The Mac mail app opens with separate blank draft, I am unable to delete.

Had the same problem on a 14" MacBook Pro running macOS Ventura 13.1, and finally fixed it.

I was having blank, greyed out windows appeared over Mail that looked like an empty 'compose' mail window except that it was completely greyed out and I could not type in it or close it. I could resize it or minimize it, but it would never go away. The number of blank windows would vary - from 1-2 to 6-8 - without any clear reason why.

I tried all the usual fixes - force quit Mail; turned off my Mail internet accounts, rebooted, and turned them back on; rebuilt each internet account's mailbox; opened Mail w/ shift key pressed; deleted preferences files; ran laptop in safe mode; ran Disk Utility; even reinstalled Ventura OS - but nothing made the blank windows go away.

Called Apple Tech support and spent time with a senior tech diagnosing the problem and trying to fix it with no joy (He told me this is not a problem that has been widespread - I was first time he had seen it - and showed me this discussion thread with a few others who seemed to have a similar problem.) UNTIL the tech suggested we turn off accounts one at a time to see if that affected the number of blank windows (it did!) and then went looking into the outboxes of the internet mail accounts, especially the one that seemed to have the largest effect on the number of blank windows displayed. There was ONE old email (response to an event invitation) that had not been sent for some reason. Soon as we deleted that one outbox email and closed / opened Mail the problem was gone! The email had no attachments or large file size, was just a simple 'decline' to an event invitation that got stuck in the outbox.

I'm not yet certain the problem has been solved for good, but at least now I have a path to fix it without having to do a bunch of software reinstalls.

I hope this experience is helpful to others. I spent a lot of time trying to fix the problem and owe the solution to a committed and diligent Apple tech support individual who kept looking until we found something just a little unusual that was causing the problem...

good sleep wrote:

The Mac mail app opens with a separate blank copy of a draft form that will not send or close. I have tried to delete it but nothing works.

Quit Mail— when you relaunch the Mail.app hold the Shift key down and compare your results.

If you can not quit Mail then >Force Quit>Mail

Mail User Guide for Mac - Apple Support

What finally fixed it for me was deleting an old email stuck in the outbox of one of my mail accounts that had not been successfully sent.

Turning the accounts off an on again did not work for me, but you can try it at: Mail pulldown menu>Accounts>Internet Accounts>[select an internet account]. The account will show what you have set to synch over the internet. (e.g. mail, contacts, calendars). Click on the left slide of the blue slider that's been selected. (That turns off the setting.) Back out of that account and you can turn off others the same way. I then exited, rebooted, etc. but it did not fix my problem.

For all who cannot see the outbox folder here's a way to show it:

1) Go on Mailbox -> Turn all account offline

2) Send an test email to an e-mail address of your choice

Now the outbox folder should appear, in my case there where 3 e-mails which had to be deleted to rid of the empty windows.

3) Turn all accounts online again

good sleep wrote:

It's not the app itself that won't close, it's a blank send form window that opens right after the app opens and can't be closed. The shift open results in the same blank send form opening.

If you followed through with all recommendations above and no resolve...

Quit all running Applications.

 Reboot into SafeBoot How to use safe mode on your Mac - Apple Support will sort many anomalies

Login in and test, reboot as normal and test, compare your results.

I had the same problem that started with Ventura 13.1. Turns out this also happens if you send an email with an attachment that is too large and gets rejected by the mail server. Once you delete the mail from the outbox, this problem goes away.

Apple needs to fix this problem but at a minimum ensure you don't need to shut down the mail tool to close the empty mail window.

The problem is likely with an unsent email in your outbox. Look through all of your outboxes and delete any unsent mail. This normally solves the problem without having to delete accounts.

Well done. I do believe you've identified the underlying cause: an unsent email in the outbox of one of my accounts. As soon as I deleted this, problem went away. (This is still pretty buggy behaviour on Mail's part, though, I must say. Such a workaround should not be required at all.)

I'm shocked but Quitting and opening MacMail while holding down Shift key actually worked for me... I had about 6 of these random grayed emails. And now my email is working much faster as an added bonus.

I tried a LOT of things and know computers well. First I tried removing each email account and then adding it back, no luck. What seemed to do it was searching and deleting any event emails that said "decline" (restarted mail, restarted apple computer, tried opening with safe mode, tried holding down the shift button while turning on the computer.. these might have nothing to do with the solution but I was trying the recommended tricks from other comments). From there I emptied all Trash bins. I saw three emails in my Outbox and deleted those. I then went to the Mailbox Tab and chose "Synchronize All Accounts". Issue solved as of right now, if not I'll be back soon!

I resolved this issue going to: Mail > Settings > Accounts and verified all accounts and guaranteed in the sub-tab 'Server Settings' of each account the 'Outgoing Mail Account' is the one respective for that account.

This fixed it. I removed a stuck email in the outbox and the issue went away.

A long shot but did you try rebuilding the mailbox?

Rebuild mailboxes in Mail on Mac - Apple Support

If the blank window appears after you send mail - it may be caused by an email that is not successfully sending and stuck in your outbox. Suggest you check the outbox of each of your mail accounts to see if there's an email that's getting stuck and causing Mail to create a blank window.

This issue can be resolved by 1) force quitting 2) some people say delete from outbox but many don’t see the email in a outbox 3) go to settings and assign outgoing server to email account even thought these values have already been set and accounts doesn’t hold on to them

yes these various solutions work. They are not practical especially if this happens very often like daily. A fix would be helpful