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Cannot Set Default Mail App in El Capitan

I was using Outlook 2016 before upgrading to El Capitan. After the upgrade I decided to switch to the default Mail app. Unfortunately, when I try to make the switch in Mail > Preferences, the app I choose does not stick. When clicking a link, closing and restarting Mail, or even waiting just a few minutes, the default Mail app switches automatically back to Outlook 2016. Any thoughts?


I am running a mid-2011 Macbook Air.

MacBook Air (11-inch Mid 2011), OS X El Capitan (10.11)

Posted on Oct 18, 2015 7:35 AM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Oct 18, 2015 7:53 AM

Problems such as yours are sometimes caused by files that should belong to you but are locked or have wrong permissions. This procedure will check for such files. It makes no changes and therefore is not, in itself, a solution.

First, empty the Trash, if possible.

Triple-click anywhere in the line below on this page to select it, then copy the selected text to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C:

find ~ $TMPDIR.. \( -flags +sappnd,schg,uappnd,uchg -o ! -user $UID -o ! -perm -600 \) 2>&- | wc -l | pbcopy

Launch the built-in Terminal application in any of the following ways:

☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)

☞ In the Finder, select Go Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.

☞ Open LaunchPad and start typing the name.

Paste into the Terminal window by pressing command-V. The command may take a noticeable amount of time to run.

Wait for a new line ending in a dollar sign ($) to appear.

The output of the command will be a number. It's automatically copied to the Clipboard. Please paste it into a reply.

The Terminal window doesn't show the output. Please don't copy anything from there.

51 replies

Sep 8, 2016 5:22 PM in response to bhowton

For anyone still having this problem I have an easy solution which, I think, goes to the root of the problem.


Go into system preferences and click on iCloud. Unclick Mail. Close out of system preferences. Now go to Mail and select Outlook for your default. Just to be safe I then closed all programs (Mail last) and rebooted.


That solved it for me! Hope it works for you.

Sep 20, 2016 7:15 PM in response to bhowton

I was successfully able to change the default mail reader by going to Apple Mail --> [Preferences]. Under [Genera], do NOT select the application you want to switch to from the drop-down. Click [Select] from the drop-down options and browse for the appropriate mail application you want to use. Select it from here. Close/quit the Apple Mail application. Re-open Apple Mail application and you will see that your selection has been saved.

Cannot Set Default Mail App in El Capitan

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