -kill -seed -lint -r -f -v -dump -domain local -domain system -domain user -domain network

killall Dock

sudo mdutil -E /

sudo mdutil -i on /

Rebuilding a drive index can take a long time, so be prepared to wait whether you do it through the System Preference panel or the command line.

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Answer 4

Aug 16, 2021 8:20 AM in response to BDAqua

I very much appreciate your taking the time to offer all of these suggestions. However, I am afraid the steps you advised--although perhaps useful in solving the problem--are way too complex for me; I am an old guy and would not want to run the risk of my really screwing something up on my computer through error on my part in following your directions. What I would now like to know either from you or others here is the best, simplest way to disable Apple Mail and a recommendation on a third party alternative that will hopefully function the way it is supposed to including notifications. Thanks again very much.

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Answer 5

BDAqua

Level 10

245,189 points

Aug 15, 2021 3:21 PM in response to jakegittes1974

In Mail>Preferences General what Sound is chosen? Do you hear a sound if you change the sound back & forth?

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No notification using Apple Mail on MacBook Air

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