A possible fix for a slow Mail.app | 23 comments | Create New Account
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I have to check myself, but doesn't mail.app have a compact mailbox option?
It's a trick of modern mail applications that store data in a single file(one real file per folder). They don't delete messages well in the middle of the file. They get marked for deletion but actually aren't until you force them to.
either way I when I get home I will check my gmail folder and see what that can do.
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I thought once I was found but it was only a dream
It's a trick of modern mail applications that store data in a single file(one real file per folder). They don't delete messages well in the middle of the file. They get marked for deletion but actually aren't until you force them to.
either way I when I get home I will check my gmail folder and see what that can do.
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I thought once I was found but it was only a dream
![Messages App Mac Slow Messages App Mac Slow](/uploads/1/3/4/1/134185813/790931676.png)
How does compare to what Mail > Mailbox > Rebuild does?
And Rob did you notice a speed up?
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Hermosa Beach, CA USA
This didn't work for me. And Rob did you notice a speed up?
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Hermosa Beach, CA USA
I got an increase in unread messages, but when I clicked on read messages that I already had locally, I'd get a message like, 'You need to take this account online to read this message.'
Luckily I made a backup of /Library/Mail. Force kill mac app.
Maybe it's me and my preference for IMAP servers, but I don't see this Envelope thingy file. Tiger, fully updated.
Then again, Mail isn't exactly slow either, so I'm not complaining =]
Then again, Mail isn't exactly slow either, so I'm not complaining =]
Great tip for me. Worked as indicated. My Envelope Index is now smaller and I don't get bizarre half-downloaded junk showing up in my searches.
When restarting Mail, I got a Welcome to Mail screen that asked to import my mail. When it was complete, everything was fixed. (I didn't even have to mark any mail as read, as robg described.)
Thanks again!
When restarting Mail, I got a Welcome to Mail screen that asked to import my mail. When it was complete, everything was fixed. (I didn't even have to mark any mail as read, as robg described.)
Thanks again!
How to download newest laptop version mac. https://supernalhorse475.weebly.com/blog/mac-download-document-access-grant. Oh, and I forgot to mention: before I did the hint's instructions, I tried Mailbox -> Rebuild. It did NOT remove those unwanted half-messages.
![App App](/uploads/1/3/4/1/134185813/347776514.jpg)
THis is a great tip. Touch of the grave avg dmg. Improved my osx mail performance tremendously. I had been migrating that same bloated envelope index for years. Mine went from 16 Megs to 4 Megs and Mail feels much better.
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Tried this. I too use mostly IMAP accounts. I notice no difference in speed. The old Envelope index was ~12.5 MB. The new one is 10.5 MB, no appreciable disk savings either.
I have a mix of IMAP and POP. My Envelope file was 45M. After importing 93,996 messages, it was reduced just a bit to 38M. But opening mailboxes seems significantly quicker. Searches are faster too. It was previously taking several minutes to search the subjects of a mailbox with less than 50 messages. This is now very much improved. I'd tried rebuilding the mailboxes without improvement.
May also help when having problems with smart mailboxes
Deleting the
Envelope Index
file may also help if your smart mailboxes are showing incorrect read/flagged counts etc., as mentioned in another hint. I had a look hmmm. my envelope Index file was 66Meg, OK I'll try it.
I have an IMAP account. I quit Mail, move the Envelope Index file to my Desktop, start Mail. Mail says I'll have to rebuild the index for 150000 emails this will take 1 hour and 33 minutes. Phew, luckily it didn't quite take that long.
Then when it finally opens Mail has forgotten which folders are Junk, Trash, Sent and Drafts. I tell it.
Some of my messages have the mailbox '***orphanned mailbox***. That's different.
Mail goes into a loop and has to be killed.
New Envelope Index is now 60MB not much of an improvement really.
I have an IMAP account. I quit Mail, move the Envelope Index file to my Desktop, start Mail. Mail says I'll have to rebuild the index for 150000 emails this will take 1 hour and 33 minutes. Phew, luckily it didn't quite take that long.
Then when it finally opens Mail has forgotten which folders are Junk, Trash, Sent and Drafts. I tell it.
Some of my messages have the mailbox '***orphanned mailbox***. That's different.
Mail goes into a loop and has to be killed.
New Envelope Index is now 60MB not much of an improvement really.
In Mail, select a mailbox, then Mailbox > Rebuild. For POP accounts, this deletes a whole bunch of mail files that hang out on your disk, even after deletion. I don't use IMAP, so I don't know what effect it has on such accounts.
What I want to know is why Mail keeps files after you've deleted messages? The first time I discovered this, there were thousands of files in my mailboxes. I deleted them manually, but later found that rebuilding does the same thing.
I don't see why you should have to rebuild a mailbox to delete deleted messages.
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What I want to know is why Mail keeps files after you've deleted messages? The first time I discovered this, there were thousands of files in my mailboxes. I deleted them manually, but later found that rebuilding does the same thing.
I don't see why you should have to rebuild a mailbox to delete deleted messages.
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Read my blog: Kirkville -- http://www.mcelhearn.com
Musings, Opinion and Miscellanea, on Macs, iPods and more
One thing to note though for the original Hint poster. He was connecting to Exchange which is a very important clue. The Public Folders section of Exchange servers can be massive and they automatically will Synch and downlaod to your Computer in Mail. Here on an Exchange server some one with a new mail box (Enveloppe Index is not an issue and doesn't fix anything, no more than a rebuild does since its a new account with no mail and a new config aon a new Mac) can experience massive slow downs simply because of Public Folder synch and storage on the computer. What the deletion of the Exchange server config did was to remove the reference to the folders in ~/Library/Mail. It doesn't remove the content. So when Mail checks the fodlers and content when loading it still keeps checking all those folders since their in its INdex and Mail folder. So. in his case it was a great improvement since deleting the index meant that it wasn't checking all of his old Exchange 'ghost' folders including public folders and they were not in the index anymore.
That swhy he got such speed improvements.
As for Exchange there is a trick to not have the public folders checked in Mail, but thats another story.
That swhy he got such speed improvements.
As for Exchange there is a trick to not have the public folders checked in Mail, but thats another story.
Oh . forgot to add what the rebuild does for IMAP accounts.
What it does is clean all the cached folders and emails and then allows you to download a fresh copy off the server. So any lingering deleted emails (again, only the reference to the email is removed, not the mail its self or the space it takes up) are cleaned up since the folders in which they resides are gone from mail's cache and memory. Thats why alot of times if you use your IMAP account alot after a while it gets to be quite slow. It simply has accumulated crap over time.
What it does is clean all the cached folders and emails and then allows you to download a fresh copy off the server. So any lingering deleted emails (again, only the reference to the email is removed, not the mail its self or the space it takes up) are cleaned up since the folders in which they resides are gone from mail's cache and memory. Thats why alot of times if you use your IMAP account alot after a while it gets to be quite slow. It simply has accumulated crap over time.
What is the 'Rest of the Story' to 'As for Exchange there is a trick to not have the public folders checked in Mail, but that's another story.'?
I need to disable the synchronization of public folders. Wolfram script mac app.
I need to disable the synchronization of public folders. Wolfram script mac app.
there are two ways to make mail.app skip the public folders on exchange.
1) if you have access to manage exchange, public folders can be turned off entirely for imap. of course, this is for all users, all public folders, so it may not be acceptable in some instances.
2) this one's slightly fuzzy as i'm not in front of my work machine at the moment, so forgive me if i'm slightly off. you can configure the imap path prefix (advanced tab under accounts) with your exchange account name. for us at work this is 'lastname, firstname' but that will vary by organization.
both of these have been tested successfully on exchange 2003.
1) if you have access to manage exchange, public folders can be turned off entirely for imap. of course, this is for all users, all public folders, so it may not be acceptable in some instances.
2) this one's slightly fuzzy as i'm not in front of my work machine at the moment, so forgive me if i'm slightly off. you can configure the imap path prefix (advanced tab under accounts) with your exchange account name. for us at work this is 'lastname, firstname' but that will vary by organization.
both of these have been tested successfully on exchange 2003.
I have three IMAP accounts and tons of mail local as space saver from the IMAP accounts.
My Envelope file was 250MB. After initial indes its 45MB, then Mail.App went through all the IMAP accounts and now it is 103MB.
Before I did this, my bigges mail accounts (IMAP) was 100% synced down, now I only do that with my small private one.
I am not sure if it feels faster though.
My Envelope file was 250MB. After initial indes its 45MB, then Mail.App went through all the IMAP accounts and now it is 103MB.
Before I did this, my bigges mail accounts (IMAP) was 100% synced down, now I only do that with my small private one.
I am not sure if it feels faster though.
I tried this, and it might have worked (I can't tell). One thing I noticed, though, was that it sent out a couple of 'lost' emails that were apparently hiding in my Outbox. so I got a couple of confused replies about emails I thought I'd sent last year.
I did the whole thing and made no difference what's so ever. I have IMAP accounts and now all the attachments wanted to cache on my local disk.
It says that it has 441 Attachments and after done all (progress bar AND numbers are saying that it cached all) it wil stop and 'hang' delaying all other processes.
Anyone a suggestion?
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PHP programmer (Ministry of Web Development)
It says that it has 441 Attachments and after done all (progress bar AND numbers are saying that it cached all) it wil stop and 'hang' delaying all other processes.
Anyone a suggestion?
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PHP programmer (Ministry of Web Development)
Works on Leopard. The envelope file went from 13MB to 10 MB, which is not much, but in terms of usability it went from excruciatingly slow to damn zippy. I have about 26000 emails, only POP accounts.
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Pedro
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Pedro
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http://www.pedrovera.com
http://insomniaccoder.com
Hi guys,
when I try to rebuild the index, mail crashes at the very same message at each time. I even tried to move the mailbox in which the corrupted? message is, and then import it, but no luck.
Any idea how I could identify the offending message?
thanks,
brunus
when I try to rebuild the index, mail crashes at the very same message at each time. I even tried to move the mailbox in which the corrupted? message is, and then import it, but no luck.
Any idea how I could identify the offending message?
thanks,
brunus
Messages App Mac Slow Windows 10
This didn't help me.
I tried the sqlite3 command; removing and rebuilding the envelope index file; no help at all.
Just the spinning beach ball of death for long periods of time.
Any other ideas?
Thanks in advance
The location of the Mail indexes have moved in 10.7. You still quit Mail, delete the index files, and then relaunch Mail to have it regenerate them. But the files to delete are in a new spot.I tried the sqlite3 command; removing and rebuilding the envelope index file; no help at all.
Just the spinning beach ball of death for long periods of time.
Any other ideas?
Thanks in advance
Apple Mac
The new location is:Messages App Mac Slow Mac
~/Library/Mail/V2/MailData/
And now instead of just one file called “Envelope Index”, there are at least three files. The new ones are named “Envelope Index” suffixed with a dash and three letters.
So to rebuild in 10.7 you do this:
Messages Apple App
- Quit Mail
rm ~/Library/Mail/V2/MailData/Envelope Index*
- Relaunch Mail
- Allow Mail to rebuild your email indexes