diff --git a/oAI/Services/AppleMailService.swift b/oAI/Services/AppleMailService.swift
index af42420..9b57161 100644
--- a/oAI/Services/AppleMailService.swift
+++ b/oAI/Services/AppleMailService.swift
@@ -77,18 +77,27 @@ final class AppleMailService {
     }
 
     /// Triggers the real macOS "Confab wants to control Mail" Automation permission prompt if
-    /// the user hasn't been asked yet (a no-op if already granted or denied). Deliberately NOT
-    /// dispatched to the background `queue` used for AppleScript execution — the system consent
-    /// prompt needs to be raised from the main thread/run loop to actually display (same as this
-    /// codebase's existing blocking `NSAlert.runModal()` calls); calling it off-main appears to
-    /// silently fail (no dialog, no error, no state change — the exact symptom Rune hit live).
-    /// `AppleMailService` has no explicit actor annotation, so under this project's
-    /// `-default-isolation=MainActor` build setting this method already runs on the main actor.
+    /// the user hasn't been asked yet (a no-op if already granted or denied).
+    ///
+    /// First attempt just called this synchronously from an `async` method, reasoning that
+    /// `-default-isolation=MainActor` makes it run on the main actor anyway — it didn't work live
+    /// (button flashed, no dialog, no state change, confirmed still broken even after a
+    /// `tccutil reset`). Being "MainActor-isolated" inside Swift's structured-concurrency/Task
+    /// execution model is NOT the same as a classic synchronous AppKit call — this blocking,
+    /// modal-dialog-presenting legacy C API needs to run from a genuine `DispatchQueue.main.async`
+    /// dispatch (the same execution shape as a normal button target-action), not from inside a
+    /// suspended `Task` continuation frame, to correctly nest its own run loop for the prompt.
     @discardableResult
     func requestAccess() async -> Bool {
-        let status = Self.checkMailAutomationPermission(askUserIfNeeded: true)
-        Log.mail.info("requestAccess: AEDeterminePermissionToAutomateTarget(askUserIfNeeded: true) returned \(status)")
-        return status == 0
+        Log.mail.info("requestAccess: called")
+        return await withCheckedContinuation { continuation in
+            DispatchQueue.main.async {
+                Log.mail.info("requestAccess: about to call AEDeterminePermissionToAutomateTarget(askUserIfNeeded: true)")
+                let status = Self.checkMailAutomationPermission(askUserIfNeeded: true)
+                Log.mail.info("requestAccess: AEDeterminePermissionToAutomateTarget(askUserIfNeeded: true) returned \(status)")
+                continuation.resume(returning: status == 0)
+            }
+        }
     }
 
     private static func checkMailAutomationPermission(askUserIfNeeded: Bool) -> OSStatus {