What to do when Apple Mail will not start (Mail not responding)

You’re using your shiny Apple iMac or MacBook and you go to check on your. You click on the Mail icon and low and behold the thing freezes and doesn’t respond. What to do?

Well there are a few things you can do to fix this problem.

Run Apple Update and Restart your computer.

The issue could have already been fixed by Apple with an update or just may need a simple reboot. Try these steps first. You never know when they’ll work and save you hours of headache. Try these steps first for all computer problems.

Your Mail preferences file may have become corrupted.

The Mail preferences file stores- well, your preferences! It’s probably the first file that Apple Mail loads when it starts up and if somethings gone wrong with that file (corruption and so on) the Mail application will just freeze. The easy way to fix this issue is to simply delete the Mail preferences file. This will delete some simple settings but will leave your email intact.

Here’s how to delete the preferences file for Apple Mail:

  1. Restart your computer and DO NOT open Mail.
  2. Open a Finder Window.
  3. Select your User Name folder.
  4. Select the Library folder and then the Preferences folder.
  5. Find, in the list that appears, com.apple.mail.plist. Drag it to the trash.
  6. Open Mail. It should now load.

Hopefully now your Mail app will stop freezing. However if the above didn’t solve your problem read on.

There may be a “corrupted” message on the server.

There may be a “corrupted” message that’s giving Mail pause. Mail tries to either download or open this email and freezes up because it doesn’t know what to do with it. What you need to do is open your email account through a web-based email client. For example if your email comes through a .Mac account you can login here: www.mac.com.

If your email comes through your Internet Service Provider you can try calling their technical support line and asking them to flush the emails waiting on the server. While this will make you lose all of the emails you have not read yet the faster you do this the less emails you’ll lose.

You can also try downloading and setting up your account in another email client such as Thunderbird. Thunderbird is the same thing as Mail only by a different company. It may be able to download the corrupted messages so Mail doesn’t have to.

25 thoughts on “What to do when Apple Mail will not start (Mail not responding)”

  2. More of what? Are you having other problems with Mail or your Mac?

    btw I removed the link to your “Get a FREE Macbook!” website. Seemed kinda scammy. ;)

  4. I normally don’t take the time to post comments, but it is difficult to find actual info on this subject today. You did a wonderful job in this post and I am going to take the time to read the rest of your blog. Keep up the good work!

  5. Interesting article. unfortunately in real life this is only doable when you have a few email accounts. Imagine that you have 50 or more. That would cost you an entire day to key in your email accounts or to investigate with webmail accounts.
    The matter of the fact is that Apple Mail is simply highly unreliable especially in combination with .me synchronizing means that you will get a hang sooner or later. Removing the entire mail database may help, you still have to find identify the problem. Throwing away your plist works but as soon as you synchronize through .me you are stuck again.
    Using another program does only work when you are not using third party plug ins to import messages and email accounts in other programs like Daylite or filemaker. It is ridiculous that Apple is not able to skip an infected message while other programs have no trouble doing so. T

  6. I was just looking for this information for a while. After 6 hours of continuous Googleing, at last I got it in your web site. I wonder what is the lack of Google strategy that don’t rank this type of informative websites in top of the list. Usually the top web sites are full of garbage.

  7. All nonsense solutions of course, unless you have two accounts running. Imagine throwing away your PLIST with 100 plus accounts that are sorted alphabetically. Good luck in such a case reorganizing the next few hours.

    Or imagine finding out the first message, by the way, if that first message is mentioned in the opened attachments plist, it does not work either.

    The only solution you might have is forcing mail to quit immediately after you have hit the icon. It will mostly give you the option the restore or not restore the opened windows. You do not retire and immediately hit with your cursor another mailbox. Than you might have a chance it will resolve itself.

    But Apple is aware of this bug since 2004 or so and has not bothered to fix it. Actually you are screwed when you you use mail integration plug ins from other programs, it will rule out the possibility to switch to a decent working email program.

    Mail sucks and it will keep on sucking.

  8. Restarting my MacBook Pro did not help, so….

    I resolved this issue by shutting down and restarting in SAFE MODE. I was able to open and navigate Mail. Then I restarted the computer (leaving Mail open) and was able to start using Mail again in normal mode.

  9. What happens when com.apple.mail.plist is not in the list? Finder/User Name/Preferences/com.apple.mail.plist

  10. Reply to Brian Harris: Refer to step 4. You want Finder/User Name/Library/Preferences/com.apple.mail.plist

  11. found an easy fix for me… (as the file above doesnt exist on the latest update it seems..)

    in finder menu – under “Go” – “Go to Folder”
    Type in
    ~/Library/Mail/

    Then rename the V3 folder to V3a
    Relaunch mail – press continue and it loads all the email accounts – I have 60+ so this was a great quick fix :-) Happy days – hope it helps someones else

  13. Thank you Tessa Stephens. I have never used a site like this and am hugely relieved your advice worked…I had been quietly ignoring the problem for weeks…

  14. Thanks Tessa that seems to have worked for me too. I couldn’t even manage to open mail before – despite trawling the forums.

    Got in a right mess after upgrading to Sierra and then restoring a backup as Sierra was so slow.

    That quick fix enabled me to open mail.

  17. I dont have a V3 folder in the Library. I have a V2 folder and a V5 folder, that’s it.
    Should I rename the V2 folder as V2a ?
    Thank you for any help

  18. Thank you Tessa – I got the window to reopen although al of my mailboxes did not reappear! All of the rules I set up previously are gone so the emails are all in the inbox – not in separate mailboxes… Ideas?

  20. Teresa… another thanks from me. Your fix did the trick, when an hour of searching via Google did not. I had to rename a V2 instead of a V3, but it worked like magic. Had to wait and wait for mail to import messages… and it only saved about a couple of hundred… AND I lost my half dozen rules, but all of that was the SMALLEST cost to pay. MANY thanks again for your contribution, it really help me and others here, too.

  22. I don’t have any of these files? Please help I upgraded to Mojave and when I open the mail icon it says mail upgrading and does nothing at all. I can’t open Outlook anymore either.

  23. Tessa Stephens, thank you!!! I haven’t been able to get mail to open for over a week and I’ve tried everything that I could find. I renamed V2 and V7 as V2a and V7a because I didn’t know what else to do and FINALLY mail started to respond! Thank you so much

  24. Tessa, thank you so much! Your tip was the only one that worked for MacBookPro with HighSierra.

  25. Thank you Tessa !!!!!…I have spent hours trying to get my mail back on El Capitan, on my mac… nothing else worked..Brilliant.

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