macOS Ventura Apple Mail messages are blank / empty

Further information:

The update to Sonoma did not resolve this. In fact the Mail and Safari problems got worse after the update, as did a number of other issues which I had been experiencing.

I had previously been advised by Apple Support to carry out an Erase and Install but this did not resolve the problems.

I have been to the Genius Bar today and they have completely reformatted my Mac.

The Genius carried out a lot of tests but no problems were found with the hardware. He said he thought the problems might have been caused by restoring from Time Machine. I'm not convinced but we'll see. I have manually copied the files I need back to the machine and installed only the Apple iWork Apps. I will give it a day or so to see what happens. All the nonsense with the machine and now a second Erase and Install has wasted a great deal of my time. I will not be very patient with my next contact with Apple Support should that be necessary . . .

John

I also have this problem. It started with Ventura. I run the latest version (13.3.1). I can add the following:

• It also occurs often that the content pane of the message turns all black instead of all white (thus, is still unreadable).
• Same thing happens in Safari. Someone mentioned that it has to do with the rendering toolkit that Safari and Apple Mail share, and if you don't open Safari, it won't happen in Apple Mail. But for me, not running Safari only helped initially. I now do get white or black content panes in Apple Mail, without Safari having ever been opened.
• What I also noticed is that in some dialog boxes, not all buttons appear; some are all white, in particular the save button when adding an email attachment (see screenshot; next to the Cancel button there is an invisible but operational Save button!).

Any help would be highly appreciated, because this interferes heavily with my daily workflow (in other words, it is driving me crazy).

Hello aangel,

Ensuring messages load as expected in Mail is important and you've walked through great steps thus far. In addition to the steps you've already completed, updating macOS is a great step as well. Apple has recently released macOS 13.1. While simple, updating is a great step that can resolve many issues as updates can include fixes. You can find the steps for updating listed below and outlined in the following article.

1. "From the Apple menu  in the corner of your screen:

• Choose System Settings. Then click General in the sidebar, and Software Update on the right.
• Or choose System Preferences. Then click Software Update.

2.If Software Update finds new software, click the Update Now or Upgrade Now button to install it.

3.Enter your administrator password, if asked. During installation, your Mac might restart, and you might see a progress bar or blank screen several times."

Update macOS on Mac

Let us know how that goes!

See this thread: Mac Mail app has blank draft window that … - Apple Community

I 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 appear in 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 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 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 diligent Apple tech support individual who kept looking until we found something just a little unusual that was causing the problem...

Try the Safe Mode boot: boot into Safe Mode according to How to use safe mode on your Mac and test to see if the problem persists. Reboot normally and test again.

NOTE 1: Safe Mode boot can take up to 3 - 5 minutes as it's doing the following; 

• Verifies your startup disk and attempts to repair directory issues, if needed

• Loads only required kernel extensions (prevents 3rd party kernel/extensions from loading)

• Prevents Startup Items and Login Items from opening automatically

• Disables user-installed fonts 

• Deletes font caches, kernel cache, and other system cache files

NOTE 2: if you have a wireless keyboard with rechargeable batteries connect it with its charging cable before booting into Safe Mode. This makes it act as a wired keyboard as will insure a successful boot into Safe Mode.

The current Ventura version is 13.4.1 which has a number of security features and fixes. You should update to that and test again.

Have you installed and run any "cleaning", "optimizing", "speed-up", anti-virus or VPN apps on your Mac?

I have the same issue - tried all the fixes and read all the posts - even updated to Ventura 13.1 - same problem occurs. Certain emails from mailing lists come in blank in Apple mail (like from Kayak and others) - but I can read them on my iphone.

I have the exact same issue: some email only show the subject line while the body is blank. I never had it before, started after upgrade to Ventura, now after updating to 13.1 the issue is still there.

There seems to be a relation to moving messages from inbox to another mailbox, as all my messages that are automatically moved to a separate folder using a rule show up blank. Messages in the main inbox are fine, except when I move them to local mailbox, then some become blank as well. This is also happens when I moved message from the Junk folder back to to the inbox.... This is all using a corporate Exchange email account and Apple Mail as my long-time favourite mail app.

How to fix this??

I left the email selected, showing nothing.

As I was typing this reply, the email showed up in the background. It sometimes takes ~60 seconds to resolve and display the email. This blank display-then displays OK issue happens even when you come back to the email that got resolved earlier.

I can reproduce this very easily.

After reading and testing some possible solutions - including switching to outlook - I seem to have fixed the issue (for now). I exported all my local inboxes to mbox, deleted completely the ~/Library/Mail folder, then went to the web-version of my work email and gmail, deleted as many as possible email (went from some 70k back to ~6k emails, including sent email copies) and then opened Mail again. It downloaded everything from the servers and then I added back my local mailboxes where I archive my mail, importing back the mboxes.

I haven't run into blank emails yet and also have only sporadically the stuck "Downloading messages" notice.

Before this solution I tried rebuilding the mailbox and lost several emails, so I do not recommend that.

Whether this is a general solution, I really do not know. It does seem that a corrupt mail screwed up Mail's indexing, like in the post below, but I could not find out which email, so I tried this more rigorous solution. My problem may in part also be due to large number mails that were in all mailboxes, but still I would expect Apple Mail to be able to deal with that.

I have the same issue of some empty emails. I only have Yahoo going into Apple Mail, so it seems like there should be an easier fix. I'm using Ventura 13.2.1 but this has been going on with earlier versions as well. Any other ideas out there?

Have the same issue. Tried all fixes and nothing worked. I found if I go to my provider's web site I can see the entire email with all content and I can also forward it back to me and it will be complete. Not sure why this happens.

Same situation here. Seems like a bug Apple needs to address--Having to go to the provider's site and forward is a step that shouldn't be necessary. Thanks for the forwarding idea! That worked; moving the version in Apple Mail to a different mailbox did not.

I've had this problem for so long, I had just given up on the 5-10% of e-mails that it was happening to, however I just found a solution that has worked for me every time since accidentally finding it.

When I have an e-mail that will not load/it's contents are not showing - I move it to a new Mailbox (or a different account) in the Mail App, then back to the original. Then it loads. It takes about 5 seconds to do, and loads immediately once it is back in the original Mailbox/Account.

I hope this helps others.