[SOLVED] Mail.app opened, but nothing is displayed expect the menu bar at the top

[Yoms]

TL;DR Mail.app doesn't display any windows at all

Hi,

I installed Big Sur 11.0.1 a few days ago. After I tried to send an e-mail by clicking on the email address of a contact within the Contacts.app, the Mail.app doesn't display any window.

The menu bar is displayed though, so I can click on File/New message for instance, but nothing appears on the screen. One noticeable thing: if I right click on the Mail.app icon located in the dock, the menu shows that there's a window called "New message". If I click on "New message", nothing appears.

It's as though everything worked normally, but the windows are hidden.

Tried to delete mail related stuffs in the Library directory, but that didn't solve anything.

Any idea? Please don't tell me I have to reinstall Big Sur from scratch

Thanks.

 

[Apple_Robert]

After Big Sur update, deleted mail and ju… - Apple Community

discussions.apple.com

anyone else think Big Sur mail sucks?

Feel like it forces one to use the menu bar more than in the past...switching the filter between unread messages and flagged messages...sorting email by date/sender/etc...am I missing something? Even within the mail app, you used to be able to customize the toolbar to switch between different...

forums.macrumors.com

 

[Yoms]

.

I sent my original by mistake before I finished writing about my issue. Unfortunately, your link doesn't deal with the same issue. Mine is that Mail.app doesn't appear on screen at all.

 

[Yoms]

Anyone knows how I can reinitialise Mail.app as if it was a fresh clean install?

 

[Runs For Fun]

Anyone knows how I can reinitialise Mail.app as if it was a fresh clean install?

This should do it.

 

[Yoms]

This should do it.

Thanks. Unfortunately, it doesn't work. Some of the folders to delete are not present. I guess that it's because the article is 5 years old and things have changed since.

I've also installed the public Beta 11.1 hoping it would overwrite the corrupt files (or whatever it is that is corrupt), but it didn't solve the issue.

 

[Yoms]

[SOLVED]

OK, so using the link provided above by FuturePilot, I then searched for Mail.app factory reset and found this topic:

How to reset mail to factory settings. - Apple Community

discussions.apple.com

So, here's what I did:
1) Go to Settings => Security and Confidentiality => grant the Terminal.app access to the whole disk
2) Open Terminal and navigate to Library
3) Input this command
rm -rf ./Caches/com.apple.mail ./Saved Application State/com.apple.mail.savedState ./Application Support/AddressBook/MailRecents-v4.abcdmr ./Containers/com.apple.mail ./Mail ./Preferences/com.apple.mail.plist ./Preferences/com.apple.mail.searchhistory.plist

I started and quit several times Mail.app and each time the app was displayed on screen. Hopefully it stays that way.

 

[gwhizkids]

[SOLVED]

OK, so using the link provided above by FuturePilot, I then searched for Mail.app factory reset and found this topic:

How to reset mail to factory settings. - Apple Community

discussions.apple.com

So, here's what I did:
1) Go to Settings => Security and Confidentiality => grant the Terminal.app access to the whole disk
2) Open Terminal and navigate to Library
3) Input this command
rm -rf ./Caches/com.apple.mail ./Saved Application State/com.apple.mail.savedState ./Application Support/AddressBook/MailRecents-v4.abcdmr ./Containers/com.apple.mail ./Mail ./Preferences/com.apple.mail.plist ./Preferences/com.apple.mail.searchhistory.plist

I started and quit several times Mail.app and each time the app was displayed on screen. Hopefully it stays that way.

Thanks for posting this! Seems to have solved the issue.