Mail hanging in Lion

Mail frequently hangs. I cannot either force quit or shut down. I've had to do harware shutdowns - which I hate.
Any ideas?

I deleted and recreated the Exchange account in Mail and all seems to be working now.
Before I did so, I also cleaned up my Exchange mailbox. I did have over 7,000 items in my Inbox. I culled that down to about 3500 items and cleaned up a few other folders. For the time being Mail on Lion seems to be working well and very responsive.

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Mail in Mountain Lion hangs on Exchange mailbox "Requesting Latest Information"

I had an annoying problem recently with Mail hanging when synchronizing with our company's Exchange Server. I could somehow solve this by searching Apple Discussions and finding this thread: https://discussions.apple.com/message/21687261#21687261.
There it was recommended to disable all Rules in regard to moving messages to local mailboxes.
But this is not a permanent and satisfying solution
(deleting the Exchange account and re-adding it did not help).
Does anyone else have this problem?
What I will do next is delete all rules and start re-adding them ...
Message was edited by: Christian Theussl

I had the same problem, and was eventually able to "fix" it, in an unsatisfying way.
I noticed that I always got the "requesting updated information" message along with "moving messages" or "copying messages". Clicking the stop sign on the "requesting updated information" message sometimes got it un-stuck, but sometimes then left one or more mailboxes in an inconsistent state, which required me to do "Rebuild mailbox" frequently.
The solution? Disabling all of my auto-filing mail rules. It seems that the problem occurred when these rules were being triggered to move messages from my inbox to a local mail folder. I turned off the rules, and haven't had the problem since then. I can move messages by hand which does not cause the hanging problem.
This is unfortunate, since I really like being able to auto-file messages by project. I didn't have this problem with Snow Leopard.

Mail hanging

Since updating to Lion, Mail hangs for ever while trying to retrieve messages. I have my iPhone connected to my iMac all the time whilst I am in my study, and I can hear the alert telling me when new mail arrives on my phone but when I go to Mail it won't retrieve new messages until I Quit and relaunch it. (Just the latest in a long line of issues I've had since updating to Lion...)

with regard to my question:
Mail hangs on start and I have to force quit to get out of it. The question was answered from another person running 10.4 Here was the response:
will this work for 10.3.9
The Mail.app preference file may have some corruption.
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.
Using the Finder, go to Home > Library > Preferences > com.apple.mail.plist. Move the com.apple.mail.plist file to the Desktop.
Note: When moving the com.apple.mail.plist file out of the Preferences folder will require re-entering all email account information when re-launching Mail.
The only exception will be a .Mac account which should be re-entered automatically.
Launch Mail and deline any prompt to import mailboxes. As required, after re-entering all email account information the Mail.app should rediscover the existing account named folder(s) and mailboxes at Home > Library > Mail.
If this is successful and after confirming all mailboxes were successfully rediscovered, you can delete the copy of the Mail folder and old com.apple.mail.plist file from the Desktop.

Mail hangs on quit and when getting mail after sleep

I'm having a strange problem with the new Mail program in Lion. After my machine has been to sleep (say, overnight), upon waking it tries to get mail from MobileMe and Gmail (both are IMAP accounts) and they both hang with spinners but get no mail. The one POP account works fine.
When I try to quit Mail, the main window closes but the menubar remains and the icon still shows active in the dock. The only way I have found is to Force Quit Mail and then re-open.
Is anyone else experiencing similar behavior? Anyone have a fix or workaround?
Thanks!

I'm having a strange problem with the new Mail program in Lion. After my machine has been to sleep (say, overnight), upon waking it tries to get mail from MobileMe and Gmail (both are IMAP accounts) and they both hang with spinners but get no mail. The one POP account works fine.
When I try to quit Mail, the main window closes but the menubar remains and the icon still shows active in the dock. The only way I have found is to Force Quit Mail and then re-open.
Is anyone else experiencing similar behavior? Anyone have a fix or workaround?
Thanks!

Mail Hangs after 10.5.6 update

After installing the 10.5.6 update via Software Update Mail started to Hang. Odd, it worked for about a day then turned south, very south. I have no 3rd party add-ons. Simple set up to SBC global DSL via yahoo. I can't even create a new account because Mail hangs within 5-10 seconds of launch-beach ball and force quit. I have restored a pre update version of mail.app via Time Machine, but that does not change a thing. Kept both versions. I don't know what other elements could/should be restored from Time Machine to regain pre update functionality. Please, any suggestions.

After losing hours of my life trying to find an answer, I tried mucking around myself. Found that Time Machine can indeed restore Mail, or at least it did repair my problem. Rather than replacing Mail.app and main library files, which did nothing, I restored my 'User' Mail LIbrary ( 'damaged user Account' >Library>Mail ) to Sunday before the 10.5.6 update. Be sure to Import mailboxes from the splash screen Welcome to Mail Window that will appear when you relaunch Mail after TM restore, this will restore all the mail boxes as they were, otherwise everything is empty. I now will be archiving my mail diligently, I promise, even before the new year. Seems the 10.5.6 upgrade has caused many many problems in many many areas, Mail just being the one I was blessed with. Good Luck. Time Machine is Wonderful when it is on an external HD.

How can I change order of email accounts in Mail on Mountain Lion?

In Mail on Mountain Lion I have only two email accounts, but the wrong one has been set as default (because it was an account I had overlooked and added later). I cannot find how to change the order of the email accounts. One possibility is to delete the non-default account and re-add it, so that it becomes the most recent and thus (presumably) the default, but this would delete all the email messages in that account, which I cannot afford.
It's a great flaming pain to try to remember each email I write to select the second account option, and yet I can find no way to change email account order---not in Mail and not in System Preferences. Dragging them certainly does not work.
Can Apple have really missed this? Is there any solution?

Comfortable with terminal...know how to edit using TextEdit:
Open up a Terminal and use the following commands to change your Mail.app preferences file to an XML format – the default format is binary, and you can't edit this.
cd ~/Library/Preferences
plutil -convert xml1 com.apple.mail.plist
Then, open this file com.apple.mail.plist with a text editor of your choice, preferably one that highlights XML syntax, but you can also use TextEdit:
open -a "TextEdit" com.apple.mail.plist
Now, look for the key called MailAccounts. It's value is an array, with dict children. Here, you'll find all your mail accounts in the order they were created in.
You can now manually move these dict children around. Save the XML file and reopen Mail. Now, your Mail account order will be changed.

Mail hangs when it receives a report that an e-mail could not be delivered.

Hi Guys :o),
One bug which is really bugging me is that every time I receive a bounced e-mail report, with a subject line containing words to the effect of:
"Undeliverable. Return to sender."
or:
"The message could not be delivered."
Mail is unable to pull any subsequent e-mails down from the POP server.
So I junk the report, and then I delete it.
However, lo and behold, the errant e-mail is INSTANTLY back in my Inbox, plus there's now AT LEAST one copy in my Mail Junk, and also AT LEAST one copy in my Mail Trash.
Round and round I go, junk, delete, junk, delete, but the errant e-mail refuses to go away, and Mail continues to be unable to pull any new e-mails down from the POP server.
Eventually, Mail just hangs, with a spinning disk.
Even a force quit and relaunch of Mail doesn't resolve the spinning disk.
The errant message just sits there, REFUSING to be deleted.
The only way to get round this bug is for me to go up to my POP server, delete the report, and then PURGE DELETE the report - on the POP server !
I then have to go in to my Mac, and go:
--> Users --> Home --> Library --> Mail --> Account --> Inbox, Junk, and Deleted
and then manually drag ALL copies of the report into the trash on the Desktop.
It happens so often (pretty much every day) that I've had to create a shortcut in my Dock which leads straight to the Account folder.
Mail has always been buggy under ALL versions of OS X, but this ongoing bug drives me crazy, mainly because there's NO logical reason for it.
Just because I receive an e-mail message from the Hotmail server, for example, which says that my e-mail could not be delivered, usually because the recipient's inbox is full, or because no such address exists, on paper, that's just another e-mail which Mail is pulling down from the POP server.
However, EVERY TIME I receive such a report, Mail hangs.
I'm reluctant to rebuild my Mailboxes, in case I lose any messages, but I will if you advise it.
Any workaround would be gratefully received.
With best wishes to everyone in the Apple community, especially those on the Infinity Loop.
In particular, I wish Mr Jobs a very speedy recovery.
Cool,
Michael T
London, England

Quit Mail, Right click on that Mail folder, choose archive, you'll get everything in the folder, and the folder itself in a file called Mail.zip, move it to a safe place, same for the Mail Downloads folder... only the plist is separate.
/Users/YourUserName/Library/Preferences/com.apple.mail.plist
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.
If that doesn't do it and you can afford to redo all your Rules, try these & reboot...
/Users/YourUserName/Library/Mail/MessageRules.plist
/Users/YourUserName/Library/Mail/MessageRules.plist.backup

What is happening with quote substitution in Mail since Mountain Lion?

What is happening with quote substitution in Mail since Mountain Lion? Now, whenever I type an apostrophe and it's replaced with a smart quote, it creates an unwanted space within my word and starts typing from there. It will also revert the font from my template style to helvetica. Annoying as heck! Any thoughts? Turning off smart quote substition in Mail elimates the error, but elimates the smart qoute, too. I'm stumped.

What is happening with quote substitution in Mail since Mountain Lion? Now, whenever I type an apostrophe and it's replaced with a smart quote, it creates an unwanted space within my word and starts typing from there. It will also revert the font from my template style to helvetica. Annoying as heck! Any thoughts? Turning off smart quote substition in Mail elimates the error, but elimates the smart qoute, too. I'm stumped.

Exporting OS X Mail from Mountain Lion to Snow Leopard

After upgrading to Mountain Lion, I partitioned my iMac HD to have two partitions: Macintosh HD has Mountain Lion; I reinstalled Snow Leopard on Macintosh HD 2. Best part: you can access your user-created files from EITHER disk partition. But not so OS X Mail. I wanted to revert to Snow Leopard, since I don't like the iOS-like Mountain Lion (swipe THIS!), but Mail was a problem since all my Snow Leopard Mail was successfully migrated over to Mountain Lion during upgrade. But I think I found a way to Export Mail from ML to (a clean install of) SL.
Try this:
1. Open Mail in ML. For each folder you wish to have back in SL, Export it to your ML Desktop as an .mbox file. Depending on the folder size, this can take from a few seconds to several minutes. You'll see an .mbox icon for the particular folder on your Desktop. If the word "partial" appears between the folder name and the .mbox suffix, wait a few moments for the Export to complete, at which time the word "partial" will disappear. E.g., for a folder named "Mary", if it's a huge one, the icon will first appear as "Mary.partial.mbox"; when the Export is done, you'll see "Mary.mbox".
2. When you've Exported all your desired folders as above, you can exit ML and re-start your Mac in SL. Open Mail in Snow Leopard, and once again, for each file you just Exported in ML to the Desktop there, select "Import Data From Apple Mail" and choose the folder from the Desktop in ML to which your mboxes were Exported. When the Import starts, you can see via a progress bar how far along it is. When done, you'll see a new folder in your SL Mail called "Import"; click on it to reveal the folder you just Imported!
3. Then drag the folder you just Imported out of the Import folder to "On My Mac" in SL Mail; you can then delete the Import folder.
4. Repeat until all your folders are where you want them (in SL).
5. When you have time, go back into ML and clear all those .mbox files from your Desktop.
There MAY be an easier way, but this is what worked for me.

The iOS view vs classic view in Mail is not the problem; I've already configured for classic view.
Mountain Lion itself is.
My short list (to date) of crappy Mountain Lion behavior; items marked with a double asterisk (**)represent the worst of Mountain Lion for me.
** No up/down arrows in scroll bar slider;
Expose` not as easy to navigate as in Snow Leopard;
Mail does not request passwords for either receive or send;
No "Save Draft" icon in Mail compose window (workaround: use command-s);
"Save As" selection missing in most app menus;
No separate Search window in Safari (workaround: use Firefox or Opera);
** Can't export Mail from Mountain Lion into Snow Leopard if downgrading (I compiled this list before I stumbled on the method in this thread, but I'd prefer to effect this with Unix symbolic links);
iWork 09 seems to have "circled the wagons" re compatibility with MS Office or LibreOffice (workaround: just use Libreoffice);

How to configure google apps in Mail 5 of lion os x not as gmail but as exchange

Hi All,
I have been trying hard online to find some resource to configure google apps in Mail 5 of lion os x not as gmail but as exchange.
The reason is that I want to sync my contacts as well as calendar and email but if configured as gmail ot only takes email and may be calendar.
I use this over all my devices and need my calendars and contacts to be synced all over
I called the customer support in USA but they directed me to call a UK number.
Appreciate your guide line, or feedback with an online resource.
Best regards,
fawzy

think i set it up like exchange but calendars doesn't sync and AB no sure,you also can do it in system preferences in the mail,calendars pane ..

Mini calendar in mail missing after Lion installation

mini calendar in mail missing after Lion installation

>After installing Lion (intel I-Mac 2g ram). My Microsoft Office 2004 no longer runs.
Upgrade to a Universal compatible version of Office or equivalent. http://www.neooffice.org/ is the least expensive alternative, though importing Entourage into iCal, Mac OS X Mail, and Addressbook works best if the data was exported from Entourage while still in Snow Leopard.
>Also, when I select "printer friendly" pages in Safari or Firefox, I get a "missing plugin" message.
When you upgraded, did you make sure that Safari was installed in the Applications folder? If not, you may have to redownload Safari from http://www.apple.com/safari/ as it happens to be the same version. Firefox double check is already Lion compatible. For more on upgrading to Lion, see my FAQ*:
http://www.macmaps.com/upgradefaq.html#LION

APPLE PLEASE HELP! Mail hangs after start, address book never launches!

I've been reviewing postings since friday last week about issues with mail/address book after 10.5.2 and here's a summary:
• Symptom 1: Mail launches slow
• symptom 2: mail hangs while downloading new mail (in my case from 1 particular account according to the activity viewer, while downloading the last, most recent msg, the msg does not have attachments but it stays downloading forever, force quit required)
• symptom 3: mail does not send msgs (in my case it sends one-by-one after each force quit/relaunch)
• symptom 4: duplicate msgs appear, particularly msgs received after 10.5.2
• symptom 5: mail does not quit,, force quit necessary. in my case after i force quit/ relaunch several times mail launches somewhat "normal" but after a reboot or relaunch, problems appear again. (duplicates never go away)
• issues with mail after 10.5.2 are not ISP/email host related, we all have different ISPs and hosts and we all have the same symptoms.
• i also experienced problems with address book, it starts but the window never opens or if it does is completely empty, no functions are possible. this also affected ichat as the info for the contacts cant be retrieved from address book.
thanks for reading and please contribute to the thread if you agree with the summary, APPLE NEEDS TO HELP US!!!

Hi everybody,
I have received an update from my friend who suffered from the Mail problem. In fact, the errors occurring AFTER the restore from Time Machine were due to an ISP's problem. So the restore really worked after all.
So to put it in a nutshell, I would recommend the following process:
1. Quit (or force-quit iff necessary) Mail asap when the application gets stuck. Do not open Mail again.
2. Restore ~/Library/Mail folder from the youngest Time Machine Backup you know Mail was behaving properly.
3. Run the 10.5.2 Combo Updater while all applications are shut down (just to be on the safe side).
4. After the inevitable Restart, check Software Update for more updates and install if necessary.
5. Run Mail and let it rebuild all the Mailboxes.
This should work fine to solve the problem. With the AddressBook case, I should try a similar workflow to get it fixed, yet I haven't tried that one so far.
BTW: I can only encourage you to really get an external drive and use Time Machine frequently. Even if it seems to be expensive in the first place, imho TM is the best piece of software Apple has been inventing for ages. In my case, I also tried to save money and took a leftover 40 gig HD from an old server and got myself a usb-2.0 external box for around 10 euros. Although space is limited, i have been backing up hourly since 1 February and there's still 12 gig to go. I only back um my home directory, as all my personal data, settings and mail are stored there.

...No Mail "Bounce" in Lion?

Hellllllp please? I get so much junk mail from the same person repeatedly on a certain email account of mine. I thought "hey, why not add the account in Mail, and bounce the email so it'll show that it's not the right email or something...?"
So I merged it in, and was just about to bounce the email when I noticed... the "bounce" option was gone with OS Lion!
...Need I say more? I'm wondering how to get this dude off my back, and even moreso, just would love to know if there's still a feature like this in Mail. It would really come in handy right about now...

here is a bounce add on that works. I've been using it and it's great. Just be sure to restart Mail after you install it and the bounce icon will show up.
http://download.cnet.com/Restore-Bounce-Mail-Button-To-Lions-Mail-app/3000-20429 _4-75629050.html

Delayed email delivery using mail app in Lion

I'm having issues with delayed email delivery using the mail app in Lion. Specifically I have an IMAP account (AOL) that is working fine on other macs running snow leopard and on both an iPhone and an iPad. I receive an email that shows up on all other devices but does not get delivered on the Macbook Air. Clicking get new messages does not delivery the email, even if other emails have been delivered in the interim. The only way to get the email to show up is to exit Mail and restart it - and then the email shows up, in the correct date/time order and the correct read status (since I had already read it on another device).
This has happened twice now with my AOL account in the past 24 hours (I've only had the new Macbook Air since Monday). It might also be happening on my other IMAP email accounts but I have not noticed it yet. It's intermittant as I've received many other emails correctly and ontime.
Anyone else seeing something similar? I've never seen this with earlier versions of Mac OS X or on devices running iOS.
This is a Macbook Air running Lion 10.7.1. I have 4 IMAP accounts set up. Mail is set to check for email once a minute and I have my IMAP accounts set to use the IDLE command.

I have the same problem, some photos are not loaded completely and partly grey. This occurs only in Mail.app but not in the web interface of the email provider. Did you find a solution, Florian? Does somebody else have a suggestion?
Greetings from Finland

Printed Text is Small with Mail.app in Lion

Has anyone been able to adjust the font size of the PRINT in Mail while using Lion? I swear I feel stupid, but I can't seem to adjust this all.
I have to print out an email and the text is soooo small. It's like 3pt. Adjusting the message view font in prefs doesn't change a thing, nor does changing the print options like "Scale to Fit", "Rewrap Message to Fit", "Keep the Same Apparent Font Size", etc.
I have the conversation view selected, but I opened a single email as well, and it ALWAYS prints like 3pt making the text unreadable.
I finally had to forward the email to gmail and print from gmail. Sad.
Any ideas on how to adjust the PRINT font size only?

Yes, I tried this as well.
If I increase the scale to let's say 400%, it does increase the font size, but makes the text no longer appdear on one page. It will change the flow of the text so that half a sentence on the right is cut off, and the remaining text is on the next page.
In other words, it doesn't work.
Just in case this helps, I'm printing to a HP 4240n, but I don't think that would be it.
Even saving to a PDF in the print dialog causes the same issue.
Does anyone print emails from Mail.app in Lion? Am I the only one?

Mail hanging in Lion

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