No notifications on Mail app? This is how you can fix it

After updating my main laptop to Windows 10 Creators Update (1703), I lost e-mail notifications on Action Center. The Mail app received several updates since then, but none fixed the issue and I believe it won't be fixed with further updates, as the problem is likely on the operating system side. I also reported the issue on Feedback Hub, but now that I fixed the problem on my own and I saw that I was not the only one affected I decided to write this short article to guide you and hopefully, you fix the issue.

My solution requires using Powershell commands, which I believe that not everyone is comfortable with. Perhaps, your problem is different from mine so I decided to do a list of things you can try to fix your problem.

Check if notifications are enabled on Mail app

This is the most trivial fix attempt you can do first. Open the Mail app. You can use the Search box on Taskbar/Start Menu. Then go to Settings, by clicking on the small gear icon on the left bottom. A panel should reveal on the right side. Next, click on Notifications. Make sure the toggle Show notifications on the action center is enabled. If you have multiple accounts you can apply these settings to all, just tick the box Apply to all accounts.

If it was already enabled, move forward. Otherwise, do a quick test, sending an email to yourself and see if get a notification.

Reset the app

This is the second step you can follow if the first one failed. It's easy, quick and user-friendly to apply. Microsoft introduced with Creators Update the ability to Reset apps data, which allows to fix an app when it's not working properly.

Go to Settings and then to Apps. On the first section, Apps & features, search for Mail and Calendar. Click on it, and then click on Advanced Options label. This reveals the Reset button. Click, wait a few seconds while it works and that's it.

Try to email yourself and see if you get notifications on action center.

Ensure notifications are enabled for Mail and Calendar

This might sound similar to the first step. However, on the first step, we enabled notifications through the app. Now, we will check the system settings for the mail app.

Go to Settings, head to Notifications & Actions, look for the mail app. In fact, you should see individual entries with a title like this: account_name (via Mail). If notifications are disabled, toggle them and email yourself for testing.

If you don't find any entry, your problem is the same as mine. Move to the next step, which should work. 

Re-install the app

This is the last fix I can suggest, and that hopefully will fix the problem. At least, it worked for me. With Creators Update, you can uninstall some built-in apps through Settings app. However, Mail and Calendar misses that feature. However, you can use PowerShell commands and force to uninstall.

Open PowerShell with administrator rights. You can search on Start Menu, or find it on Start Menu on folder Windows PowerShell then right click on Windows PowerShell program and run with high privileges. 

Next, type the following command, which will show information for the Mail & Calendar package:

Get-AppxPackage -Name microsoft.windowscommunicationsapps

Next, we will use the Remove-AppxPackage to uninstall the app, which requires the full package name as an argument. From the console, copy the PackageFullName string, that in my case looks like this microsoft.windowscommunicationsapps_17.8241.41125.0_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwe, but it might differ. Run the following command, where <fullPackageName> is the string on the console you copied. 

Remove-AppxPackage <fullPackageName>

If this ran successfully, Mail & Calendar will be uninstalled. After that, all you need to do is head to Windows Store and do a fresh install.