Charles Clark
Level 2 (391 points)
Mac OS X

Q: Mail not responding

on El Capitan, Mail is not responding. I must Force Quit to close Mail. Any suggestions?

iPad Air, OS X El Capitan (10.11.5), iMac14,1

Posted on Aug 4, 2016 1:02 PM

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Charles Clark

Q: Mail not responding

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  • Helpful answers

  • by Starr.C,

    Starr.C Starr.C Aug 5, 2016 8:32 AM in response to Charles Clark
    Community Specialists
    Aug 5, 2016 8:32 AM in response to Charles Clark

    Hello Charles,


    Thank you for using the Apple Support Communities. I know having Mail stop responding on your Mac is not what you expect. Based on what you stated, here are some steps to help resolve your issue with Mail in El Capitan:


    1. First, try running a quick test with the built in Disk Utility tool, as this can correct simple issues like you're experiencing. Then try opening Mail again.


    Disk Utility (El Capitan): Repair a disk


    2. Use Safe Mode to start up your Mac so that it performs certain checks, delete system cache files, verifies your startup disk, and attempts to repair directory issues if needed. Test Mail in Safe Mode, and if it does open successfully, then restart your Mac normally and test Mail again.


    Try safe mode if your Mac doesn't finish starting up
    Limited graphics performance in OS X recovery or safe mode


    3. You can figure out if unexpected behavior is related to user file or setting by trying to reproduce the issue from another user account. This process includes creating a new user account, logging in to it, and testing for the issue.


    How to test an issue in another user account on your Mac


    Cheers!

  • by Eric Root,

    Eric Root Eric Root Aug 5, 2016 8:59 PM in response to Charles Clark
    Level 9 (70,068 points)
    iTunes
    Aug 5, 2016 8:59 PM in response to Charles Clark

    Do a backup, preferably 2 on 2 separate drives.

     

    Quit Mail.

     

    Go to Finder and select your user/home folder. With that Finder window as the front window, either select Finder/View/Show View options or go command - J.  When the View options opens, check ’Show Library Folder’. That should make your user library folder visible in your user/home folder. Go to Library/Containers/com.apple.mail.  Move the folder com.apple.mail to your desktop. You must move the entire folder, not just the contents.

     

    Restart, re-launch Mail and test. If the problem is solved, recreate any required Mail settings and import any emails you want to save from the folder on the desktop. You can then put the folder in the Trash. If the problem remains, return the folder to where you got it replacing the one that is there. 

     

    If that doesn’t solve it repeat the above using Containers/com.apple.MailServiceAgent.

    Information learned from Linc Davis. Thanks to leonie for some information contained in this.

     

    Mail crashing

    Crashes/quits unexpectedly