Mail, crash on startup

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

Well for me this trick saved the day too, although I went through a different process.

First I disconnected my laptop from the internet (turned wi-fi off, and removed ethernet cable from my monitor... and Mail opened perfectly fine.

Reconnected the ethernet cable, and instant crash !

So I disconnected the cable again, and Mail opened fine again, and I moved the last few emails to Trash (on my Mac).

Reconnected the ethernet cable, and perfect, it worked, mail didn't crash... Job done.

I narrowed it down to one email thread (3 emails) from one particular contact.... which I then permanently deleted.

In short, the 'deleting emails' trick works!

I, too, just experiences the identical issue, but with OS 10.9.5 (Maverick) and Mail 7.3. After trying all the basic fixes, including a rebuild of my mail.app's "envelope", I tried to calm down and think this through logically (it also saved me from setting an Olympic distance record for the Mac toss). Mail had been working perfectly for many months, so what could have caused it to change 2.5 hours ago? Considering I've done nothing else but add numbers to an Excel spreadsheet that whole time, there was only one possibility: An incoming email. And a re-boot/load/install/build of everything on my Mac won't stop my underlying email host, Cox Communication, from resending the offending piece of eCrap right back to me again. So, cynically thinking this will never work, because it just couldn't be this simple, I logged into my Cox Webmail account and trashed every email that was added to every inbox over the past 2.5 hours (plus a few extra for good measure). I also deleted all spam since, as I understand it, Mac Mail will still call for it even if you've elected not to see it.

And it worked. It was that simple.

I would also advise you to update to the latest version of El Capitan OS X 10.11.6.

OS X El Capitan 10.11.6 Combo Update

https://support.apple.com/kb/DL1885

Post Date: Jul 18, 2016

File Size: 1.5 GB

See if any of the following articles can help:

• Mail for Mac: Rebuild mailboxes - Apple Support
• OS X: Rebuilding Mailboxes - the Mac Observer
• Rebuild the Mailbox & Reindex Messages to Fix Common Problems in Mail App for Mac OS X - OSXDaily
• How to fix Apple Mail by rebuilding and reindexing the Mailbox - Computerworld

THANK YOU! I've been using Mac Mail forever and today, for the first time ever, had the constant crash every time I opened it. A restart (or three) made no difference, and I wasn't looking forward to more drastic measures. I simply checked email on my phone, deleted the last several hours worth of messages, and all was well. You saved me. Btw, I too use 10.9.5 and Mail 7.3.