Apple Mail keeps opening...but Outlook is the default e-mail

Every time I boot up, my default mail, Outlook, opens…but so does Apple Mail. I have to close it every time. If I close Outlook and SpamSieve for any reason, when I reopen SpamSieve, Apple Mail opens up again. How can I stop this? It is quite annoying.

You can tell SpamSieve that you no longer want to use it with Apple Mail by choosing Uninstall Apple Mail Plug-In from the SpamSieve menu.

Not Helpful if you also want to use Mail

That’s all well and good if you only want to use Outlook. However, if one wishes to use both, the constant need to close Mail, not to mention the annoying popups telling one to “get information” on how to install SpamSieve when it’a already installed is clearly indicative of an application not ready for prime time. I have to assume the goal was to ensure it was updated to work in Mail in Mojave, which is fine. However, is there any idea when it will be ready to use with other email applications as well?

As you have probably read, Mojave changed the way Mail works such that plug-ins need to be manually enabled by the user. Additionally, there are a variety of cases where a previously enabled plug-in can be disabled even if neither you nor SpamSieve changed anything. If the SpamSieve plug-in is disabled, Mail can move good messages to the Spam mailbox without consulting SpamSieve. SpamSieve tries to do everything possible to protect you from this, and that’s why it launches Mail in order to make sure that the plug-in is enabled, and deactivates the rules and alerts you if it isn’t.

Unfortunately, a side effect of this protection is that if you are using SpamSieve with multiple mail clients, SpamSieve may launch Mail when you weren’t planning to use it. As far as I can tell, there’s an unavoidable tradeoff here between maximum safety and launching Mail inappropriately. SpamSieve errs on the side of safety. However, if you understand the issue about disabled plug-ins and want to assume that responsibility for yourself, you can click this link to tell SpamSieve not to do this check (and therefore not to launch Mail).

For the initial Mojave support, safety was the top priority, but going forward I will be looking more at whether there ways to improve the experience for people who want to use multiple mail clients, i.e. the affected subset who want to use Mail in combination with another client but don’t run both at once.

There are a few cases where SpamSieve 2.9.33 is too conservative about determining whether the plug-in is enabled, e.g. giving up too early and assuming it isn’t in situations where Mail takes a long time to launch. This should be much better in 2.9.34b3, but if you find otherwise please send in a diagnostic report when it happens.

SpamSieve 2.9.34b4 includes some changes so that it is no longer necessary for SpamSieve to launch Apple Mail. That should make it work much more smoothly if you are using multiple mail clients.