Apple makes it simple to log into accounts for email, calendars, reminders, and notes run by other ecosystems, like Microsoft and Google. But you may have been bitten by some Apple/Google bug that prevents successful completion of a Google account login.

This can occur either in System Preferences > Internet Accounts when you click Google and then click the Open Browser button, or in Mail when you go to Mail > Preferences > Accounts, click the + sign, select Google, and click Continue.

What you expect to see isn’t a moderately large empty dialog box with a gray spinner inside and a Cancel button at the bottom. You would prefer to see a page that lets you select or enter your Google account information and validate its use with your Mac.

The solution isn’t straightforward, but one of the following should work in my testing and based on trial and error folks online have engaged in:

• Quit and relaunch Mail.
• Quit and relaunch Safari.
• Switch the default browser from Safari to Chrome in System Preferences > General in the “Default web browser” pop-up menu.
• Or, perhaps, switch the default browser from Chrome to Safari. (It’s worked both ways for me.)

Using a combination of the above strategies across several broken login attempts I was able to get the window to display correctly.

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