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Mail and never ending spinning pinwheel of death! Help!

I'm running 10.5.6 on my 24'' aluminum/glass iMac, and when I open mail, I instantly get a spinning pinwheel of death that doesn't go away. I then have to force quit Mail, and if I open it again, the same thing happens.

This definitely *****, how would I go about re-installing mail? Is that the solution?

imac 2.8GHz Dual Core, Mac OS X (10.5.6)

Posted on Apr 20, 2009 5:20 PM

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1 reply

Apr 20, 2009 5:34 PM in response to propynyl123

You don't need to reinstall mail, however, I do thing you need to reset it.

This is how you do it:

Quit mail (force quit it if necessary)

Delete the following files:
~\library\Preferences\com.apple.mail.plist
~\library\Preferences\com.apple.mail.RSS.plist

Move the folder Mail from ~\Library to your Desktop

Launch mail. It will ask you to configure a new account, if it doesn't click on the Mail menu\Preferences\Accounts\(+) to add a new account and follow the on screen instructions to add an account. if you don't know how to add an account follow this tutorial:
http://grumpynet.ath.cx/tutorials/configuremailforleopard/configuremail.php

If you need help finding the settings for your ISP check out this link or call your ISP:
http://grumpynet.ath.cx/Articles/Mailservers/mailservers1.php

After doing this you should have your mail working normally again.

NOTE: if you have folders created in your computer you can recover them by copying the Mail folder you moved to the desktop earlier into ~\Library and replace what's there. The folder ~\Library\Mail contains all your email messages and attachments, you can browse it and take a look at its structure if you want, is actually pretty cool and can help you understand how you can recover messages in the future or from another computer

NOTE 2: the term ~\ means your Home Folder (the folder with the icon of a house and your user name under Places in Finder)

I hope this help you fix your problem. Please post back to let us know if this fixed your problem or if you need more help

Mail and never ending spinning pinwheel of death! Help!

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