Mac Mail doesn't show new messages

When I open up mail, it shows the little orange circle with "2" in the center, standing for how many new messages I have. But as soon as I close the app, the orange notification goes away. So if I was browsing in Safari, I would never know if there was a new message in my mailbox. Is there any way to fix this?

I checked email several minutes ago. Activity Monitor now shows it as using 0% of CPU time. When that's the case it's now using any power at all. Every so often it will "wake up" to check for new mail. When that happens it will briefly use some CPU power. That interval can be controlled with the setting for "Check for new messages" in the General panel of Mail's preferences.
You didn't ask about RAM, but when Mail is idle I'd expect it put minimal demands on RAM.

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Mail doesn't show new messages

Mail sometimes doesn't show new messages for an IMAP account. The badge in the dock says that there is a new mail but it doesn't show up in the inbox. I'm sure that I didn't just miss it, because, smart mailboxes will not find that new mail as well. When I restart mail, the mail finally shows up in the inbox as well.
Anybody else seeing this and what can I do to resolve that issue?
Thanks!

I'll bring everyone up to speed on what's been happening with my family accounts. I first suspected Safari, because it seemed to be a local problem, but then, inexplicably, all mobileme mail accounts tied to that family account, which included 4 subaccounts and 1 mail-only account, not only did not work in mail.app, but also failed in other email clients I tested, including clients on Linux. Also, the webmail version was not working well, either.
So, if your problem is isolated to a single computer and just to mail.app, or just with a particular network, then I think the local troubleshooting steps are the way to go.
But, if your problem extends to other platforms, clients, and webmail, then it is likely an issue the engineers at Apple will have to figure out. I found the online chat service for mobileme users to be very helpful in checking through all the 'usual suspects' and after we had pretty much ruled out any of the usual culprits, it was escalated to the engineers, who are working on it now.
They were able to release all the email that had been piling up, but there are still some glitches they are trying to iron out. As an aside, I have been personally managing various mail servers for a dozen years, and am well aware of the difficulties in diagnosing email problems, and it was stumping me, and I have intimate knowledge of Exim and Exchange and various email modules used with mx services.
+While this 'should never happen', it's unrealistic for users to expect it never will. Of all the services provided on the Internet, email, is arguably the most complex service and it's become much more complex in the past few years. In my work, typically 94% of all email traffic hitting the server is filtered out as spam. So, the 6% that is allowed through is the stuff most of us see and are spending time and resources filtering out the 20-40% additional unwanted spam that the host let through because if they tightened it down any further the risk of false positives would become too great. I spend way more time on the mail service aspects of my job than the web services, and mail problems occupy at least 80% of my troubleshooting logs. So, while email seems more 'simple' than the exotic and bandwidth intensive services like video chat, voip, and web2 transactions, compared to the amount of wasted bandwidth and cpu cycles filtering packets, I think email is the number one problem service for most host providers. We tried to depend upon it for mission-critical communications, and it was never designed for that initially, and the spammers are making certain it won't achieve that status at least in the near future. If anything, email is your least dependable Internet service. Combine this with the growing array of user configurations, email clients, forwarding/retrieving/syncing scenarios, and user experience, and you may find yourself uttering a little prayer now and then for the poor email administrators and support personnel.+
[end of sermon - thanx for letting me get that off my chest; I feel better now! I'll feel a lot better when my email is flowing smoothly, but that's out of my hands for now.]

Mac mail inbox icon for new messages is missing

I just upgraded to a new macbook air and ever since then the Mac Mail is not showing me how many new messages I have in my inbox. It used to be that when I go into mac mail, there would be a gray circle to the right of each of my inbox titles with a number of how many new messages I have in my inbox. But now there are no gray circles, even when I do have new messages in my inboxes. Now in order to see how many new messages I have in each inbox I have to go in and click on each one (I know, my life is so hard). But I would love to get those gray circles back. I liked it. Interestingly, in my saved mailboxes of old messages, whenever I have an unread message stored in any of these, there is a corresponding gray circle with numbers. Why for the saved mailboxes but not for my inboxes? Anyone know how to help me?

William - indeed and thanks.
I come from a Windows history that goes back to the late 1980's and used to be quite familiar with rebooting my laptop 7-30 times a week. When I moved to the Apple ecosystem, I forgot completely about having to reboot periodically - something I have discovered is necessary with Mac's, too. It is especially necessary with applications that get a lot of use - I cycle through a couple thousand e-mail messages every week.
I restarted Mail because it started acting up in other ways, too. Voila! Problem solved.

SMS inbox doesn't show new messages after upgrading to OS 5.0.0.681. SMS format appears as IM.

My SMS inbox doesnt show new messages and also my Curve 8900 doesnt prompt for any new messages. However, the Mobiso application (which logs calls, texts) shows messages coming in with its text lengths. I asked this to Blackberryhelp on Twitter but it said to contact service provider, but there is nothing wrong with it. The format of the SMS inbox should have something wrong otherwise the Mobiso application should not have logged all messages.
Please help me, i am missing all my daily SMS since last 20 days.
Will degrading the OS help? Which is recommended OS version for BB Curve 8900?

Hi,
Here are some good articles listing the available methods for organizing and displaying messages in device OS 5.0. If you can't set your exact preferences I suggest looking in AppWorld for custom programs.
Let us know how it goes!
Thanks,
Bifocals
What is new in BlackBerry Device Software 5.0
Option for separate SMS and Email message inboxes is missing
How to integrate SMS text messages with BlackBerry Messenger 5.0
SMS text messages received from multiple senders appear in the same conversation thread on the Black...
Organizing your inbox’s main Messages list
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Mail 3.6 doesn't show new message in IMAP folder

Hello,
I am using Mail with an IMAP server.
On this IMAP server, mails are automatically sorted to different mailboxes (IMAP folder) via .procmail.rc directives.
When I receive an Email and when this email is dispatched in the correct mailbox, Mail3.6 doesn't display this new message.
Questions : How to set-up Mail3.6 to correctly display new incoming mail server sorted in IMAP folder ? or How to overcome this Mail bug ?
PS : This question was already asked a few months ago on Apple Bug Report, answer was that this bug will be corrected on the next release.... Seems not...
Thank you by adance

Hello,
I am having a very similar problem that just started happening recently when I started using gmail folders instead of my school's email (both IMAP).
I have all emails configured for IMAP and the messages arrive fine, but when mail applies my custom filters and the messages are moved to the individual folders, the new message indicator (on the file and on the dock icon) are not present. The only new messages that appear are those in the mail Inbox. When I then click on the individual folders (I have to click through them all individually) it recognizes the new, unread email and updates the indicators (both next to the custom folder and on the dock icon).
This is a frustrating issue because I do not have any indication that I have new mail unless I go and click on each folder individually.
The issue just started occurring when i switched to using my gmail account. The folders seem to be set up appropriately to move messages in Mail and also have them labeled on gmail ([GMAIL]/foldername), but Mail just doesn't seem to recognize the messages as new once they have been moved to the folders until I sync (either by clicking on the folder or by using the "synchronize all accounts" command).
Any suggestions? I found this same issue in the archived questions (http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=7513842), but it was not resolved.
Thanks,
Daniel
Message was edited by: dharveyfm

Mac Mail doesn't display new Yahoo messages

Mail application on my Mini was somewhat erratic so I did the usual trick of removing "com.apple.mail.plist" and restart application. Now all my accounts are working as they should be except Yahoo.
I deleted and added Yahoo account twice, the settings are OK but I can't see my new messages for this particular account. (IMAP)
Yahoo account is working. I can send and receive from my iPhone and iPad.
Mail displays the folders on Yahoo server.
I can see the "Sent" messages.
At the bottom left of the sidebar, I can see incomiing messages but once they are retrieved no new messages are in the Inbox.
Can someone please help?

I checked email several minutes ago. Activity Monitor now shows it as using 0% of CPU time. When that's the case it's now using any power at all. Every so often it will "wake up" to check for new mail. When that happens it will briefly use some CPU power. That interval can be controlled with the setting for "Check for new messages" in the General panel of Mail's preferences.
You didn't ask about RAM, but when Mail is idle I'd expect it put minimal demands on RAM.

Meeting request accepted in Mac Mail doesn't show up in iCal

I am testing out Mac Mail as I am trying to move from Outlook 2007. I sent myself an Outlook meeting request from another machine and it showed up in Mac Mail as an .ics attachment I can open it and accept it, but it doesn't show up in iCal, which through my research on the web it seems it should.
Any ideas why it is not working?

Just a guess, but the item you accepted might be in a calendar category that is unchecked, that is, not being shown.
Make sure Calendar List is viewable (View/Show Calendar List)
On the left side of the calendar is a list of calendars (if they're not visible, click the Calendar drop down).
If there are a few calendars listed (Personal, Work, etc.) make sure they're all checked. Toggling the check box will hide/show the events.

Mail doesn't show newest messages

I have a gmail IMAP account set up, but it doesn't show my newest messages. New ones that come in after I have set up the account show up at the top, but the newest ones before those are from march.

I have a gmail IMAP account set up, but it doesn't show my newest messages. New ones that come in after I have set up the account show up at the top, but the newest ones before those are from march.

Mac mail will not accept new messages

been working fine but after trying to send a big photo file, MacMail stopped accepting new messages and requires minutes to send out new messages. I have checked and rechecked all parameters. help!

Have you quit and reopened Mail?
Empty the Mail cache in your Home Folder Library>Caches>com.apple.mail>Cache.db. Just move Cache.db out to the Trash -- not the enclosing folder -- with Mail closed. Don't empty the Trash. If it doesn't help, then just put it back.

Mac mail locks up when new message is open

Why can't I navigate my mail page while a new compose message is open on Mavericks?

I am having the same trouble. I have 2 VIP's, one of them works fine, the other shows 1 unread message. I have deleted the VIP and re-added and gotten the same results.
This has been true for all versions of Mavericks, including the 2 updates since release. The latest update just the other day did not fix this.

Mail won't show new message windows

This is weird.
I needed to email a photo to a friend. I drug the photo from iPhoto to the Mail icon in the dock and nothing happened (a new message window didn't pop up with the photo attached) I tried this 3 times and still got nothing. I swiped to another desktop (in Lion) and i could see the new message windows, all three of them, with the picture. When I landed on a space they disappeaered again. When I swipe to a new space they appear and then disappear when I land on that space.
I've shut mail down but haven't done a full restart. Any other ideas why this didn't work and then now how do I fix my problem?
Thanks…
Here's a picture of what I'm talking about…I don't know why it's upside down?!

I've never seen anything like this reported before. Verify/repair your disk (not just permissions), as described here:
The Repair functions of Disk Utility: what's it all about?
If the problem persists, proceed as follows:
1. Open /Applications/Utilities/Console.
2. From the File menu, choose either Open Console Log, or Open System Log, or both, so that the Console application displays the contents of both system.log and console.log.
3. Try to reproduce the problem, and look at the bottom of the Console windows for messages that could have been written there as a result. Do you see anything that could provide a clue as to what's going on?
Now, try this:
1. Go to Apple Menu > System Preferences > Accounts, and create a new user account for testing purposes.
2. Either log out of your main user account or just quit Mail so that it does not interfere with the other user account.
3. Log in as the newly created user and set up Mail anew there. Does the problem happen there as well?

Mac Mail doesn't show inline tables

When a Windows user send me mail message with inline table (I get about 10-15 messages a day in this format), all formating is garbled in Mac Mail. However, if I go to OWA (Outlook Web Access) and view the email on through web interface all is good. This is very frustrating as I want to use Mac Mail and not OWA to view such messages. Any siggestions?
Here is an example in Mail:
Phase 1
Phase 2
Phase 3
Phase 4
ABC GA
NA
April
May
May
ABC
June
July/Aug
Sept
Sept
UNI A
March
April/May
June
June
UNI B
June
July
Aug
Aug
AF
April
May
June
June
XYZ
June
July/Aug
Sept
Sept
ZYX
Aug
Sept/Oct
Nov
Nov
Here is an example in OWA:

Could be many things, we should start with this...
"Try Disk Utility
1. Insert the Mac OS X Install disc, 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 at top of the screen. (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. Select your Mac OS X volume.
5. Click Repair Disk, (not Repair Permissions). Disk Utility checks and repairs the disk."
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106214
Then try a Safe Boot, (holding Shift key down at bootup), run Disk Utility in Applications>Utilities, then highlight your drive, click on Repair Permissions, reboot when it completes.
(Safe boot may stay on the gray radian for a long time, let it go, it's trying to repair the Hard Drive.)
If perchance you can't find your install Disc, at least try it from the Safe Boot part onward.
If 10.7.0 or later...
Bootup holding CMD+r, or the Option/alt key to boot from the Restore partitirion & use Disk Utility from there to Repair the Disk, then Repair Permissions.

Mac mail doesn't show messages

Something happened to my email account settings, couldn't send messages. After trying to fix it, couldn't get messages either. Created new account settings. Now I'm getting my mail list, but any preview or opening of the email comes up blank.

Could be many things, we should start with this...
"Try Disk Utility
1. Insert the Mac OS X Install disc, 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 at top of the screen. (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. Select your Mac OS X volume.
5. Click Repair Disk, (not Repair Permissions). Disk Utility checks and repairs the disk."
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106214
Then try a Safe Boot, (holding Shift key down at bootup), run Disk Utility in Applications>Utilities, then highlight your drive, click on Repair Permissions, reboot when it completes.
(Safe boot may stay on the gray radian for a long time, let it go, it's trying to repair the Hard Drive.)
If perchance you can't find your install Disc, at least try it from the Safe Boot part onward.
If 10.7.0 or later...
Bootup holding CMD+r, or the Option/alt key to boot from the Restore partitirion & use Disk Utility from there to Repair the Disk, then Repair Permissions.

Searching Mail Doesn't Show New Results

I am having a problem with Mail not showing recent emails in search results. For example, an online store that I purchase from regularly uses its name in both the subject line of the email and in their email address. When I reach for the company name, no results more current than mid-March are shown. Outside of Mail, Spotlight seems to be working perfectly, with documents I have created in the past few days showing up in searches. I am running 10.8.3 and am using a icloud/mobileme/.mac email address.
Thanks!

Quit Mail.
Back up all data. That means you know you can restore the Mail database, no matter what happens.
Triple-click the text on the line below to select it:
~/Library/Mail/V2/MailData/Envelope Index
Copy the selected text to the Clipboard (command-C). In the Finder, select
Go ▹ Go to Folder
from the menu bar. Paste into the box that opens (command-V), then press return.
A Finder window will open with a file selected. Move the selected file to the Desktop, leaving the window open. Other files in the folder may have names that begin with "Envelope Index". Move those files, if any, to the Trash. Relaunch Mail. It should prompt you to re-import your messages. You may get a warning that the index is corrupt and that Mail has to quit. Click OK.
Test. If Mail now works as expected, you can delete the file you moved to the Desktop. If you get a warning that the file is in use when you try to empty the Trash, log out and log back in.

Mac Mail won't receive new messages

I have three devices, an iMac; an iPhone and an iPad. I also use iCloud (but I hate...or don't want to have to go to the web and login to iCloud there to read my mail...otherwise, what's the point of having Mail on all of your devices, right?!?).
There are so many discrepancies between the three devices synching my Mail. I have emails I read on my iPad and then deleted some. They show as deleted/read on my iPhone, but they still show as unread on my iMac. Additionally I noticed that my iMac hasn't received any new mail (including the mail I can see on my iPhone)...for an hour! I've clicked the "send/receive" mail button a dozen times, but nothing...I can't find a place in Preferences that should correct this. (And yes, my internet connection is working...)
Any help is appreciated. Thanks.

Thanks, Ernie... I didn't realize we could control click in the inbox. It just showed me how much space I had used up in each folder.
On a whim, I deleted the account, ran a disk utility, then rebooted. Then I re-added the account, and so far, it SEEMS to be working alright... Got my new email, am able to send out--it seems to be working now.
Thanks!

Mac Mail doesn't show new messages

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