macOS Ventura Apple Mail messages are blank / empty

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.

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.

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.

Yes - I mean Drag/Drop. But you must move it back to the original account's inbox as well, THEN it shows up. So you must drag and drop the same e-mail twice, then it shows the contents. This has worked for me every time I've tried it.

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...

Issue: “mail has no content”

This is not the easiest fix but the only one that worked for me (should work for either Monterey or Ventura):

 After trying every suggestion, I finally (as a last resort) booted into recovery, erased my drive and reinstalled the OS (Monterey, 12.6.3).  I then migrated my files, apps, etc. from my TM backup.  This fixed the mail issue.  I tested this for the last 7 days (150 emails) and the mail is rock solid.  I’m guessing somewhere along the way after some OS security update the issue started. 

NOTE:  Before reinstalling the OS I tried updating to Ventura but the issue continued.  I also tried just reinstalling the OS not touching the data volume but that did not work.  I had to erase the drive and start over.

I know that this not necessarily a very helpful answer or what people want to hear, but an Erase and Install seems to be the only reliable solution.

As suewestlake experienced with a new Mac and I have seen since the logic board in my new Mac mini was replaced, the problem goes away. In both cases, this was effectively an Erase and Install.

Two other very experienced users to whom I have spoken personally have had the problem on their Macs and used the Erase and Install solution and have not experienced a return of the problem. In both cases Sonoma was installed after the Erase had been performed so the clean install of Sonoma seems to fix the problem. I don't know if a clean install of Ventura does.

From what I can deduce from my own experience and the conversations I have had with other people, the problem is caused by some sort of caching issue in the OS. Once the problem has occurred, it seems that the only solution is an Erase and Install.

We have two other Macs, an M1 MacBook Air and a 24 inch M1 iMac neither of which have exhibited the problem.

John

I really hope that Sonoma is going to fix this problem. I am well sick of having to rebuild the envelope index every couple of days (which is the only thing that fixes it).

That is a marvelous idea. I should have thought of this myself :-). In the past, I used to do this regularly. But somehow after upgrading to Ventura, I haven't found the time to install the related Onyx version.

I ran Onyx maintenance, and things have been stable now for a while, without black/white screens and missing buttons. Though, I did get a purple screen once, while presenting with Keynote (restarting Keynote fixed that). Let's hope this is a permanent solution.

A friend of mine mentioned that he solved this problem by aggressively clearing caches and deleting unneeded application files. That took him two days. So, I didn't fancy going in that direction. Probably, Onyx does a similar thing, but then automatically.

Running Onyx fixes the problem temporarily for me but it comes back.

I've discovered that relaunching the Finder from  > Force Quit also fixes it temporarily.

When the problem with blank e-mail occurs I have also noticed that concurrently when entering something in the search field in Safari and pressing Return, nothing happens. Again re-launching the Finder fixes this temporarily for me . . .

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?

For what it's worth, I ran Onyx maintenance utilities and that seems to have fixed the problem for me. I'm running Monterey 12.6.7 on a mid-2015 MBPro. Maybe it will work for others?

I tried Safe Boot for about 20 minutes and the problem did not re-appear in that time. However, the problem does not always appear very quickly anyway. I had to re-boot to normal operation as things I require are not available in Safe Boot mode.

I have now reported the issue to Apple via Feedback Assistant and ask everyone else who is seeing this problem to do so as well. The more people report a problem, the more attention it may get. Apple Feedback Assistant is here: https://feedbackassistant.apple.com/

I eventually spoke to Apple Support and the techie also suggested doing an erase and reinstall of macOS as, in addition to the glitches with Mail and Safari, the Data volume on my nearly new Mini M2 Pro had become slightly corrupted.

I've now had the opportunity to do that and then restored everything from a Time Machine backup but unfortunately all that effort has not fixed the problem with Mail and I'm still occasionally seeing the issue with Safari where entering an address and pressing Return does nothing. (Quitting Safari and re-starting it with the Shift key pressed usually, but not always, solves that problem – sometimes a reboot is necessary).

As I said previously, rebooting the Mac temporarily clears the issue with Mail and the messages become visible again.

I am also now seeing occasional glitches and freezes with other applications I use which have never happened previously. I'm beginning to wonder if there is coincidentally a hardware problem with my new Mac. My next move will be another call to Apple.

I have also reported the problems via Apple Feedback Assistant but have not had a response.