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Apple Mail randomly becomes the frontmost application in macOS

annoying.technology

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Re: Apple Mail randomly becomes the frontmost application in macOS

#71

Post by TheSpiceIsLife »

mihaaly wrote: post #57
jtlowe wrote: post #43

I experience this as well after upgrading to Catalina. I thought it was my fault at first, caused by some sort of key combo. It only happens for me when in full screen with another app. I use Mail with a GSuite account as well.

I am still not on Catalina yet and it started for me ca. 6-9 months ago. Perhaps with some Mojave update. (unsure as no big changes occurred and it took some time to see being a systematic trouble) I am more and more turning off system updates (not only Mac) as those bring more trouble than good. Being a very late adopter pays off. (update to Catalina is still not in the middle term plans)

I’m still on High Sierra (10.13), latest security update three days ago (10.13.6)

Admittedly I am not a developer, and none of the software I’ve wanted to run has required a more recent version.

Re: Apple Mail randomly becomes the frontmost application in macOS

#73

Post by swiley »

andreasley wrote: post #34
orloffm wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If people keep alligators at home, and some are eaten by them, the assessment of them being unsuitable for pets is not subjective.

It depends on the percentage. Dogs are considered suitable pets, despite some owners being mauled.

Certain breeds of dogs are not, these probably account for the majority of mailings. https://www.askadamskutner.com/dog-bites/bite-statistics-acc...

Re: Apple Mail randomly becomes the frontmost application in macOS

#74

Post by mihaaly »

threeseed wrote: post #32
chrisseaton wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Your bug will at least then be triaged and acknowledged. Lol sure it will.

Bugreporter is just a front end for Radar. And I can assure that when I was working at Apple bugs were triaged and acknowledged by a PM. Doesn’t mean they get fixed though.

"Doesn’t mean they get fixed though." Ok then! I am driven to report it now!

Actually, this is a trouble bugs lots and lots of people for long long time. I browsed countless articles or threads about this with tons of workarounds. Where more than a few are Apple discussions. If it is not reported yet - from outside or inside - then it does not exist. But it does.

Re: Apple Mail randomly becomes the frontmost application in macOS

#76

Post by snazz »

vladnyc wrote: post #59
mstade wrote: post #54

I don't have any issues with Apple Mail but I do have issues with zoom, randomly switching from full screen sharing to the desktop and back again, it's incredibly annoying. It doesn't happen when I share my screen, only when others do. It seems to have gotten better recently but still happens in occasion. Anyone else seeing this? Maybe it's related?

It’s a setting you can turn off

Yes. This is a very annoying default, but luckily you can disable it.

Re: Apple Mail randomly becomes the frontmost application in macOS

#77

Post by TheSpiceIsLife »

bambataa wrote: post #58
galad87 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason is that Mail thinks the mail server is unreachable, so it brings the window to front, but then magically it changes idea and the mail server is reachable again ️.

In general I find macOS handles alerting the user very poorly. I don't know why but it infuriates me when icons bounce on the dock for attention. The animation is too insistent for whatever trivial thing the app wants to let me know. Or an app will open some Important Dialog Box that I need to deal with, except it's hidden behind some other windows somewhere and the rest of the app refuses to respond to my clicks unt…

I’m still on High Sierra (10.13) and this happened to me only three hours ago installing QCAD.

I switched out to another program for a moment during installation and when I switched back a QCAD installation dialogue box was hidden by the main QCAD installation window.

I was able to drag the obscuring window out of the way, but still seems daft not to focus on the interaction blocking window.

Re: Apple Mail randomly becomes the frontmost application in macOS

#78

Post by IAmEveryone »

mihaaly wrote: post #57
jtlowe wrote: post #43

I experience this as well after upgrading to Catalina. I thought it was my fault at first, caused by some sort of key combo. It only happens for me when in full screen with another app. I use Mail with a GSuite account as well.

I am still not on Catalina yet and it started for me ca. 6-9 months ago. Perhaps with some Mojave update. (unsure as no big changes occurred and it took some time to see being a systematic trouble) I am more and more turning off system updates (not only Mac) as those bring more trouble than good. Being a very late adopter pays off. (update to Catalina is still not in the middle term plans)

To add a datapoint that might be underrepresented for reasons of self-selections: I've updated to Catalina and haven't had any issues.

Re: Apple Mail randomly becomes the frontmost application in macOS

#79

Post by mihaaly »

dewey wrote: post #56
mihaaly wrote: post #52

It is not a bug, it is a feature. Someone out there had to write the code that pushes the mail app to the front. It does not happen spontaneously, someone made it happen. And made it an exclusive behavior without user control. It must have been a conscious feature. A mindless and stupid one, but still a feature. No bug to fix here. (after suffering and spending toooo much time of experimenting I decided to get rid of…

> Someone out there had to write the code that pushes the mail app to the front. Sometimes the code you write doesn't do what you had in mind. Or worse: gets triggered by side effects of something unrelated. I don't think it's intentional in this case but even if it would be intentional after seeing this many bug reports everywhere you'd have to reconsider and make connection errors less intrusive.

You do not push the whole app to the front by mistake, especially at some glitch of connection as it is happening here! It is not a typo or whatever kind of mistake just happens on its own but had to be a conscious action!! I write code, I make mistake, but this is beyond that! It is also neglected for years now while being very widespread, no way of being unnoticed and left there if it wasn't a conscious choice to do so!

Re: Apple Mail randomly becomes the frontmost application in macOS

#80

Post by dingdingdang »

vladharbuz wrote: post #55

I've had this issue for the past 2–3 years. It seems to happen because of improper error handling. If you look closely at the app in the instant it opens, your affected account will have a “disconnected” symbol next to it in the sidebar. However, it goes away before an error can be shown. My theory is: there is a momentary connection issue with these G Suite accounts, and Mail.app starts to show an error by focusing…

Solidly on Linux Mint now but back in the day when wrangling MacOS I used Hammerspoon to fix these sort of issues - should be doable to monitor and enforce the background status of Mail.app and then pause the monitoring when invoked by user (easiest thing would likely be to set hotkey that then also pauses monitoring), and finally resume monitoring when Mail.app goes to background (i.e. user done with active interaction).
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