Inbox set itself to "read only" Help!

BINGO! Your suggestion worked. For some reason this forum cut off half of your post--the most important half. The problem was a file permission problem with the mail folder stored in Library/Mail. For some unknown reason the permissions where reset. I am very comfortable with the Terminal window and entering shell commands as I have a UNIX/Linux background. The main cause of the problem was that the mail folder had an ACL set for the permission. I cleared it by opening a terminal window, cd Library/Mail and entering the command: chmod -a# 0 mailbox. I then set the file permissions to rwx for the owner with: chmod o+rwx mailbox. Thanks again, you were a HUGE help!

Hmmm…must be another change I'm unaware of from 10.4 to 10.5. So, if you don't know how it got there, maybe it's something in Preferences that you inadvertently activated. But before we start messing around with that, have you tried repairing permissions (using Disk Utility in /Applications/Utilities) and restarting Mail to see if that might fix the problem?

Mulder

I'm having the same issue! I tried repairing permissions... no clue what to do, but it's annoying.

Check out my resent post. It should solve your problem.

AFAIK, there is no such Read Only status for Mail; that is, you can't lock a message from being able to be read or deleted. What happens when you select a message and press the Delete key?

If you want to rebuild your Mail index, you can do this (but there's no indication this will change anything for you in Mail):

1. Quit Mail if it's running.
2. Go to ~/Library/Mail and delete the Envelope Index file(s).
3. Restart Mail, wait for it to import your existing messages, then check to see if the problem is resolved.

Mulder

I'm having the exact same problem. To my knowledge, I didn't change anything, but an inbox on my Apple Mail has turned itself into read only. It won't let me delete or flag or turn something from unread to read. I can delete the messages, etc when I go straight to gmail, etc., but up at the top of the screen it says "read only".

It won't let me rebuild, etc. Not sure what to do.

I'd like to add my "me too."
I have been getting "the destination mailbox ___ is read only" for months.
I'm not sure at which update I first noticed it, but I've been largely unable to manage my folders, including my trash, in Mail. I followed the advice above, including deleting the Envelope Index file, rebuilding permissions, and physically changing permissions in the Get Info box for my Mailboxes folder to "Read & Write" for all folder contents.
I've been a Mac user since my dad's Mac II, but this permissions thing is driving me nuts. Nuts, I say.
Someone please help us.

When my MacBook Pro went into hibernate mode and restarted, my Trash folder for my .me account was set to read-only. I can't figure out how to set it back to read-write. Any ideas?

IF and only if the affected accounts are IMAP accounts, might I suggest that you consider deleting them from within the Mail application at Mail Preferences Accounts, quit Mail, restart Mail, then recreate the affected accounts from scratch? You can delete IMAP accounts from Mail Preferences and the actual email messages remain on the IMAP server. If the affected accounts are POP, don't do that! Your downloaded mail will be wiped out forever if you do.

Glad to hear that worked out for you. For the benefit of the O.P. and others, I'll try to reconstruct. Check my work here, ok?

Navigate in the Finder to your Library/Mail folder. There should be one or more folders in there whose name(s) start(s) with IMAP- or POP-. Highlight them.

Now launch Terminal.app (in the Applications Utilities folder). Type ls -TAlkeRs Library/Mail then type a blank space (spacebar) after that.

Drag the highlighted folder(s) from the Library/Mail Finder window into the Terminal.app window. The folder name(s) expand out onto the command line. Press the return key.

We are interested in the various file and directory permissions. We are interested in the things that look like drwx------ and -rw-r--r-- and -rw-------. We also are interested in their extended attributes; things that look like group:everyone deny delete, for example. Basically, folders (directories) have a "d" a the first character in the permissions, files have a "-" as the first character. The remaining nines characters define three triplets that show Read, Write, and eXecute privileges for owner (characters 2-4), group (characters 5-7), and everyone (characters 8-10).

Basically, in most cases, all the mailbox directories should be drwx------ and all the files should be -rw-r--r--, except for the ".emlx" files. At least that's how things are on my computer. The important thing is that you want read and write on the owner, and you don't want any of the extended access control stuff.

magnify: Thanks for your reply. Unfortunately, I have zero UNIX background. I can't do much with your recent post above.
Following j.v.'s steps were the most I've ever done in Terminal, but I'm not quite sure what to do after I get a list of all my messages and directories.
Can anyone explain this fix in terms a 5-year-old can understand?

Since you have zero unix background, if there is a brick-and-mortar Apple Store within a reasonable commuting distance from you, you might just want to go there and have the Geniuses at the Genius Bar fix it. I don't think the Genius Bar charges anything for stuff like fixing file permissions, do they?

If you are seeing any subordinate directories in your Library/Mail with permissions that are NOT drwx------, or any files whose permissions are NOT -rw-r--r--, or any files with extension .emlx whose permissions are NOT -rw-------, then you would want to change the permissions and/or remove any unusual access control lists. ACLs are denoted with a "+" as the last character in the permissions.

To change a directory's permissions to become drwx------, you would type chmod 700 {directoryNameGoesHere}. To change a file's permissions to become -rw-r--r--, you would type chmod 644 {fileNameGoesHere}. To change a file's permissions to become -rw-------, you would type chmod 600 {fileNameGoesHere}. Use the trick about dragging multiple files or directories into the Terminal window to save yourself a lot of typing. You remember the "triplet" for owner/group/everyone with the read/write/execute permissions? Read=4, write=2, execute=1, so, for example, to get rw, its 4+2=6. Owner read+write, group/everyone read, is 644.

But if I were you, before I undertook that endeavor, you might want to post back with what you've got on a particular file or directory as an example and see if it can be compared to the permissions of someone else's equivalent file(s) or directory(ies). You sure don't want to dork it up any worse than what it may already be.

Removing or modifying ACLs, I haven't done that before, I'd have to read the documentation for the chmod command attentively to see how to do that. ( man chmod and use the up and down arrows to move and type q to quit).

But the big question at this point would be, before you were to do anything else, do your permissions look to you like they are, in fact, dorked up?

If so, I would recommend option (a) Genius Bar, as a first choice, if that's the issue, given that you don't, at this juncture, have a very good unix background yet. If learning the Mac's unix is something that you think you might want to pursue, check out http://www.osxfaq.com/Tutorials/LearningCenter/index.ws that will keep you busy for quite a while.

Hi there,

I've started to face same troubles with Sent messages box. It turned by itself to read-only status. I was followed your advise and found following:

'0 drwx------+ 3 macbookpro macbookpro 102 21 kvě 19:17:47 2009 Sent Messages.mbox'

Does the last '+' character something wrong? If so, how can I fix it?

Other messages and directories/boxes are not showing this '+' ...

'4 -rw-r--r-- 1 macbookpro macbookpro 1244 10 crv 16:01:15 2009 .mboxCache.plist
0 drwx------ 4 macbookpro macbookpro 136 25 kve 13:53:21 2009 Deleted Messages.mbox
0 drwx------ 3 macbookpro macbookpro 102 21 kve 21:59:38 2009 Drafts.mbox
0 drwx------ 4 macbookpro macbookpro 136 21 kve 19:09:01 2009 INBOX.mbox
0 drwx------ 5 macbookpro macbookpro 170 21 kve 22:52:39 2009 Junk.mbox
0 drwx------+ 3 macbookpro macbookpro 102 21 kve 19:17:47 2009 Sent Messages.mbox'

Thanx in advance for help.

Lech

I tried repairing the permissions, but that didn't work