Apple mail downloading old messages again

This happens to me every once in two/three months and is annoying like **** but have never been able to find situation. Here is what happens, i have 4 emails configured on my apple mail and they work just fine. I have settings where it leaves the copy of email at the server.
Now, after every few weeks it starts downloading some old emails automatically and it doesn't download all emails.. It just pick and chooses. For example, friday i had 50 unread emails and saturday evening i had 285. When i started checking my email, these are mostly old emails that i have already read but they are on server.
The oldest i got is from 12/17/2012 today is 3/17/2013 So its last 4 months but i also know its not downloading all emails in this time because then it would be like 10000 unread emails.
I can delete the ones i got again and kinda fix it temporarily but this will happen for sure again in couple of months. Any solid way to fix it forever? I care now because i only have 1 GB Storage left... lol, i know its lazy
Thanks a ton in advance.

Hello, I'd try this...
Safe Boot from the HD, (holding Shift key down at bootup), run Disk Utility in Applications>Utilities, then highlight your drive, click on Repair Permissions...
Open Mail, highlight the problem Mailbox, choose Rebuild from Mail's Mailbox menu.

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Why does my Apple Mail insert old messages into the body of new emails?

Why does my Apple Mail insert old messages into the body of new emails? The correct sender's name will appear in the "From" column, but an old message from a different sender in the body. This happens randomly. I have an iMac OSX 10.6.8. I recently had the hard drive cleaned, but Apple Mail seemed to be running fine when I set it up again. Could this be a virus? What should I do about it? Thanks for any insights!

Thanks. While you were replying to my question, I went into notifications and figured
it out. Appreciate the quick response!

Mail.app downloading old messages again

I have multiple pop accounts. I have it set not to delete from the server for 30 days. In order sync my Macbook and Powerbook, I copied all my mail on my desktop to my Macbook. Everything is there and it works fine but when I check mail it tries to download 3000+ messages.
Basically all the same mail that is there already, from the last 30 days.
Mail.app thinks it has not downloaded it yet. Is there a way to tell it that it has downloaded it ?
Otherwise I am going to make a rule to download all that mail into a new folder then I can just delete it from there afterwards.

Hello, I'd try this...
Safe Boot from the HD, (holding Shift key down at bootup), run Disk Utility in Applications>Utilities, then highlight your drive, click on Repair Permissions...
Open Mail, highlight the problem Mailbox, choose Rebuild from Mail's Mailbox menu.

Why doesn't Apple mail download Gmail messages that were sent to myself?

When I e-mail myself to my Gmail address, the message sits in the Gmail inbox but Apple
Mail doesn't download it.
Mail downloads every other message in the Gmail inbox, but not the ones i've addressed to myself to my Gmail address.
Any ideas for why this is happening?

Gmail POP access doesn’t work like a normal POP mail server would. Here are some of its idiosyncrasies:
1. Messages downloaded by any conventional POP mail client are marked as downloaded at the server (but not as read on the web), and no longer available to either the same or any other POP mail client.
2. To make already downloaded messages available for POP access again, you must go to Gmail’s Settings > Forwarding and POP page, select Enable POP for all mail, and click Save Changes, which causes everything (and I mean everything) still on the server to be downloaded again.
3. The Mail > Preferences > Accounts > Advanced > Remove copy from server settings have absolutely no effect on the messages stored on Gmail’s server. Gmail ignores any requests to delete messages from the server made by a POP client. What happens to the messages on the server after a POP client has downloaded them is determined by Gmail’s Settings > Forwarding and POP > When messages are accessed with POP setting alone. In the case of Gmail (and only in that case), I recommend turning OFF Remove copy from server in Mail, so that Mail doesn’t even try to remove any messages from the server, regardless of whether you do actually want already downloaded messages to be removed from the server after some time or not.
4. Messages sent using the web interface will be downloaded by your POP mail client as if they were received messages. Although this may seem weird, it's good because it allows archiving all messages locally in Mail, regardless of how they were sent — as long as you don't access the same Gmail account with more than one POP mail client, that is. You can set up a rule in Mail to automatically route those messages to the appropriate Sent mailbox (or to any other mailbox for that matter) if that's what you want.
5. Messages sent using a POP/SMTP mail client such as Mail are also treated as if they were incoming messages for POP purposes, just as in #4. What prevents them from being downloaded is that Gmail marks them as already downloaded immediately. Since they’re on the server nonetheless, already sent messages would be downloaded together with all the other messages on the server if proceeding as described in #2.
6. A particular case of #5 are messages sent to yourself. Instead of putting a copy of the sent message in the server’s Inbox and making it available for download, both the sent and the “received” message on the server are actually one and the same, and hence, cannot be downloaded via POP for the reason explained in #5.
7. Gmail allows POP accounts to be set up in a special way that avoids some of these issues while introducing others. If you only need POP access to the last 30 days of mail, you may configure Mail in “recent mode”, as described in Using POP on multiple clients or mobile devices. Configuring the account this way would allow Mail to download messages marked by Gmail as already downloaded (and download messages sent to yourself in particular), but it would also cause all sent messages (not just messages sent to yourself or through webmail) to be downloaded as if they were received messages.

10.6.7 apple mail - search 'entire message' is greyed out

10.6.7 apple mail - search 'entire message' is greyed out
can't use it - other choices ok
was working yesterday...
hw do I get it back?

See the discussions at:
https://discussions.apple.com/message/15146088#15146088
Can be temporary with POP perhaps, but should work. With IMAP, it is required that copies of messages be kept for local searching.
More info, please.
Ernie

After placing e-mails into old-message...how do I retrieve them?

After placing e-mails into old-messages.....how do you retrieve them?

What do you mean by placing emails in messages?

How can I stop the mail app from downloading old messages and marking them as new.... repetedly

I have just bought myself my first ever mac, and i've been having a little trouble with the mail function that comes with it. The first time i connected my mail app to my hotmail adress, all my old mails started coming in and they were all marked as unread. i had like 7000 og them, so it took a while for them all to load. after this i marked them all as read, and it was fine for a couple of days.
I am not sure what makes all my e-mails load as "new" again and again, but it happens every so often. This is very annoying because i get a little notification at the top of my screen for every "new" e-mail.
In the beginning i didn't think that much of it, but now it is really starting to annoy me, bacause it has happened so many times, so my question is:
Have any of you experienced this? And how did you fix it?
And i am running the OS X version 10.8.2, if that is relevant

Is it an IMAP or POP account?
For POP accounts, you can select remove from server under the advanced tab of the account.
Apple support article with information on receiving a message more than once:
Mail Problems

How do i stop mail from synchronising and downloading old messages on the google mail server

its downloading over 300 000 messages up until 2004! and whenever i go online from mail on the mac it starts the process all over again. are there settings anywhere from where i can stop this

Try rebuilding the mailbox. This can take awhile if you have a lot of mail.
Rebuild mailbox
If that doesn't work, try re-indexing the mailboxes. This can take awhile if you have a lot of mail.
Reindex messages Mavericks/Yosemite

Mail downloads all messages– how to stop it

Using OS 10.9.1 now, but this behavior is for previous OS versions, as well.
I use Mail with Yahoo IMAP, and it downloads all messages to my hard drive. Can I set it not to do that? The preferenences are set to " Check for new messages manually" and have been for years, but it still downloads every message. Is the "checking" process independent of the downloading of messages? I kind of thought I could control these two processes. In other words, can I set Mail to download only the messages that are less than one year old or to show the messages, but not download them? I know I can use the web to view without downloading, but here in China, the web is sometimes "off" for Yahoo, while a mail client can still show Yahoo email, so it is often necessary to use the Mail app to see email. I just don't need them saved to my hard drive.

I was searching to see if Apple Mail and Yahoo Imap downloads everything when I came across your post! While I like that, it would be good if someone could tell us where the setting/option is for it.
Perhaps in Yahoo itself? Nah! That doesn't make sense. It should be on the client side (if I have my terminology correct!)

Apple mail not uploading messages from server

i've got a weird problem - about a week ago, my apple mail program stopped uploading messages to one of my emails accounts. i've been getting messages to that account, and when i right click on the account, apple mail shows me that i have like 100 + unread messages on my pop server, but for some reason, it isn't uploading the messages so that i can access them.
i've spent nearly 2 hours troubleshooting. i even deleted the whole account and made it again, and it did the same thing. this makes me think there is something with my email host or something.
any ideas?

When you say “uploading” you actually mean “downloading”, right?
Sometimes messages left on the server clog up the account there, or Mail chokes on a message it cannot download and that prevents it from downloading the rest as well. Solving this problem will probably require deleting one or more messages from the server. What are your Preferences > Accounts > Advanced > Remove copy from server settings for this account?
You may tell Mail to remove from the server all the messages that have already been downloaded doing Preferences > Accounts > Advanced > Remove now. Alternatively, you may use the Account Info window to remove specific messages from the server. And if the account allows web access, you may also remove messages from the server that way.
Try first removing from the server messages that have already been downloaded. If that doesn’t work, you’ll probably have to delete the first message not downloaded yet. You may want to try to download those messages with another mail client such as Thunderbird first, to avoid losing them -- and use Eudora Mailbox Cleaner to import them back into Mail afterwards if you wish.

Apple Mail downloads only one mail at a time...

Hi Everybody,
My PowerBook runs on Tiger 10.4.11. And I have Apple Mail version 2.1.3, which I have configured to my gmail account.
Just a few days back I noticed something very peculiar about the download habit of Apple Mail which now downloads only one mail (this has started a few weeks back). Irrespective of how many mails there are on my gmail, when I press 'get mail' button, it connects to my gmail account and shows & downloads only one mail(the first in the row). Now, when I figured out the problem I have to press the 'get mail' button again and again till there are no more mails to download. It actually downloads all mails based on the receipt time, but only one at a time.
Does anyone here have any idea what this could be. I really look forward to sorting this out.
Thanks in advance
Malaya

Could be many things, we should start with this...
"Try Disk Utility
1. Insert the Mac OS X Install disc that came with your computer, then restart the computer while holding the C key.
2. When your computer finishes starting up from the disc, choose Disk Utility from the Installer menu. (In Mac OS X 10.4 or later, you must select your language first.)
*Important: Do not click Continue in the first screen of the Installer. If you do, you must restart from the disc again to access Disk Utility.*
3. Click the First Aid tab.
4. Click the disclosure triangle to the left of the hard drive icon to display the names of your hard disk volumes and partitions.
5. Select your Mac OS X volume.
6. Click Repair. Disk Utility checks and repairs the disk."
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106214
Then Safe Boot from the HD, (holding Shift key down at bootup), run Disk Utility in Applications>Utilities, then highlight your drive, click on Repair Permissions, reboot when it completes.
The usual reason why updates fail or mess things up, is if Permissions are not fixed before & after every update, with a reboot... you may get a partial update when the installer finds it doesn't have Permissions to change one obscure little part of the OS, leaving you with a mix of OS versions.
Some people get away without Repairing Permissions for years, some for only days.
If Permissions are wrong before applying an update, you could get mixed OS versions, if Directory is the slightest messed up, who knows!
If many Permission are repaired, or any Directory errors are found, you may need to re-apply some the latest/biggest updates.
May even need to do an Archive and Install if you have room on the HD...
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=107120
I only use Software Update to see what is needed, then get them for real via...
http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/
That way I can wait a week or so, check the forums for potential problems, and get Permissions & such in order before installing.

Apple Mail shows duplicate message in Sent mailbox - HOW TO FIX IT?

I have sent a message with Apple Mail 7.3 on Mac with OS X Mavericks 10.9.3, and it shows DUPLICATED in the Sent mailbox of Mail. I mean, two entries with the very same message inside are displayed, yet, as said, I only sent it once! I am using POP.
Selecting "Mailbox - Rebuild", quitting and opening Mail, repairing permissions with Apple Disk Utility, restarting the Mac, and even resetting the PRAM does not fix it.
I have seen the following article, but cannot find the "MessageSorting.plist" in Mavericks that it indicates:
How to Fix Duplicate Emails Sent From Apple Email
http://www.ehow.com/how_12135498_fix-duplicate-emails-sent-apple-email.html
Any idea on how to prevent this duplication behavior (beyond deleting one of such messages, which, of course, I can do); I mean, to fixing whatever is corrupted and prevent such behavior happening again in the future?
What is the equivalent of "MessageSorting.plist" in Mavericks to do what indicates the above article?
Thanks.

I have exactly the same problem. Didn't find a solution yet.

Apple Mail Infinite Incoming Messages

I have 9 email accounts setup in Apple Mail. They all worked on various Macs and iOS devices until the recent upgrades to iOS7 and Mavericks. On my Macs, all with Mavericks via a completely clean install, I am having the following issues:
* Mail using excessive (> 100% CPU on multi core machines) CPU as long as it is open
* "Mail Activity" shows an ever growning number of "Incoming Messages"
* Settings are not being remembered.
I have tried the following:
* Delete ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.mail
* Delete ~/Library/Mail
* Remove ALL accounts from Mail and "Internet Accounts"
* Rebooting
* Relaunching Mail
* Disabling accounts
* Pretty much every combination of the above
Nothing seems to work. The disappearing settings may be the result of trying many different combinations of the above methods and forgetting when I deleted them specifically but I am sure that they have disappeared at least once without that having been the case.

CT - The problem is certainly not the standard behaviour so it is unsurprising that everyone cannot reproduce it. I did a new clean install after an upgrade some time ago and everything magically worked. I tried to list all the possibly relevant criteria in my original post but it is clearly not the whole story as I am no longer experiencing the problem
RedRacer123 - It is not a virus. It is just talk back and forth between your server and client (Mail). Especially with Gmail accounts there are a bunch of messages that are synced and archived behind the scenes which do not get displayed as new and unread (e.g. spam, chats). Regardless the problem I experienced and the problem that Megan62 is experiencing is different than just being unrelated: the count just rises and one can see that Mail is using a bunch of CPU doing something but it doesn't ever seem to finish whatever that is. I get a lot of mail but I do not have 250 MILLION messages when I see a counter go that high it is a bug in some while loop.
Megan62 - Sorry I don't have any advice other than try removing all your accounts email accounts from the computer and adding them back one by one. Hopefully whatever happened to cause the error will not happen again. I also think it might help to move as many emails out of your inbox as possible but I am not certain on that.

Apple Mail trouble sending messages

I added my Slippery Rock University account to the apple mail server and all of my messages showed up, but when I try to send an email it says there is something wrong with the server and it will not send. How can I fix this?
All of the information I needed was right here: http://www.sru.edu/academics/iats/SupportServices/RSCHD/Documents/RockMailConfig .pdf
Did I do something wrong?

1) In the Menu bar under Window select Connection Doctor.
Do you see red lights? If yes, most likely you need to enter your passwords.
If you see all green lights your connections are good.
You can also open the Activity window under Window to see the messages as they download.
2) Create a Smart folder. Under Mailbox in the Menu bar select New Smart Mailbox.
Create a new folder to see messages recevied today (include the trash)
Do you see the messages now? If yes, we need to see where the messages are filed.
What email provider? (iCloud, Gmail, Yahoo, AOL, Earthlink, Comcast, ATT, other)

New mail showing old messages

This afternoon my mail started acting completely crazy.
New Messages are showing old emails in the body. I get the new messages and its reading old messages making the actual message lost.

Reset your device: hold down the home button along with the sleep/wake button until the screen goes black and you see the Apple, then let go. (No data loss)

Apple mail downloading old messages again

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