Airmail Missing from Login Items & Background Activity on macOS Tahoe — Re-registering Background Services

On macOS Tahoe 26.x, some users have reported that Airmail does not appear in System Settings > General > Login Items & Extensions, in the Background Activity / Notifications panel, or in Privacy & Security. This article explains why this can happen and how to re-register Airmail with macOS so its background services are correctly recognized.

Why this happens

On recent versions of macOS, applications register themselves in these system panels only after they have requested or been granted the relevant permissions. If the registration handshake does not complete, Airmail will not appear in the lists, and background sync (including post-wake sync for Exchange and IMAP) may behave unreliably.

Procedure 1 — Force Login Item re-registration

Open Airmail.
2. Go to Preferences > General and toggle "Launch at login" off.
3. Quit Airmail completely (right-click the Dock icon > Quit).
4. Reopen Airmail and re-enable "Launch at login".
5. Quit and relaunch Airmail one more time.
6. Open System Settings > General > Login Items & Extensions and verify that Airmail now appears under "Allow in the Background".

Procedure 2 — Restart and re-approve permission prompts

Fully quit Airmail.
2. Restart your Mac.
3. Open Airmail and approve any permission prompts that appear (notifications, background activity, files access).
4. Recheck System Settings > General > Login Items & Extensions, > Notifications > Airmail, and > Privacy & Security.

Procedure 3 — Clean reinstall

If Airmail still does not appear after the steps above, perform a complete clean reinstall by following our dedicated guide: Uninstall and Install Airmail (https://help.airmailapp.com/en-us/article/uninstall-and-install-airmail-airmail-for-macos-m6857/). A clean reinstall removes leftover preferences and caches that may be preventing the system from triggering the registration prompts.

Diagnostic information for Airmail Support

If the issue persists after a clean reinstall, please share the following with Airmail Support so our technical team can investigate:

macOS version (Apple menu > About This Mac).
2. Airmail version (Airmail menu > About Airmail).
3. Output of the following Terminal commands (read-only and safe):
sfltool dumpbtm | grep -i airmail
launchctl list | grep -i airmail
4. A screenshot of System Settings > General > Login Items & Extensions.
These outputs allow us to verify how Airmail is registered (or not) with the macOS Background Task Management system and the LaunchAgent subsystem.

If you have any further questions, feel free to reach out to the Airmail Support team.

Updated on: 05/08/2026

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