How to reset mail to factory settings.

Quit Mail.

In the Finder, hold down the option key and select

Go ▹ Library

from the menu bar. Move the following items from the folder that opens to the Trash (some may not exist):

• Caches/com.apple.mail
• Saved Application State/com.apple.mail.savedState
• Application Support/AddressBook/MailRecents-v4.abcdmr
• Containers/com.apple.mail
• Mail
• Preferences/com.apple.mail.plist
• Preferences/com.apple.mail.searchhistory.plist

Note: you are not moving the Mail application. You’re moving a folder named “Mail.”

Would the below response still work for El Capitan 10.11 and Mail Version 9.0 for reseting Apple Mail?

Reply Helpfulby Linc Davis on Jun 21, 2013 8:17 AM

Quit Mail.

In the Finder, hold down the option key and select

Go ▹ Library

from the menu bar. Move the following items from the folder that opens to the Trash (some may not exist):

• Caches/com.apple.mail
• Saved Application State/com.apple.mail.savedState
• Application Support/AddressBook/MailRecents-v4.abcdmr
• Containers/com.apple.mail
• Mail
• Preferences/com.apple.mail.plist
• Preferences/com.apple.mail.searchhistory.plist

Note: you are not moving the Mail application. You’re moving a folder named “Mail.”

Just installed the 10.11 beta, everything works great EXCEPT Mail...its pretty useless...When open my entire system comes to a crawl...when I finally manage to close it, everything returns to normal....any tips?

The e-mails will still take up space on your computer, but try going to Mail/Mailbox/Export Mailbox. If the e-mails remain in the mailbox, delete them. You can then save the exported mailbox as an archive. To access the e-mails, Mail/File/Import Mailbox.

My problem with the Mail app is that it takes long time to send messages and after each reboot it cannot properly set the SMTP settings for my accounts and additionally I cannot remove old settings from accounts which I am no longer using (the mail app lists them in the SMTP server list).

I would like to reset the mail app to factory settings.

I followed your steps but it doesn't help in macOS High Sierra. Do you have an updated solution ?

Thanks

How to reset email

Apple Mail wasted too much of my time. I ended up using MS Outlook.

how do I change my email view

how do I change my email view

How to reset mail app to factory settings

Thanks a lot from France.

I only found and trashed the following files :

> MailRecents-v4.abcdmr

> com.apple.mail

> Mail

And my previous e-mails have been downloaded from my Gmail account. Perfect.

Thanks again !

I followed these instructions but Mail wouldn't let me re-add the email account, Settings > Internet Accounts and unchecking, rechecking Mail had no affect. However, removing all the previous Mail accounts completely and re-adding them has gotten Mail working like new.

Linc, Thanks for this, it's not the first time you have been of indirect help to me and many others I assume.

This one tip was needed to get rid of a very nasty and persistent state of Mail, after a series of beta Yosemite previews and consequent updates. At one given moment the mail app must have had a tiny thingie nuked leaving it in an unusable state. No addition of an account was possible, not accounts that were set up in SysPrefs / Internet accounts were being loaded.

I now have my main bug resolved. Not really a bug, as another user account on the same machine had no problems, so I considered this to be a state of bad luck for the given account.

Cheers!

HI!

This saved my day (s). Since june my Mail app did not work and I have tried a number of ways to get it going again.

When I saw this post I realised that before I did not remove the

Application Support/AddressBook/MailRecents-v4.abcdmr

away. This combination did the trick.

Very very grateful .

I am running Sierra. When my problem started it was still El Capitan.