Mail cannot update mailbox

When I try to open Mail I receive the following message and the only option is to select quit which closes the mail program. How do I delete these unneeded documents? Thanks.
"You must free up space in your home folder before using Mail. Delete unneeded documents or move documents to another volume."

Hi John, and a warm welcome to the forums!
Are you using Filevault?
"Mail cannot update your mailboxes because your home directory is full' alert"...
http://support.apple.com/kb/TA24486
Mac OS X 10.3, 10.4: FileVault - How to verify or repair a home directory image ...
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2631?viewlocale=en_US

Similar Messages

On 10.4.11 Mac Mail I get this: Mail cannot update your mailboxes because your home directory is full. You must free up space in your home folder before using Mail. Delete unnedded documents or move documents to another volume. I can't open mail.

On 10.4.11 iMac Mac Mail I get this message: "Mail cannot update your mailboxes because your home directory is full. You must free up space in your home folder before using Mail. Delete unneeded documents or move documents to another volume." I can't open mail to do this. I have reinstalled software but no effect. How do I get into Mail to delete?

Found this on the "more like this" Worked like a charm!
With the Mail.app quit and using the Finder, go to Home > Library > Mail. Copy the Mail folder and place the copy on the Desktop for backup purposes.
Go to Home > Library > Mail > Envelope Index. Move the Envelope Index file to the Desktop.
Launch Mail and you will be prompted to import mailboxes. Select OK and allow the import process to complete.
After confirming all mailboxes were successfully imported and available, you can delete the copy of the Mail folder and old Envelope Index file from the Desktop and this should resolve the problem.

"Mail cannot update your mailboxes because your home directory is full"

I have a 250 GB hard disk, 4.34 GB of which is in my "Home" folder. (Total HD usage is about 27 GB.) This happened suddenly after Mail had been working fine for eons. I deleted a bunch of files (107 MB) in a "Drafts" folder (none show up in the Mail app's "Drafts" icon), but it made no difference. I re-installed the Mac OS X 10.4.11 combo update... no difference. Mail version is 2.1.3.
Any help here? I cannot use Mail at all.
Message was edited by: Bill Strohm

Hey there,
Have you had a chance to look at this Apple support document relating directly to this issue. Hope it helps.
[Mac OS X 10.4: "Mail cannot update your mailboxes because your home directory is full" alert|http://support.apple.com/kb/TA24486?viewlocale=en_US]
B-rock

MAIL cannot update your mailboxes---error in MAIL 2.1

"MAIL cannot update your mailboxes---"
Have 26 Gb of space left and found the fix to delete the Envelope Index file. I moved Envelope Index to the DT and relaunched MAIL. It seemed to import 1200 items, then it just goes to colored wheel of death. Had to Force Quit 3x.
Any ideas? Im trying to help a senior fix this problem. She cant get her email.

Hi Steve,
Not certain, but this can fix myriad Mail problems...
Safe Boot from the HD, (holding Shift key down at bootup), it will try to repair your Disk Directory while the spinning radian is happening, so let it go, run Disk Utility in Applications>Utilities, then highlight your drive, click on Repair Permissions, then move these folder & file to the Desktop.
Move this Folder to the Desktop...
/Users/YourUserName/Library/Caches/Mail/
Move this file to the Desktop...
/Users/YourUserName/Library/Mail/Envelope Index
Reboot.

Mail cannot update because home directory is full

I have read the the solutions to this problem and have tried them all. I have thrown away the preference file, I have re-installed mail w/Pacifist software, I have copied envelope index to desktop. These have all failed, I still get the same message when I try to open Mail. I have also deleted emails from home/library files. When I "command I" my hard drive it tells me I've got 75.11 GB available.
One strange factor, before this started... I had my laptop closed, when I opened it, my screen was real dark and I had to force quit by holding the power button down. Could this be related?
Can anyone help me w/this?! I am, of course, desperate to get to my email!!
PowerBook G4 17" Mac OS X (10.4.6) 2 GB DDR SDRAM

From Mail Help:
"My mailbox is over its quota
If you receive a message from your email provider that your mailbox has grown too large, check your available space and try deleting some messages to make room for new messages. It is common for email accounts to limit how much email can be stored on the server.
The Account Info window, which you open from the Action pop-up menu located below your list of mailboxes, helps you manage your email when you've exceeded your account's storage limits.
Choose Get Info from the Action pop-up menu.
Choose the account you want to manage from the Account pop-up menu.
Click either Quota Limits (for a .Mac or IMAP account) or "Messages on Server" (for
a POP account).
View messages.
For a POP account, select which messages you want to view using the Show Messages pop-up menu. Then click the Size header to view messages in order of size. You can free up space on the server more quickly by deleting the largest messages first.
For .Mac or IMAP accounts, click the Size header to find the largest mail folders on your server. Select a mailbox, then click Show Messages. Click Size in the viewer window, then select messages and press the Delete key to remove the messages.
Most mail providers also let you manage your email accounts from a web browser. To manage your .Mac account, go to webmail.mac.com, sign in, and choose Show All Folders from the Go To pop-up menu. The Email Storage meter shows your total space allotted, and how much you have used.
Try these strategies to free space in your email account:
Delete large messages or messages with attachments (first save any attachments you want to keep). To see if messages have attachments, choose View > Columns > Attachments. To see the size of each message, choose View > Columns > Size. To quickly identify large messages to delete, click the Size column heading to sort the messages by size.
For .Mac or IMAP accounts, make sure your Trash mailbox is empty. Messages you've recently deleted are in the Trash mailbox, but haven't yet been removed from the mail server. Choose Mailbox > Erase Deleted Messages to remove the messages.
For .Mac or IMAP accounts, move some of your messages from the server to mailboxes on your computer. Choose Mailbox > New Mailbox, then choose On My Mac from the Location pop-up menu in the dialog that appears. Name the mailbox. Next, click your Inbox, select the messages you want to put in the new mailbox, and drag them to the new mailbox you created. The messages are copied from the mail server to your hard disk and then deleted from the server.
Once you have downloaded attachments from email messages in your .Mac or IMAP accounts, you have a copy of the attachments on your computer. To make more space available on the server, you can remove the attachments from the server. Select a message with attachments you want to remove and choose Message > Remove Attachments.
For POP accounts, change how long messages are kept on the server after you retrieve them. Choose Mail > Preferences and click Accounts. Select the account, then click the Advanced pane and choose a time interval for removing messages from the server.
For .Mac or IMAP accounts, messages in the Drafts, Trash, Sent, and Junk mailboxes are stored on the server by default. To free server space, delete the messages or move them to mailboxes on your computer. You can also change the preference for these mailboxes so that future messages are not stored on the server; note that any messages in the mailboxes at the time you change the preference will remain on the server until you delete them or move them to your computer. To change the preference, choose Mail > Preferences and click Accounts. Select a .Mac or IMAP account, click Mailbox Behaviors, and change the option for storing messages on the server. To learn if a mailbox is stored on the server or your computer, place your pointer over the mailbox.
Delete messages from your Sent mailbox if you store sent mail on the server.
Use iChat or iDisk, not email, to transfer large files. For information on sending files in a chat, open iChat and choose Help > iChat Help.
See also
problems sending and receiving email"
iMac 1.9 GHz PowerPC G5 1.5 GB DDR2 SDRAM Mac OS X (10.4.6) Slot Loading 8X Dual Layer SuperDrive, iSight & Apple Remote; iPod Video

"Mail cannot update your mailbox because your home directory is full"

For some reason when I try and open Mail I get this prompt with "quit" as the only option. I've repaired permissions to the disc. I've emptied some data from the 'home folder' as the prompt suggests. I've restarted many times. Any ideas?

Corruption of HOME/Library/Mail/Envelope Index is known to cause this bogus error message in Mail. AFAIK, the file that needs to be re-created is Envelope Index, not Envelope Index-journal. The latter may very well not be present at all (actually it shouldn't be present when Mail is not running).
I wonder, however, whether Envelope Index-journal is present in your case, and whether just removing that file makes any difference, so please try what Mulder suggested first and post back with your observations. If that doesn't work, the procedure I suggest in cases such as yours follows.
Verify/repair your disk first (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 your disk does have enough available disk space and that the error message is indeed bogus, try this:
1. Quit Mail.
2. In the Finder, go to HOME/Library/Mail/. You may want to 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.
3. Locate the Envelope Index file and move it to the Trash. If you see an Envelope Index-journal file there, delete it as well.
4. Launch Mail again and proceed to re-create the index -- Mail says it's "importing", but it just re-creates Envelope Index if the mailboxes are already in Mail 2.0 format.

Mail cannot update your mailboxes since Home Directory is full

eMac G4 1.25GHz SuperDrive Mac OS X (10.4.6) 1 GB ROM
This error in loadig Mail has occured after an Erase disk and re-install Tiger.
All my old Home Folder files where imported from Backup volumn.
The root administrator was activated to chown and chgrp
w/ the Terminal.app
Still something is going wrong.

How much disk space do you have available on your Mac's boot drive? To find out, click once on the boot drive, then pull down the file menu and select "get info."

"Mail cannot update your mailboxes because home directory is full

This is on my laptop, not my desktop. How do I fix this?

The "home directory" that error message talks about is supposed to be your Home folder, but the error message is bogus and the problem is often something else. What's the capacity and space available on the startup disk?
BTW, a post can only be edited during the first 15 minutes after posting it.

Mail cannot launch because it says Home Driectory is full? It is not full!!

Hi There:
I have two users on my computer and for some reason I cannot launch my mail program on one of them. Both users are listed as administrators and I have 2 hard drives installed using a firmtek controller card. The first drive where the OS is installed is an 80Bg drive with more than 57Gb available.
When I launch Mail on the first user ut says:
Mail cannot update your mailboxes becasue your Home Directory is full. You must free up space. Delete unnecessary files or documents. The thing is I have tons of space. The other user I can launch mail with no problems. I do have multiple mailboxes set up with the mail program that has the issues.
Please advise
Thanks
W

Hi Cyclops Images.
Corruption of ~/Library/Mail/Envelope Index is known to cause this bogus error message in Mail, even when there is enough space available on disk.
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 the 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 locally stored.
3. Locate Envelope Index and move it to the Trash. If you see any other “Envelope Index”-named 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.

Mail cannot access your mailbox information because it is in use

I have my mail on a Truecrypt drive and I have an alias pointing to that drive in my library and so sometimes I get this message:
"Mail cannot access your mailbox information because it is in use."
Options are:
"Quit and rebuild Information" or "Quit"
If I rebuild then I was losing all my sent messages which is a drag and it takes a while to re-download all the messages. So what I tried was deleting the Envelope Index.lock file and then launch mail and it started up with no problems.
I think the reason this is happening is that it is possible that when I shut my computer down, Truecrypt dismounts the drive while Mail is accessing the mail folder (hence the lock file) and so when I start up again and remount the truecrypt drive that lock file is still there and I have to delete it or Mail thinks some other program is using the mail folder. Just a guess.
Hope this helps someone else if they Google this error.

I do but I do it from another computer -- that is the whole point of IMAP, by the way. I don't see how my accessing the IMAP server from another computer should cause Mail.app to think that my mailboxes on my local host, which are just copies, need to be rebuilt. I filed a bug on this and Apple gave me the annoying "Known issue" response, which means maybe they'll fix it, maybe not, thank you very much. It went away for a while, and now it's back again... sigh.

Mail account cannot update because home directory is full. But I can not get into mail without freezing. Is there a back door entry?

mail account cannot update because home directory is full. But I can not get into mail without freezing. Is there a back door entry?

Do you mean that your startup disk is full?

I open Mail, and a new message screen comes up. I cannot get rid of it, and I cannot get to the mail in my mailbox???

When I try to open my mail (not IMail) a new message screen comes up on my iPad (version 8.1.3 (12B466), and I cannot cancel it; it prevents me from getting to the mail in that mailbox.

Try a reset: Simultaneously hold down the Home and On buttons until the device shuts down. Ignore the off slider if it appears. Once shut down is complete, if it doesn't restart on it own, turn the device back on using the On button. In some cases it also helps to double click the Home button and close all apps BEFORE doing the reset.

If I no longer have access to my original e-mail associated with my account and my passwords and e-mail accounts associated with my Apple device, how can I fix this solution? I have 2 ipads and 1 iphone and I cannot update any of my apps.

I tried to change the e-mail associated with my apple account because my school was closing and I knew I would no longer have accss to that e-mail account, however now all 3 of my devices ( 2 ipads & 1 iphone are screwed up as far as the e-mail accounts associated with each device and the passwords. I have tried all the on-line support/suggestions and took my devices to a local Apple store and no one/nothing helps.
Does anyone have a solution? I can purchase new apps but I cannot update any of the apps I have to any of my devices.
<Email Edited By Host>

Unfortunately, it says I can't delete anything without the missing password.

I have mac OS 10.6.8 build 10K549 cannot update mail or OS to lion

I have an iMac with a newly replace 1 tetrabyte HD which has come back with mac OS 10.6.8 and build 10K549 I cannot update Mac mail or update the OS to lion. I have downloaded the update to the OS to allow the installation of Lion but the desternation HD comes back with "the volume does not meet the requirements of this update"

What model iMac do you have?

"Mail cannot access your mailbox information because it's already in use. Rebuild Mailbox information Quit" Both quits Mail.

After installing Yosemite, my Mail stops working after about 20-30 seconds when this Dialog Box pops up, freezes Mail and says:
"Mail cannot access your mailbox information because it’s already in use.
Another application on your computer or on your local network is using your mailbox information. Click Quit to quit Mail. Then log out of this computer and any other computer you’re using. After you log in again, open Mail on one computer only.
If this message reappears, there may be a network server problem. Contact your system administrator to determine if it can be resolved by rebuilding your mailbox information. Then click Rebuild Mailbox Information.
If this message reappears, there may be a network server problem. Contact your system administrator to determine if it can be resolved by rebuilding your mailbox information. Then click Rebuild Mailbox Information.
Rebuild Mailbox information Quit"
Clicking on either one quits Mail. I am receiving my emails. I can even send my self a test email and receive it before it freezes up in 20-30 seconds. My ISP thinks it's a "Kernal" software problem.
Through advice by a friend, I have tried:
Applications - Utililities - Disk Utilities - and selected my hard drive and then click Repair Permissions
Rebooted a bunch of times. The first time Repair Permissions printed a few pages of stuff. The 2nd, 3rd and 4th times, it printed out this:
Repairing permissions for “Macintosh HD”User differs on “private/var/db/displaypolicyd”; should be 0; user is 244.Group differs on “private/var/db/displaypolicyd”; should be 0; group is 244.Repaired “private/var/db/displaypolicyd”
Permissions repair complete
But I still have the same problem I stated the the beginning of this:(
Any more advice?

I have the exact same issue, just after installing Yosemite. Please advise

Mail cannot update mailbox

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