Email not opening on Mac

Hi,
firstly I apologize , I am not technically minded.
Recently my Mac desk top refuses to open my mail account , it just says “retry” ignore” “ report to apple”
none of which has helped, I have email, & gmail. Can anyone guide me as to what to do please ?

Well, the first thing to do is to restart your Mac.

Tony D said:

Well, the first thing to do is to restart your Mac.

Click to expand...

Thank you for replying Tony, I did reboot several times.
one time I did see a quick flash of the email opening, but then never again.
phil.

Next thing it to rebuild the preference file. I'm not a Mac user any longer, so I had to search for the instructions which I found here 11 easy ways to fix Apple Mail not working

1. In Finder, click Go > Go to Folder
2. Enter the following file path and press the Return key to go there: ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.mail/Data/Library/Preferences
3. After that, drag the com.apple.mail.plist file to your Desktop to reset the preferences
4. Now reboot your machine and reopen the Mail app
5. If Mail still doesn’t work properly, move the plist file from your Desktop back into the Preferences folder to restore your preferences.

Tony D said:

Next thing it to rebuild the preference file. I'm not a Mac user any longer, so I had to search for the instructions which I found here 11 easy ways to fix Apple Mail not working

1. In Finder, click Go > Go to Folder
2. Enter the following file path and press the Return key to go there: ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.mail/Data/Library/Preferences
3. After that, drag the com.apple.mail.plist file to your Desktop to reset the preferences
4. Now reboot your machine and reopen the Mail app
5. If Mail still doesn’t work properly, move the plist file from your Desktop back into the Preferences folder to restore your preferences.

Click to expand...

Thanks again Tony,
followed the instruction, but hit dead end at the first stage, typed in the ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.mail/Data/Library/Preferences
and got this message ….
folder can’t be found.

Pls try navigating to the folder using the Finder.