UPDATE 2025-04-01: FIXED! Apple addressed this bug in the macOS 15.4 release! Mail Assistant works again!
UPDATE 2025-01-22: Still broken as of the macOS 15.3 release. No response to my feedback from Apple.
Just a quick head’s up for anyone that uses my Mail Assistant utility to send Markdown mail on Mac, either from Drafts or other tools – Apple broke it in the macOS 15.1 update (maybe also in 15.0, not sure).
Mail Assistant is a Mac Catalyst app that provides a wrapper for an iOS API to send HTML mail for which there is no equivalent on Mac (specifically, MFMailComposeViewController. For some reason, that API (and its companion for sending Messages) are no longer working on macOS 15.1. There is no mention of this in Apple’s release notes and no updates to documentation indicating this is intentional, so I think it’s just a bug. If any Apple people are reading, see FB15693837.
When trying to send mail with Mail Assistant on macOS 15.1, you will get an error about mail not being available.
Hopefully, Apple will resolve in an update soon.
5 Likes
I’m assuming this is the error you’re referring to “Service not available”?
Yes. That would be the error you would get using MailAssistant from an action.
Thankfully, Apple fixed this bug in macOS 15.4. Mail Assistant will work again after updating to that release.
1 Like
I can’t get it to work. I’m already on 15.4. This window appears and nothing happens.
Did you read the documentation?
It’s a helper application meant for use with Drafts actions and/or shortcuts. It shouldn’t “do” anything when you launch it.
I didn’t launch it. The window appears when I use the action suggested in the documentation page.
Hmm…do you have Mail app accounts configured?
What happens if you click the “Send Mail” button?
What about if you open this URL in Safari: mail-assistant://sendMail
I have three accounts configured.
“Send Mail” and “More information” are not clickable.
The URL opens the same window in the screenshot above.
Any suggestions? Please help.
You are sure you are updated to macOS 15.4? You have the current version of Mail Assistant?
I’ve tested this on three Macs running 15.4 and the underlying bug was resolved and it’s working on all them them. The behavior you are describing is exactly what has happening on macOS 15.0-15.3.
It’s an Intel Mac running macOS 15.4 and Mail Assistant 0.4.
The only reason that should be the case is if the system is saying you do not have Mail services available for some reason. Any message in your Drafts action log after running the Mail Assistant action? It probably won’t be helpful, but might provide an error detail.
And you definitely are using Apple’s Mail app with account configured and working fine to send mail in the app?
The message in the action log says “Timeout waiting on callback response.”
For Mail, I use the app everyday with iCloud and Gmail accounts, it’s fine.
Honestly, no idea what else to try. There’s no way to troubleshoot this, really. If the system is saying mail is not available, there’s no other steps to take. You could try a reboot, reinstalling Mail Assistant – but I doubt that will change anything.
I’ll keep an eye out for other reports…maybe Apple hasn’t fully fixed this bug for some combination of configurations.
Yeah, I tried reinstalling Mail Assistant and the action, but no good. Thank you for your assistance, let’s see if this gets fixed soon.
