Ghost flagged items

Question

Ghost flagged items

Hi all

I have a curious problem where my flagged items folder shows 17 but there are, in reality, only two emails flagged. I imagine there are some which iTunes thinks are flagged but are not. In passing, I have seen some emails where the flag col has "!!" (but that can't be searched on AFAIK) and I imagine they are the culprits.

Any ideas to get rid of this?

Regards

B

G5 1.8Mhz DP, 1Gb RAM, 160Gb HD, Mac OS X (10.4.11), MacWireless 11G, Linksys WRT54G-UK, Harman Kardon sound sticks

Posted on Jul 30, 2008 4:42 PM

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Answer 1

Mulder

Level 6

8,990 points

Jul 30, 2008 7:14 PM in response to Bernard Knight

Well iTunes is not related to Mail or linked to it in any way, so it could not be flagging anything. If Mail shows 17 items as flagged, then they are flagged; it may be something you didn't flag, but you'd have to determine which ones should be and unflag them using the Message > Mark > As Unflagged menu option, or Shift-Commandt-L.

The !! is a priority indicator for the message that was sent to you. This is set by the sender, so you have no control over it.

Mulder

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Answer 2

Jul 31, 2008 7:31 AM in response to Mulder

Sorry Mulder, I meant Mail rather than iTunes - 'twas the lateness of the hour. Thanks for explaining the !!

However, my Flagged folder (which I have deleted and re-made a few times) only contains two flagged items but the number to the right of the folder icon in the sidebar says 17. If there really are 15 other flagged items then why do they not show up in the folder. Even when all mailboxes are selected and the emails sorted by the Flag col. they do not show alongside the other two.

Message was edited by: Bernard Knight

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Answer 3

Mulder

Level 6

8,990 points

Jul 31, 2008 7:50 AM in response to Bernard Knight

Then those other messages aren't flagged; Mail is reporting them as Unread, which is certainly possible. You would just select all those messages and mark them as Read to get rid of that problem.

However, if those items just don't show up in the mail window, then it seems your Mail index could be corrupted. To rebuild it:

1. Quit Mail
2. Go to Home/Library/Mail and remove the item named Envelope Index.
3. Restart Mail and allow it to import your mailboxes. When done, those Unread items should be gone, if that was truly the problem. If all is well, then you can delete the old Envelope Index file you previously removed.

Mulder

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Answer 4

Jul 31, 2008 11:23 AM in response to Mulder

Wow. Finally solved. Thanks Mulder, rebuilding the index did the trick.

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