Since a few weeks Mail occasionally launches without (consciously) being called for, while I'm doing something else, usually surfing the web and writing, while listening to some web radio etc. Mail is not my regular email client, and I don't think I used a key combo that might explain Mail launching, but I just don't know for sure. Any suggestions about what could cause this behavior? I realize I could 'fix' the issue by just removing Mail, but I'd rather not, as I occasionally use it for troubleshooting.

(Mail 3.6; iMac G5 iSight; Mac OS X 10.5.8)

do you have any alarms in ical that are sending email messages?

it sounds like some application/automator is applescripting mail to do something. usually sending mail.

Could be a 3rd party app emailing you (or somewhere else) Check your Sent Items maybe.

All good ideas, thanks. I did check iCal a while back, although I don't tend to use email alarms. Did it more thoroughly just now to make sure, but again no items found. There has been only one item repeating twice a week lately, and the last Mail launch was over a week ago.

Another application doing this would seem to fit the irregularity* of the occurrence, but I have no obvious way of figuring out which one. Since I kill Mail as soon as it pops up, there's nothing there either to give me clues (and yes, I checked Sent items anyway). I also checked Console logs a couple of times, but I couldn't spot any telltale items either.

*) Unfortunately, I haven't kept track of the dates and times of those Mail launches. Suffice it to say that I'm now prepared for future occurrences.