Mail Preference keeps changing since High Sierra Update

As a user who pays to buy his products the same way you do and who uses both Apple and Microsoft products at a federal government institution, I reserve the right to express my comments in any way I see fit. The purpose of the thread remains the same, otherwise I would not have mentioned I have the same issue, the same way I have issues with IOS 11 (which have yet to be resolved). Please refrain from telling me what I can and cannot say. Thank you

Hey, thanks for the suggestion. I was looking for an email client that was good and cheap and Thunderbird sounds like a great option. It's extremely sad that something as simple and as basic as the main email application from Apple is not working properly after the latest OS release. My preferences keep resetting to the default and even the message viewing window changes when I open the Mail app. It's irritating and even if it's not something that will keep the computer from working it certainly makes me not even want to check my email.

Try this:

First:

Quit Mail.

Go to this location and delete the com.apple.mail.savedState folder:

~/Library/Saved Application State/com.apple.mail.savedState

Then:

Remove Container file Mail:

Quit Mail.

In the Finder, select Go, then Go to Folder. Copy and paste the path below and hit GO:

~/Library/Containers/com.apple.mail

Move the whole com.apple.mail folder to the Trash, and open Mail and test. If all goes well, you can empty the trash. You may need to re create your user settings.

If there is a problem or you wish to restore the old file, first, Quit Mail.

Then open the Trash. Right click on the folder and choose Put Back from the menu.

Running OnyX did not help me either. Mail still randomly ignores it prefs settings. Apple has really blown High Sierra reliability and security. Time for Apple to reset their development cycles and concentrate on getting things right the first time.

Indeed it does it to me too. I much prefer the classic layout but seems I am getting the same symptoms. I would launch mail and the layout would be the modern version with the content window squashed way over to the right of the window. I close and re-launch and it seems to be back to classic without having changed anything except the lower content window in this layout is all squashed to the bottom - nothing that re-stretching the horizontal toggle bar doesn't solve, but this bug is very annoying!

Another 'me too'... I keep Mail.app open all day, and seemingly at random it will switch viewing prefs - typically once every other day or so. Then I go back to prefs and set it back to Classic. Lather, rinse, repeat.

I have reported this bug to Apple.

I am experiencing this as well. My "Conversation View" setting was reset to where the checkbox "Show most recent message at top" was removed.

My sound alert settings keep reseting as well. I do not like any alerts at all and have them off, but every 3rd or 4th Mac Mail open, this is changed back and I start hearing sounds.

Finally, favorite folders are also removed. I like to drag 4 or 5 favorite folders to the gray bar where "Mailboxes" is at the top. Every time Mac Mail resets, these are removed too.

It seems different folks are having different sets of preferences spontaneously change on them (the one common theme is losing the Classic layout). Adding to the confusion, the list of which preferences are getting whacked, and which subset of those get automatically restored by just quitting & restarting Mail, has changed for me since I first upgraded to High Sierra.

I have also had one or two occurrences where other Apps lost their prefs, so I'm starting to wonder if this is a bigger problem in High Sierra than just Mail.app.

In fact, Onyx.app doesn't resolve the issue. It's still here some days after.

But when the problem reappears, I restart Mail.app one or two times and my preferences are back. So it looks like sometimes the app just doesn't find the right preference file or something like this.

The app is now not only changing on start up. It resets the preferences even when I click on the inbox. The other day, it was running and some time between looking at it, it had reset the preferences.

Since I updated my system to the newly released 10.13.2 this morning in Japan time, the preference reset has not happened for more than 12 hours. I could be wrong, but the bug may be finally gone.

Please report here if someone encounters the bug even after applying 10.13.2 update.

The version number of Mail.app is now 11.2 (3445.5.20).

The 10.13.2 update is supposed to appear in the update tab of App Store as long as the Mac meets the following High Sierra's system requirement, I guess. Which Mac model are you using ?

General Requirements

OS X 10.8 or later

2GB of memory

14.3GB of available storage to perform upgrade*

Some features require an Apple ID; terms apply.

Some features require a compatible Internet service provider; fees may apply.

Mac Hardware Requirements

For details about your Mac model, click the Apple icon at the top left of your screen, choose About This Mac. These Mac models are compatible with macOS High Sierra:

MacBook (Late 2009 or newer)

MacBook Pro (Mid 2010 or newer)

MacBook Air (Late 2010 or newer)

Mac mini (Mid 2010 or newer)

iMac (Late 2009 or newer)

Mac Pro (Mid 2010 or newer)

PRAM reset is not working this am

Just checked for update through App Store link in apple menu; and Software Update link on "About This Mac"

= no updates available

I meet the requirements:

MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Early 2015)

installed macOS High Sierra 10.13.1 on 11/24/17

Memory: 8 GB

Storage Available: 62.74 GB (62,740,258,816 bytes)

I finally resolved this on my own. I had to delete the correct preferences file. It is here:

/Users/{your username}/Library/Containers/com.apple.mail

It is actually a folder. This seems to be the modern method Apple uses for preferences.