Mail.app + Google IMAP. Locally stored messages being dropped.

I have an IMAP account setup under mail.app to sync with a gmail account, its was all working fine for a few months until a few weeks ago when I noticed that messages were missing from mail.app. I checked time machine and noticed that at some point my local storage of emails had dropped from ~5Gb to 300mb. All messages remained present under gmail.
This is very annoying because Mail.app obviously figures out the discrepancy at some point and begins trying to cache the Gb's of messages that are missing, and this blows my tiny, expensive, Australian download quota.
I've now just noticed that the same thing has happened again - I have been able to use Time Machine to retrieve the 5Gb worth of messages, however I'm not sure if I can just dump this back into the library>mail folder and hope that everything syncs back up without having to download the lot again.
Anyone know how I might figure out what is causing the local messages to be deleted? And how I might safely move the 5Gb of local messages back allowing me to save some quote for the month?

Same problem here today! Not good at all, i checked the settings of the account and even if i told mail to keep a local copy, all the messages disappeared.
The thing doesn't affect the iphone mail luckily so i think that is a mail bug somewhere...

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MobileMe/IMAP: locally stored messages disappeared

Hi,
with the current service window of MobileMe, I cannot access my e-mails via the web interface. Fair enough, I thought, I was looking for a message I sent yesterday, and this will surely be accessible through Mail or at least in my local IMAP directory. To my great horror, Mail does not show the folders, and in the library, the MobileMe directory is empty for all but the inbox files! All the folders are gone.
I opened TimeMachine, and double-checked they used to be there. (Bad for me: the last backup was from before I sent the message.)
Can anybody explain how locally stored IMAP folders and messages can suddenly disappear without warning?
Thanks,
Leo

Same problem here today! Not good at all, i checked the settings of the account and even if i told mail to keep a local copy, all the messages disappeared.
The thing doesn't affect the iphone mail luckily so i think that is a mail bug somewhere...

Multiple gmail accounts in mail.app via IMAP - how to delete messages

multiple gmail accounts in mail.app via IMAP - how to delete messages so that they are not stored on gmail and not in All Mail therefore either.
i know that dragging messages to the GMail.Trash folder deletes it in Gmail, but doing that for multiple accounts is a hassle!
anybody else struggle with this, solved it?

i have still not figured out a solution to this. very painful - the fact that messages iwill not be using ever again and with large attachments, just sit there in all mails and slow down mail.app for me, fill up search results with stuff i don't want to see and fill up space on the HDD. the attachments as a result often are stored 3-4 times on the HDD!
some geek here must have solved it - come on!

Mail.app and purging of moved messages with IMAP accounts?

I REALLY want to like Mail.app but one item that has caused frustration for years is the handling (or lack) of handling of my messages once moved to another folder with IMAP accounts. I would like for Mail.app to purge/expunge the messages from the server automatically when the message is moved but it doesn't seem to complete that transaction until you actually quit out of mail.
I use multiple computers and I don't remember to quit out of Mail.app going from one of my Macs to another and don't want to but I'm getting tired of having to file the messages twice (or more). Is there a way to set Mail.app to do the automatic instant purging (or expunging) of the messages from the originating folders without having to quit out of the application? This seems to be the default behavior for nearly every other mail client I've used, including Entourage and is an option in Outlook and Outlook Express (PC).

same is true with popmail, not just imap.
moreover, i think hitting "remove now" just puts content in your server's trash folder, meaning it's still taking up disk quota and you'll never know till you stop getting mail...

Mail app keeps re-caching all messages when it starts

Hello
In past 10 days i have a very big problem which gives me headaches already. The problem is ( i did not change anything!) mail.app keeps re-caching all messages and attachments everytime i start the app. I have over 40.000+ mails so you do the math about how my bandwith eaten by the app. As i said i did not change anything. Anyway after searching dozens of forums and suggestions i did these steps:
- removed MessageUidsAlreadyDownloaded3 files. No fix alsa mail.app won't create new ones since then
- removed whole cache, files, folders and accounts and re add them. No fix
- Clean install of mavericks. No fix
- Tried other apps like airmail, sparrow. Kinda no fix because airmail wont download whole messages only 1 month period even i choose to have all messages. Sparrow keeps giving error of unable to locate folders on the server. Only my windows thunderbird client works like a charm, there is no any issue at all but i hate windows.
- some terminal commands before clean install which i really dont remember due to high number of commands. By the way i am using IMAP settings
I really need a help here. I am talking about huge number of mails which are very important for me.
Thank you

Please read this whole thread:
Mail keeps downloading everything over and over.

How do I set up hotmail in mail app to not mark every message it syncs to be new?

Hello,
Using Mail App Version 5.2 on OSX Lion.
How do I set up hotmail in mail app to not mark every message it syncs to be new? (as in if if I check my mail on the browser and I have a new message.. and I read it.. but then open my mail app it syncs that email but says its new and unread)Here are my setting... what do I change?

irodalgo wrote:
but how come it does on my iphone?
What do you mean it does on your iPhone?
If you download a new email to your computer and read that mail and then download it to the iPhone it sees it as already read? Then maybe the iPhone is using the Hotmail IMAP system? Not sure.

When I open my "Mail" app it only shows 2 messages when I know there are more. How do I resolve this?

When I choose my "Mail" app it only shows 2 messages in my inbox when I know there are more. How do I resolve this? Thanks.

You need to create HTML signatures for use with the Apple Mail apps. You can't just throw in a logo, it has to be stored on the internet and it's location coded into your signature. You may find a service and an app that helps you do that in the iTunes App Store.

Backup Gmail using Mail.app and IMAP

I would like to backup my Gmail emails using Apple Mail. I have IMAP turned on in Gmail. I know I need to add the account in Mail but I'm not sure what to do after that. I'm thinking I need to create a local mail folder in order to store the emails.
Also, how could I automate this? Is Mail the best option for this scenario? Again, I'm only wanting this as a backup for Gmail.

How about avoiding redundancy (http://superuser.com/questions/114253/backup-gmail-using-mail-app-and-imap-witho ut-redundancy)?
I got this all working, there's even this literally great guide on my superuser post (http://db.tidbits.com/article/10253) but IMAP generates a lot of repeated files due to gmail labels nature.
Anyone knows a way to circle around this and still be able to use IMAP and labels with mail.app and gmail?

Mail.app and IMAP does not change message in server

Hello all...
I'm having a strange problem with Mail.app.. I have a IMAP server that uses pine-imapd. I can login and read messages, but anything I do with the messages to not change the message status on the server... If I read a new message, it remains NEW on server, if I delete, it DO NOT delete form server, and so on.. There are cases that I keep receiving the same message over and over again, but actually there's only one message on the server... I used to use Linux with Evolution and everything works just fine, but with Mail.app on Leopard, I have this issue.. Anyone experienced the same thing and have solved it?
THanks
Carlos Barros

Hello Neithan.
Assuming Preferences > Mailbox Behaviors > Move deleted messages to the Trash is ON, does having Store deleted messages on the server ON or OFF make a difference?
Does the problem persist if you take the account offline, then back online (e.g. by means of Mailbox > Go Offline/Online)?
Do you have any Mail plug-ins? In the Finder, go to each of the following folders (if they exist). What do you see there?
/Library/InputManagers/
/Library/Mail/Bundles/
~/Library/InputManagers/
~/Library/Mail/Bundles/
To make accurately reporting that information easier, open /Applications/Utilities/Terminal, type the following command (you can just copy it here and paste it in Terminal), and press <Return>. You can then copy the output of that command from Terminal and paste it in your reply to this post:
ls -1 /Library/InputManagers /Library/Mail/Bundles ~/Library/InputManagers ~/Library/Mail/Bundles
Note: For those not familiarized with the ~/ notation, it refers to the user’s home folder. You can easily locate any of the folders referred to in this post by copying the folder path here, doing Go > Go to Folder in the Finder, and pasting the folder path there.

Problems sorting messages? (Mail.app, Lion, IMAP)

I'm wondering if (how?) I'm the only person with this problem...
I generally run with a window just open to my Inbox(-es). That window is 2-columns, message list and message contents. The hidden "Mailboxes" pane has several accounts under Inbox, most/all of which are IMAP servers.
Here's the problem: The column heading for the list of messages reads "Sort by date". However, the message list isn't sorted by date at all. It appears that "Date" may be "date received", but I can't be certain of this. In previous versions of Mail.app, there was a distinction between sorting by date of the message or the date received; in general I prefer the former. But that doesn't seem to account for this:
The options for this are Sorted by: Date, Ascending.
The interesting aspect of this is that if I choose one particular Inbox (i.e., the inbox from any account, rather than the "consolidated" listing), messages are sorted properly. It's only when I have the view of all the inboxes (that is, the "Inbox" itself is selected, rather than any of the accounts under it) that sorting goes awry.
I do have lots of rules defined, moving certain messages from one place to another, and applying colors. But this hadn't previously (nor would I expect it to) cause this issue.
Does anyone else have this problem, or any ideas on how to fix it?

Apparently, I was either the only person to have an issue with this, or the only one bothered enough to write to the group!
I do have a solution, however.
From what I was able to tell, the issue was that the menu items for sorting, including the "Sort by" in the Mail window header bar and the View -> Sort by menu simply displayed "Date" as the option.
Recalling the old trick of using the Option key while selecting a menu item, "Date" changed to "Date Sent". It has not changed back to "Date"; now holding down Option changes it "Date Received", and the menu item continues to read "Date Sent", which is the desired behavior.
Unfortunately, Mail was stuck in a state where both these indications simply said "Date"; I've now apparently changed this and the indicator reads properly (and the sort order is as expected).
I hope if this bugs anyone else this explanation (?) will help.

Mail.app downloads IMAP data repeatedly

I user mail.app on three different computers. My main desktop is an iMac. My main travel computer is a MBP. Both of these systems are running SL 10.6.5 (actually 10.6.6 as of today). Mail.app is configured to access my work email via exchange, and my personal email through IMAP. For archiving purposes I use mail-act-on to archive my read email from exchange to IMAP (not sure this matters, but throwing it out there). The problem is that if I happen to leave mail.app running on one computer while using mail.app on the other, they both get confused and re-download all of my archived IMAP email.
I have 23GB of email on my IMAP server. Over time, I've had the local copy of my email on both computers grow to over >160GB. The crazy thing is that, although the mail has been downloaded multiple times, the messages only appear once mail.app. I have to fix this by deleting the IMAP account, recreating is and re-downloading all of my email. As long as I don't forget to shut down mail.app on the inactive computer, I don't have this problem. However, any time I accidentally leave it running on multiple's the problem re-appears. This behavior has been seen by a friend of mine that uses mail.app in a similar fashion.
Has anyone seen this? Any way to fix this?

Looking into the Diagnostics and Usage Reports in 'Settings' -> 'General' -> 'About' I see nine different "ExcResource_MobileMail_DATE" reports. Looking at the report I see a SysInfoCrashReport that indicates that the CPU was pegged at over 50% (mostly over 75%) for over 180 seconds using the MobileMail app.
I also see a "MobileMail_DATE" report that indicates that there was an 'Exception raised during monitored invocation of _loadMoreMessagesWithMaxVisibleIndexPath:maximumIndexPathsBySource:, exception: ** -[__NSArrayM objectAtIndex:]: index 4294967295 beyond bounds for empty array"
And finally I see three "stacks+MobileMail-DATE" reports with "Power assertion timeout for 'com.apple.message.fetchMobileSynchronously...' Simply resetting it now." and "Power assertion timeout for 'com.apple.mobilemail.messagebodyloader' Simply resetting it now" reports.
I updated to iOS 7.0.4 and decided to try and delete the account in my Mail settings and recreate it and set it to manual instead of the non-working fetch. Now, when I try to check my mail it still takes up to five minutes to respond, pulling the screen to refresh brings up the spinner for about one second and then disappears and no indications of activity occur until about three minutes later when I see the spinner in the status bar near the clock and then see a notification that it's downloading X of Y messages. At that point, message headers come in very quick and then about a minute later message previews come in. At random times, opening the mail app I get a "Password incorrect" error, even though the password works on other attempts.

Lots of disk activity in mail.app with IMAP

Hi -- just switched to IMAP and then uploaded about 3k email messages to each of two IMAP accounts. I am also using HTTPmail. It's insane how much disk activity mail.app takes up. My disk seems like it's always being read to or written from. It's making a ton of noise all the time. When I quit mail.app, the noises stop. Is there a way to make it stop doing all these reads/writes? It cant' be good for the disk and it slows down my computer.
Thanks!
Nathan

Let it run. Chances are, IMAP will simmer down after it does all its processing. If this continues, it might be the result of you simply having a lot of new email. Try disabling the auto synchronization feature if it really bothers you.

My email account in Mail.app is IMAP, but when I delete emails, they don't delete from other devices connected to the mail server with IMAP. Deleted mail on other devices delete as normal from the server and thus from other devices as normal.

MacBook Pro, late 2011 version. Up to date Mountain Lion.
My email account in the Mail.app is set up as IMAP, but when I delete emails in the Mac Mail App, they are not deleted from the mail clients of the other devices that are connected to the mail server with IMAP. IMAP works perfectly between Windows Outlook 2010, iPad Mail App and Android default mail client. Deleted messages behave correctly, as in delete from one device and the mail is deleted from all devices.
Having just tested in reverse order on the Mac; emails deleted from the email client on Windows, iPad and Android are not deleted in the Mac Mail App. It appears that the account is behaving like POP rather than IMAP.
Any advice on how to have IMAP work correctly on the MacBook Pro Mail.app?
Thank you.

Hi Csound1, thanks. The email host is 1and1.co.uk, however, i am going to fess up and make myself look like a plonker now -
the email account in question was set up in Outlook as POP - stupid, stupid, stupid me, wasted an afternoon on this! I have now changed the Outlook account to IMAP and Mail.app works perfectly - and looks much nicer than Outlook did. Im in the middle of converting from Windows to a Mac, and still finding my way around the Mac
The lesson learned, never assume - always double check! All my other email addresses with 1and1 are all imap, except this one, and it happened to be the first one I set up in the Mail.app. (bows head in disgrace!)
Thank you anyway for attempting to help me!
Cheers

Mail.app says I have more messages than exist

I'm having an issue with Mail.app pointing to the gmail server using IMAP (default automatic setup)
Right now I have 3 messages in my inbox, all read. Mail.app's title says "Inbox (4 messages)" even though I have 3. It's off by 1 every now and then and I have to quit and restart to have it fix it - although this doesn't always solve the problem I don't think
Is this a known issue? How can I file a bug report?

Hi,
From the Mac Mail Menu Bar click Mailbox/Rebuild. This can take a minute or two. Should help.
Not a bug, just servers trying to catch up.
Carolyn

Mail.app + Gmail IMAP, stop auto mark as read

I just switched over to IMAP on my Gmail account and I got everything working fine, except one thing:
I've applied rules in Mail.app so they sort into their corresponding folders on the server (or Labels, in Gmail terms). For some reason because of this, certain messages are automatically marked as read.
This doesn't happen to messages that aren't sorted (ie, they stay in the Inbox > Gmail). The strange thing is, this only happens to certain messages that are sorted.
Anybody have any idea?

Resolved.

Mail.app + Google IMAP. Locally stored messages being dropped.

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