Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Apple Mail randomly becomes the frontmost application in macOS

annoying.technology

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 178 posts

Re: Apple Mail randomly becomes the frontmost application in macOS

#91

Post by 7ewis »

theDoug wrote: post #88
7ewis wrote: post #87

Something I still don't understand, similar to this - not sure if it's a bug or feature but I use Desktops heavily, especially while working at home without my extra monitors. For some reason, the order of my Desktops on Mac seem to reshuffle, I can't work out what causes it or when it happens. I often have it ordered something like this: Desktop 1 - Google Doc (Chrome) Desktop 2 - Researching (Chrome) Desktop 3 - Sl…

The answer is found in System Preferences > Mission Control. Uncheck the “Automatically rearrange spaces based on most recent use” box :)

Wow, thanks so much!

Always thought it was bug, turned that straight off.

Re: Apple Mail randomly becomes the frontmost application in macOS

#92

Post by jonpurdy »

theDoug wrote: post #88
7ewis wrote: post #87

Something I still don't understand, similar to this - not sure if it's a bug or feature but I use Desktops heavily, especially while working at home without my extra monitors. For some reason, the order of my Desktops on Mac seem to reshuffle, I can't work out what causes it or when it happens. I often have it ordered something like this: Desktop 1 - Google Doc (Chrome) Desktop 2 - Researching (Chrome) Desktop 3 - Sl…

The answer is found in System Preferences > Mission Control. Uncheck the “Automatically rearrange spaces based on most recent use” box :)

Astounding to me that automatic rearranging would have been considered desirable. Hard to imagine that it’s just visual folks (like myself) who would lose flow state if the mental map of their Desktops was interrupted if they were suddenly rearranged.

Re: Apple Mail randomly becomes the frontmost application in macOS

#93

Post by andrewmcwatters »

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…

Hey Vlad, hope you're doing well!

Re: Apple Mail randomly becomes the frontmost application in macOS

#94

Post by evanelias »

knolan wrote: post #5

I’ve had this issue for a long time now across a couple of versions of MacOS and three Macs. It appears to be related to Google Calendar. My current workaround is to hide a Mail window with CMD-h. I’ve given up trying to report it or find a fix.

Can confirm, same here. As long as you hide the window (cmd-h) instead of closing it (cmd-w), the problem doesn't ever come up. I've been using this work-around for over a year now.

Re: Apple Mail randomly becomes the frontmost application in macOS

#95

Post by clairity »

7ewis wrote: post #87

Something I still don't understand, similar to this - not sure if it's a bug or feature but I use Desktops heavily, especially while working at home without my extra monitors. For some reason, the order of my Desktops on Mac seem to reshuffle, I can't work out what causes it or when it happens. I often have it ordered something like this: Desktop 1 - Google Doc (Chrome) Desktop 2 - Researching (Chrome) Desktop 3 - Sl…

has anyone found a good, free solution for naming spaces (instead of “Desktop n”)? i used to be able to name them with a free utility, but SIP killed it.

Re: Apple Mail randomly becomes the frontmost application in macOS

#96

Post by simongr3dal »

jonpurdy wrote: post #92
theDoug wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The answer is found in System Preferences > Mission Control. Uncheck the “Automatically rearrange spaces based on most recent use” box :)

Astounding to me that automatic rearranging would have been considered desirable. Hard to imagine that it’s just visual folks (like myself) who would lose flow state if the mental map of their Desktops was interrupted if they were suddenly rearranged.

When changing apps by using the dock, the animation only shows the desktops move over by one space. So by changing the order it will only take one swipe to get back to where you were before.

If it didn’t rearrange based on use the animation would show an arbitrary number of moves and you would have to keep track of how many times it moved over to know how many times to swipe to get back.

If you only change desktops by using Mission Control rearrange based on recent used shouldn’t even be a problem because it will never automatically rearrange if you use Mission Control.

Re: Apple Mail randomly becomes the frontmost application in macOS

#97

Post by snuxoll »

lonelappde wrote: post #86
mihaaly wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I confirm your observations. Yet, to force an app to the front when glitch in connection happens is more like a feature they deliriously thought is being useful, instead of choosing other means of notifications, which is plenty. An app is not forcing itself to the front without someone is specifically writing the code for it to do.

This smells like a feature built 10+ years ago, before notifications existed in Mac OS X, that never got upgraded. That's how apps "notified" back then.

> That's how apps "notified" back then.

Polite apps would just bounce their dock icon rather than stealing focus, however.

Re: Apple Mail randomly becomes the frontmost application in macOS

#98

Post by evanelias »

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…

In my experience, if you always hide the Mail window (cmd-h) instead of closing it (cmd-w), it won't ever pop back up. Takes a while to retrain the muscle memory though!

I haven't tested this in Catalina, but it definitely works consistently in Mojave.

Post reply on HN