Fixing Share to Mail App

After a recent update to the Windows 8 Mail app, I found that I could no longer “share to” it from other apps.

For example, if I found an interesting web page and wanted to share it with my son, using the share charm and trying to create an email would fail with the message “Something went wrong and this app can’t share right now. Try again later”.

Aside: error messages like that are pure evil because they give the end user no opportunity to try and rectify the problem. It’s the same “mother knows best” mind-set that used to beset the Apple Macintosh back in the days of System 6 and System 7. Sure, use language that makes sense to an end user - but don’t conceal the facts from those with the capability to at least attempt a fix.

A consultation with Professor Google revealed that this error is relatively common - the quickest fix is to uninstall the Mail app (along with Calendar, People and Messaging) and then reinstall from the Store.

When I tried this out, the re-installation took literally moments and none of my account details were lost. Some settings did revert to their default thus required tweaking. For example, I started to see my son’s email account because Sync for mail turned on instead of only showing his calendar.

Blogged under the good Samaritan principle in the hope it saves someone some stress.