Mail 2.1.1 (752.3) crashed; now all eMails doubled ! :-(

Question

hi,
as i recently tried to copy about 5000 eMails from one folder to another Mail crashed. after restart all the eMails were doubled! every "normal" eMail now has a twin which is "empty". means that Mail is showing me the following when i open the eMail:
"The E-Mail From Jon Doe <[email protected]> regarding „Help“ could not be loaded from the server. You need to connect this Account to the internet, to load the E-Mail."
i really dont know how to solve the problem. already tried to find an answer in several discussionboards, faq-sections and the support. it is not possible to create i.ex. an intelligent folder or a rule, because the doubled mails are empty. now i have a ten-thousand-eMail-chaos.
anyone an idea?
(except shiftclickdel, which should take about a day klicking around
sorry for my german-english hope you understand my problem.
macMINI CoreDuo 1,66 GHz / 1,25GB RAM   Mac OS X (10.4.9)   Mail V 2.1.1 (752.3) on Mac OS X
  Mac OS X (10.4.9)  

Answer 1

Hi Kay.
Verify/repair the startup disk (not just permissions), as described here:
The Repair functions of Disk Utility: what's it all about?
After having fixed all filesystem issues, if any, and making sure that there’s enough space available on the startup disk (a few GB, plus the space needed to make a backup copy of the Mail folder), try this:
1. Quit Mail if it’s running.
2. In the Finder, go to ~/Library/Mail/. Make a backup copy of this folder, just in case something goes wrong, e.g. by dragging it to the Desktop while holding the Option (Alt) key down. This is where all your mail is stored.
3. Locate Envelope Index and move it to the Trash. If you see an Envelope Index-journal file there, delete it as well.
4. Open Mail. It will tell you that your mail needs to be “imported”. Click Continue and Mail will proceed to re-create Envelope Index -- Mail says it’s “importing”, but it just re-creates the index if the mailboxes are already in Mail 2.x format.
Note: For those not familiarized with the ~/ notation, it refers to the user’s home folder, i.e. ~/Library is the Library folder within the user’s home folder.