Mail on your Mac is not behaving like it used to do? Want a fresh start with your email? While you cannot uninstall and reinstall Mail on macOS, find out here how to reset Mail on a Mac so it is like new.
First, We Really Need More Applications
“We really need more applications,” thought Abhay Bhushan in Spring of 1971.
“We really need more applications,” he said to his fellows at the M.I.T. electrical engineering department as they were working on early precursors to the Internet. At the time, there was essentially one application: telnet.
Over the coming months, he developed a protocol and applications that let you send files—both text documents and binary files—from one machine to another.
So, FTP as a protocol is older than email. Email, in a way, is but an agglomeration of files. If you want to turn back the email time on your Mac, that can be useful and handy:
How to Reset Mail on a Mac (like Uninstall and Reinstall)
Time needed: 10 minutes
To completely reset the Mail app on a Mac using macOS (as if you would uninstall and reinstall the application):
- Export all emails stored only in Mail for macOS.
Where: These are the emails under On my Mac.
But how: How to Copy “On My Mac” Email Folders - Close Mail.
- Open Finder.
- Go to the ~/Library folder.
Here’s how: Press Command Shift G for the Go to Folder shortcut and type
~/Library, for example, the click Go. - Highlight the Mail folder.
Background: Mail is the folder where Mail stores emails on a Mac.
- Press Enter to start renaming the folder.
Other ways to rename: You can also right-click the folder, of course, and select Rename from the menu.
- Type
Mail.oldor another name (other than Mail).
- Press Enter again.
- Now go to the ~/Library/Preferences/ folder.
- Highlight the com.apple.mail.plist file.
How: You can start typing
com.apple.maito jump to the file.
Search: You can also press Command F and search for mail.plist, of course.
Not found: If you cannot find the file, no matter; skip the next three steps. - Press Enter to start renaming the file.
- Type
com.apple.mail.plist.old. - Press Enter again.
- Go to the ~/Library/Containers folder.
- Highlight all folders called Mail.
How: You can draw an outline with the mouse or hold down Command while clicking folders.
Just one: If you see just one folder called Mail, do highlight it. - Select File | New Folder with Selection or File | New Folder with “Mail” from the menu.
Finder keyboard shortcut: You can also press Command Control N.
- Type
Mail.oldas the new folder’s name.
- Press Enter.
- Open System Settings (or System Preferences).
- Open the Internet Accounts category.
- Turn off Mail for all accounts you want to remove.
Enabled email accounts. Mail will re-create and download again all accounts for which Mail is enabled.
New accounts: You can also remove and re-add email accounts to re-create them with new settings. - Start Mail.
IMAP will return: Mail uses IMAP email accounts, which store messages and folders on the server; after you reset Mail and added accounts back, the emails will return.
- Eventually, if everything works fine: Delete the Mail.old folders and the com.apple.mail.plist.old file.
How to Reset Mail on a Mac: FAQ
Can I delete the Mail app entirely on a Mac?
No.
While you can remove all settings and data files as above and, in addition, delete Mail from the /Applications folder, do this only if you will not need Mail itself—or to change the default macOS email application.
Important : The option to set the default email client for a Mac is only available in Apple Mail.
Can I reinstall Mail if I have removed it?
No.
To reinstall Mail for macOS after you have removed it entirely,
- you can re-install macOS.
Can I restore the original Mail emails, plugins, and preferences?
Yes.
To restore the copies of the original files you saved during resetting Mail:
- Quit Mail.
- Instead of deleting the Mail.old folder and com.apple.mail.plist.old file, delete the replacements (Mail folder and com.apple.mail.plist file Mail created).
- Rename the Mail.old folder to Mail in ~/Library.
- Rename the com.apple.mail.plist.old file to com.apple.mail.plist.
- Optional: move the folders from inside Mail.old in ~/Library/Containers to the ~/Library/Containers folder and delete the Mail.old folder.
(How to reset Mac Mail tested with macOS Sonoma 14.0 and Big Sur 11.5; updated November 2023)