Fixing GrowlMail for Mail 4.2

Lately Apple has been revving the version number (and plugin compatibility UUID) of Mail.app with every version of 10.6. This breaks bundles like GrowlMail even when they are still compatible. The easy fix (although not necessarily the best if it turns out an update is required!) is to run a few commands in Terminal to add the new UUIDs¹ to the SupportedPluginCompatibilityUUID key in the Info.plist.²

If you have already had your plugins disabled by opening Mail.app you’ll need to look in ~/Library/Mail (or /Library/Mail if you installed globally) and move the files back to the active bundles directory. They’ll typically be in Bundles (Disabled), so quit Mail, find them, and move them back into the proper directory.

Once you’ve gotten the files moved into the proper location use either the local installation or global installation commands below (depending on where you found your bundles). To run them, simply copy/paste them into a Terminal window.³

For GrowlMail (assuming local installation)

defaults write ~/Library/Mail/Bundles/GrowlMail.mailbundle/Contents/Info SupportedPluginCompatibilityUUIDs -array-add "2F0CF6F9-35BA-4812-9CB2-155C0FDB9B0F"
defaults write ~/Library/Mail/Bundles/GrowlMail.mailbundle/Contents/Info SupportedPluginCompatibilityUUIDs -array-add "0CB5F2A0-A173-4809-86E3-9317261F1745"

For GrowlMail (global installation)

defaults write /Library/Mail/Bundles/GrowlMail.mailbundle/Contents/Info SupportedPluginCompatibilityUUIDs -array-add "2F0CF6F9-35BA-4812-9CB2-155C0FDB9B0F"
defaults write /Library/Mail/Bundles/GrowlMail.mailbundle/Contents/Info SupportedPluginCompatibilityUUIDs -array-add "0CB5F2A0-A173-4809-86E3-9317261F1745"

Update: Letterbox has been updated, but the above instructions can be adapted for any future OS update that breaks compatibility.

Update 2: You can download a pre-patched copy if you don’t want to follow the above instructions. Just unzip it and drop it in your bundles directory.

Update 3: GrowlMail 1.2.1 has been released, which fixes 10.6.2 compatibility. This issue will likely occur again with 10.6.3 though!

2F0CF6F9-35BA-4812-9CB2-155C0FDB9B0F for Mail.app v4.2 and 0CB5F2A0-A173-4809-86E3-9317261F1745 for the Message framework. These were released with OS X 10.6.2. ↩
These UUIDs can be found in /Applications/Mail.app/Contents/Info.plist and /System/Library/Frameworks/Message.framework/Resources/Info.plist for when they inevitably change again. ↩
Terminal is found in /Applications/Utilities if you’ve never used it before. You’ll see a prompt and you can paste the commands in and hit enter. ↩

bash, mac, mail

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This entry was posted by Paul Kehrer on November 9, 2009 at 5:50 pm, and is filed under Posts. Follow any responses to this post through RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.

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Comments (45)

#1 written by flec65
about 4 months ago

It works! Thanks for the tip.
#2 written by panosru
about 4 months ago

Not works for me
#3 written by Paul Kehrer
about 4 months ago

panosru,

Did you try changing the paths to /Library/Mail? I’ll edit the post to try to be more clear as well.
#4 written by Gert Sorensen
about 4 months ago

Could you please how to do this in a “slow” way – and sorry for being slow:)
#5 written by Dave
about 4 months ago

I would guess the people that are having problems, the problem is likely due to they ran Mail.app (which reported that the plugin was incompatible and would be disabled). As part of this, Mail.app creates a ~/Library/Mail/Bundles (Disabled) folder and moves the GrowlMail plugin to that folder (not sure what happens if it’s installed in /Library/Mail/, but it might do something similar if it can). You’ll need to move it back to the “Bundles” folder before the commands will work.

Now, I moved it back and executed the commands, and then launched Mail.app and it still reported the plugin was invalid, so I don’t know what’s up with that (and I verified the UUID’s and they matched). I did notice the plugin Info.plist didn’t have any other UUID’s for that key, I expected to see ‘older’ UUIDs in there.

I’ll just wait for GrowlMail to be officially updated….
#6 written by Paul Kehrer
about 4 months ago

Yeah, and the commands will create the files and directories if they’re not present, so you need to make sure you put your plugins back, then run it. I’ve tested this on several machines so it should all work fine, but if anybody has suggestions on how to make it less confusing I’d welcome it!
#7 written by growldaemon
about 4 months ago

This didn’t initially work for me. After a bit of digging, I discovered that there is a bug in Growl-1.2 (at least in Snow Leopard) — selecting “Install for all users” installs for only a single user. However, when mail disables the local plugin, it creates an empty GrowlMail.mailbundle in the global disabled bundles folder! (“/Library/Mail/Bundles (Disabled)”) Check your directories carefully before applying this patch (or uninstall and reinstall GrowlMail completely, then patch) if it’s not working for you.
#8 written by bugpit
about 4 months ago

Thank you very much! Worked just fine.
#9 written by Tobias Mende
about 4 months ago

Hey guys,
there is a new version of Letterbox out there, which works with 10.6.2
#10 written by plumk0r
about 4 months ago

It works, although it complaints about incompatible plugin at first startup after defaults write. To see if it works, check if there’s a /Library/Mail/Bundles (disabled)/ dir. It not, then it probably works.
THANKS MAN!
#11 written by 41f0n50
about 4 months ago

It just works for me!!!
Thanks!!!
#12 written by billgor
about 4 months ago

Simply great! Thanks a lot!!!
#13 written by Giuseppe Leone
about 4 months ago

It worked perfectly. Thanks for a precious tip!
#14 written by Matt
about 3 months ago

Thanks! Works.
#15 written by Grateful Jeff
about 3 months ago

A really big thank you for the post. Very helpful.
JW
#16 written by Chris
about 3 months ago

My global installation of growlmail wasn’t disabled (though mail kept telling me it was) – I didn’t have to move any files and the fix still works. Thanks!
#17 written by Joe Cotton
about 3 months ago

Works perfectly. Thx for sharing.
#18 written by Itchy
about 3 months ago

Is working great! Thanks for the very informative script.
Just used it after the Snow Leopard Update to 10.6.2(?).
#19 written by Chris Carpenter
about 3 months ago

Yah, it works! Thanks for that.
#20 written by Spec
about 3 months ago

Thanks for the tip. Worked great (using the first method).
#21 written by Mike
about 3 months ago

Very nice.
#22 written by jeffharris
about 3 months ago

Excellent!

Thanks for the pre-tweaked GrowlMail bundle! I couldn’t get the terminal thing to work.

I just upgraded to Snow Leopard, thinking the wait for 10.6.2 would solve any potential incompatibilities. What a laugh! I guess it’s the cost of a major rewrite of the system.
#23 written by Jaren Angerbauer
about 3 months ago

Definitely thanks for the visibility on this. Using Terminal, I modified the bundle and it is working great. Question I have is, why doesn’t Growl put out a fix like this? Thanks again.
#24 written by Johan Attali
about 3 months ago

Worked great, thanks a bunch !
#25 written by Stefan B.
about 3 months ago

Thanks for sharing your knowledge! This worked great for GrowlMail and by replacing the bundle-name, it also worked for the excellent MsgFiler-Plugin.
#26 written by mongeta
about 3 months ago

it works perfectly, thanks for the tip !
#27 written by tom95476
about 3 months ago

Wow. Thank you!! Works perfectly!!
#28 written by Sahaini Ahmad Safian
about 3 months ago

nice. working. Thank you
#29 written by LisaM
about 3 months ago

Thanks so much! I couldn’t work out the first updating method, but the download bundle worked brilliantly.
#30 written by GuillaumeB
about 3 months ago

Hi there, just followed the directions, and it did work in the sense that it made the plugin available in the preference pane, but i still did not get any notification … also since this, mail is using up a lot of CPU and remains at 33% CPU usage
Any idea how to fix this?
#31 written by Alan
about 3 months ago

Worked for me – thanks very much, I am very grateful for your work on this.
#32 written by Osman
about 3 months ago

Thanks, the solution works.
#33 written by Peter
about 3 months ago

Works – Thank you!
#34 written by Lawrence
about 3 months ago

If Growl has been disabled any time in the past then there will be a “Bundles (Disabled)” folder for each version that was disabled. If Growl was installed in the global library, or in a user library, there may be Disabled folders for a variety of Growl versions in each. And, for each time a new version of Growl was installed, and subsequently disabled, a new Disabled folder will be created, each one numbered. I had multiple as I have been running Growl for years. I had “Bundles (Disabled)”, “Bundles (Disabled 1)” and “Bundles (Disabled 2)” in “~/Library/…” and a single one in “/Library/”.

Check that you do not have multiple Disableds and if you do, that you use the most recent to copy the bundle back into the working folder. Then delete the Disableds so future confusion will be reduced…

Cheers – Thanks for the hint – I hate living without Growl!

Lawrence
#35 written by Sean
about 3 months ago

I followed the instructions and it worked! I’ve missed growl mail ever since the mail 4.2 update and it’s nice to have it back, thank you!
#36 written by Mark Fullbrook
about 3 months ago

Thanks a bunch! It worked perfectly for me!
#37 written by Sean Rasmussen
about 3 months ago

Excellent – thanks for the tip.
#38 written by Matt Barry
about 2 months ago

Works great man, thanks!
#39 written by Archangelwu
about 2 months ago

thanks .. it works ….

I use download files to fix my problem XD
#40 written by Emanuele
about 2 months ago

Thanks for the tip!
Bye,
Emanuele
#41 written by Dan
about 2 months ago

I tried this method for the ‘RelatedMail’ bundle, but it did not work.
Mail.app continues to disable it.

Has anyone managed to enable this?

http://www.pertinere.com/related_mail.html
#42 written by Xoeren
about 2 months ago

Yes – it works like a charm!

I’m forever gratefull – GrowlMail was an intricate part of my work routine, and I’m really happy to have it back
#43 written by Dave C
about 2 months ago

yay! I’m so happy I found this. I’ve otherwise been really happy with the Snow Leopard update but have been mourning the loss of my Growl mail notifications, and I’m really happy to have them back.
#44 written by GrowlFan
about 2 months ago

I stumbled upon your post while searching for a solution. In the course if that I discovered that now you might also just install GrowlMail 1.2.1 from
=> http://growl.info/growlmail
which is now released separately from growl.

Thanks for your work anyway.
#45 written by David
about 2 months ago

Thanks so much for the tip!

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