Closing Mail App

Hello Gary.

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.

Launch Mail and try using the Rebuild Mailbox function on the Inbox and Sent mailbox for all accounts.

On this Mac, did you upgrade to Tiger from Jaguar or Panther?

If so, there are some "legacy" package content files left over from the mailbox conversion process to Tiger Mail which are no longer required by Tiger Mail but are not deleted after the conversion process. Although these left over package content files should not cause any problems, sometimes they do and need to be deleted which are only taking up unnessisary hard drive space anyway.

Hi Gary, sounds like a bad pref. ~/library/preferences/com.apple.mail.plist.

Problem is this also has all your account settings. Do you have a backup or can you easily re-enter your account info? You should trash the .plist.

When you relaunch Mail if it asks you to "import" anything decline.

EDIT: Snapped by Allan. Follow Allan's advice first, he's the Mail expert.

Allan - Many thanks - I had the same problem with multiple accounts after upgrading to Tiger from Panther. Everything works!

You can re-install the Mail.app but doing so rarely resolves such a problem since no Mail.app data is stored in the application itself. If there is a corrupt mailbox or mailboxes or a problem with the Mail.app preference file, deleting and re-installing the Mail.app does not delete and re-install a new application preference file and the existing mailboxes in the Mail folder at Home > Library > Mail are still available.

Quit Mail first and using the Finder, go to Home > Library > Mail. Move the Mail folder to the Desktop.

Launch Mail and a new Mail folder along with new account named folders will be created within. All mailboxes will be empty but this will determine if there is a problem in the old Mail folder moved to the Desktop.