yairz

Q: Mail constantly downloading messages

Hi all,

 

I've recently performed a clean install of OS X El Capitan on my mid 2102 Macbook Pro (Non Retina) and restored on to it my user folder and settings from before the installation (I was running the latest update of OS X Yosemite).

Since then, I have experienced an issue where Mail constantly lists in its activity that it's downloading messages.

The amount of message varies from time to time and would range between 1,000 to 100,000 messages.

This issue occurs several times every hour.

Obviously, I don't get more than a 1,000 messages every few minutes and the size of the files on my disk stays the same, so these are definitely the same messages Mail had already downloaded when I initially performed the account setup.

 

The reason this bothers me is that it slows down the performance of my Mac, especially when working in Mail (which is one of my top 3 apps in OS X).

In addition, it severely drains the battery.

 

I've seen several posts with no solution that helped me fixed the issue.

I tried to disable and enable the account and I've also tried to recreate the account.

I tried to follow the steps provided at http://www.needhelp4mac.com/2015/10/troubleshooting-apple-mail-in-os-x-10-11-el- capitan/ which I saw posted in a similar thread - Mail constantly downloading messages | How to reset Mail?

However, all of these steps did not solve my issue.

My account type is an Exchange account and I'm running the latest 10.11.1 update.

 

If anyone has any other idea of something I could try, please let me know.

Any help would be much appreciated.

 

Thanks,

Yair.

MacBook Pro, OS X El Capitan (10.11.1)

Posted on Nov 17, 2015 2:50 AM

Close

Q: Mail constantly downloading messages

  • All replies
  • Helpful answers

Page 1 of 6 last Next
  • by yairz,

    yairz yairz Jan 9, 2016 12:44 PM in response to yairz
    Level 1 (7 points)
    Jan 9, 2016 12:44 PM in response to yairz

    Just an update - this issue is still unresolved after updating to 10.11.2.

    Does anyone else experience this issue?

     

    Yair

  • by ea711,Helpful

    ea711 ea711 Jan 13, 2016 7:58 PM in response to yairz
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Jan 13, 2016 7:58 PM in response to yairz

    Yairz,

    I have the same problem, exactly as you describe.  Sorry I don't have a solution, but you are not alone.  My Mail application frequently indicates it is "Downloading Messages" on the bottom left.  Currently it is at 7,476 of 12,454 and rising.  The numbers change continuously.  Often times it stops and starts over again.  It has to be some kind of sync issue but I can't figure out what.  I also do not know what email account or folder it is downloading to.

  • by yairz,

    yairz yairz Jan 15, 2016 2:27 AM in response to ea711
    Level 1 (7 points)
    Jan 15, 2016 2:27 AM in response to ea711

    Hi,

     

    Good to hear that I'm not the only one affected by this issue.

    Thanks for replying.

    Is your Mail account an Exchange account as well or are you using another email service?

     

    Thanks.

    Yair

  • by mrtsc,

    mrtsc mrtsc Jan 15, 2016 12:56 PM in response to yairz
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jan 15, 2016 12:56 PM in response to yairz

    I am having the same/similar issue.  I am able to temporarily correct if I unclick Mail within my iCloud account (preferences), close mail, then reopen mail, and finally reenable iCloud mail.  Then the @mac.com account resyncs briefly before showing and holding on downloading.  Quite frustrating.  The best I can do for the moment is either use this account on my iPhone or via the iCloud browser and hope that eventually when a patch comes out the mail will sync properly. 

  • by figante,

    figante figante Jan 16, 2016 3:01 AM in response to yairz
    Level 1 (14 points)
    Jan 16, 2016 3:01 AM in response to yairz

    Hi:

     

    Check this thread.

     

    https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7275988?start=0&tstart=0

     

    Some people have found that disabling Avast helps. In my case that did not work. But I managed to keep Mail's CPU under control by reducing the number of folders in my IMAP account. In my case Mail still uses ~200% CPU, but since I have less folders it does it only for ~10-20s when it checks for new emails (before it was ~4-5 minutes), and hence it is not killing the whole Mac. I think that there is still a problem in Mail in El Capitan which I hope gets resolved in the next update. I don't know whether this is your problem, but perhaps this thread helps. Cheers, Mariano.

  • by John Strung,

    John Strung John Strung Jan 16, 2016 10:01 AM in response to figante
    Level 6 (13,440 points)
    Jan 16, 2016 10:01 AM in response to figante

    I am having the problem with mail re-downloading. This only happens with one of about 10 mail accounts I have. It is a GoDaddy imap account. I have several other GoDaddy accounts where this does not happen.

     

    I do not have Avast or any other A/V software installed.

     

    What I have done:

     

    I have deleted and recreated the account three times.

     

    I have backed up my drive, the erased it, did a fresh install of El Capitan and used migration assistant to copy back my data, apps and settings.

     

    I have deleted the V2 Folder.

     

    I notice that the problem seems to coincide with the following message in my console log:

     

    Mail[2927]: [IMAP] Server sent warning response for command CAPABILITY: * NO Error in IMAP command received by server.

  • by figante,

    figante figante Jan 16, 2016 10:32 AM in response to John Strung
    Level 1 (14 points)
    Jan 16, 2016 10:32 AM in response to John Strung

    John: I'm curious whether that problematic account has many folders and/or many emails. Thanks. Mariano

  • by John Strung,

    John Strung John Strung Jan 16, 2016 11:53 AM in response to figante
    Level 6 (13,440 points)
    Jan 16, 2016 11:53 AM in response to figante

    It just has the default IMAP folders. The Inbox has 17,000 messages and Sent has 7,000. Total of about 3.5 Gigs.

  • by ea711,

    ea711 ea711 Jan 16, 2016 12:28 PM in response to John Strung
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Jan 16, 2016 12:28 PM in response to John Strung

    I have 5 email accounts.  Two of them are very large with a large number of folders and several GB of emails.  One account uses a MS Exchange server at my office.  The other is an IMAP account through GoDaddy.  Although I can't tell which account is being re-downloaded over an over, I believe that having a large number of folders and emails is part of the problem.  It is interesting that both John Strung and I are using GoDaddy.  Perhaps that is part of the problem.  However, my iPhone is set up with the same accounts but it does not have re-downloading the issue like my Mac does.

     

    One thing I did that helped was to clean up my email folders in both the IMAP and the Exchange accounts.  I emptied the Trash, deleted everything in the Drafts folder and Junk folders, deleted old folders, and so on.  My thought was to reduce the amount of folders/messages that need to be sync'ed.  The re-downloading issue happens quite a bit less now (once every 2 or 3 days).

  • by figante,

    figante figante Jan 17, 2016 1:59 AM in response to John Strung
    Level 1 (14 points)
    Jan 17, 2016 1:59 AM in response to John Strung

    John: What about the other IMAP accounts for which you do not have this problem? Do they also have many messages? Mariano

  • by figante,

    figante figante Jan 17, 2016 2:05 AM in response to ea711
    Level 1 (14 points)
    Jan 17, 2016 2:05 AM in response to ea711

    > Although I can't tell which account is being re-downloaded over an over, I believe that having a large number of folders and emails is part of the problem.

     

    You could check which one it is by disabling each of them in turn and seeing whether the one you leave enabled makes Mail's CPU to shoot up or causes the continuous message downloads. (It could be that both accounts cause problems.)

     

    > However, my iPhone is set up with the same accounts but it does not have re-downloading the issue like my Mac does.

     

    I also have my iPhone using the IMAP account that causes the problem in the Mac, but no problem there. (I had no problem with Yosemite, and 3 other mail clients in the Mac with El Capitan have no problems either. Problem showed only with Mail in El Capitan.) It could well be that the problem is only in El Capitan, and not in IOS.

     

    Mariano

  • by John Strung,

    John Strung John Strung Jan 17, 2016 5:14 AM in response to figante
    Level 6 (13,440 points)
    Jan 17, 2016 5:14 AM in response to figante

    I also have no problem with the same account on my iPad or iPhone.

     

    @Figante - the next largest account has about 10,000 messages and is about 2 Gigs in size.

  • by figante,

    figante figante Jan 19, 2016 11:07 AM in response to John Strung
    Level 1 (14 points)
    Jan 19, 2016 11:07 AM in response to John Strung

    El Capitan 10.11.3 was just released. Anyone tried it already? Anyone knows whether there is a solution to this problem?

  • by tyeman83,

    tyeman83 tyeman83 Jan 19, 2016 1:08 PM in response to figante
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jan 19, 2016 1:08 PM in response to figante

    I just did the update.  I can confirm it did not fix the problem.   Like many people above, I have not had any luck with any of the many fixes people have recommended.   It is very frustrating as my computer is constantly redownloading every single day, I am downloading upwards of 30gb per day of emails I already have.  It is very very frustrating as this is my primary computer for work emails.  Often during the day I will flag some emails, and a few minutes later there is nothing newer than 2 years prior, after a few minutes and several thousand more emails downloaded, my current emails are back.  This cycle goes all day long.  It's so bad that I have resorted to using web based email from godaddy for much of the day.     I have 2 work email addresses Imap to my work domain hosted on Godaddy, and 1 regular gmail address.  I'm not sure but it appears they all have the same issue.   

     

    Anyone who uses their Mac for work must be losing their minds just as I am currently.  I've been working like this for over a month with zero help from apple, and any fixes people have posted don't seem to work for me.   I'm at my wits end with this issue.

Page 1 of 6 last Next