Mail on mac stuck 'moving messages'

Repair & Reindex All Messages in Mac OS X Mail App

The user gets a message after following above steps that the mailbox must be repaired but you have to do it manually. So, the steps are:

• Get out of the mail app & go to the Finder
• Hit the command+shift+g & go to the path: ~/Library/Mail/V2/MailData/ 
• Delete all the files that begin with Envelope Index (Also take a backup of these files before deleting)
• Close the MailData Window & then Relaunch the Mail App to force re-indexing.

Hey,

Also had the same issue. Spoke with Apple Support and did these steps:

1. Close mail app
2. go to ~Library/Mail/V7(or other version)/Mail Data
3. Delete 3 files where the name started with "Envelope Index" (you might have more or less than 3)
4. Restart mail app

After this, you will get the "welcome to Mail" screen like if it was the first time you opened the app. Then all emails got imported (I had around 40k) and then the app opens and it downloaded all emails from servers (I had around 5k).

Now when I move an email, the "moving message" doesn't get stuck.

These steps worked for me. Hopefully this helps as well the other people having the same issue. Just don't get me accountable in case something bad happens :) I'm just sharing my experience.

I had this very same problem. I was ultimately successful by deleting the "Envelope index" files described here on Computerworld.

After deleting these files, upon the next time you start Mail, you will see a dialog that says the mailboxes need to be rebuilt. After that finishes, all was back to normal for me. Note that I did lose the "stuck" emails that were being moved at the time. In my case, I was moving emails from a non-iCloud account into an iCloud email folder.

One last thing...the article for that link is from 2014, and specifies version "V2" in the path to get to the Envelope Index. This should be "V7" for the latest version of Mail as I write this. Hope it helps.

I have been fighting the same issue. It appears to me (and others here), that the problem arises as soon as Mail does not succeed in moving some eMails to other mailboxes (in my instance folders *away* from the Exchange account). The eMails seem to be stuck in limbo and the moved eMails thus do not show up in the destination folders, and neither do the changes show up on iOS, simply because the process doesn't complete. This process on iOS completes without issue.

What has worked for me is to remove the blockage. I have managed to do this without having to delete and reinstall the account or the OS – Mail now works as expected, moving eMails now 'completes' and the changes also get pushed from the Exchange account to iOS.

All I did was firstly rebuild the Exchange mailboxes in Mail – for me that is only Sent/Drafts/Junk/Trash – which recovered the eMails in limbo (and maybe some others too, but I suspect this is not important). I then closed Mail and moved the recovered eMails to their intended destinations *via iOS* (my eMail accounts are mirrored/IMAP'ed to iPad & iPhone). I then re-sync'ed ('pull down' in iOS), I also made/completed any deletions via iOS (empty the Trash). I then opened Mail, carried out a Trash delete *and* erase sequence there too (just to be sure, but this may be irrelevant) and checked the activity window, which now showed fewer 'limbo' eMails. I 'rinsed & repeated' this again on the Exchange account several times until the activity window finally cleared – don't ask me why, but it required these several cycles before the number of limbo eMails finally went to zero (YMmightV).

Maybe that helps some of the others here with the same issue.

I had this problem, and here is the solution that worked for me.

1. Open Mail App -> Mailbox Menu -> Rebuild (if this does not resolve this issue, then move on to step two)
2. Close Mail App. Go to Finder -> /Users/<username>/Library/Mail/V8/MailData/
3. Find file "Envelope Index" and move it to the trash.
4. If you also find "Envelope Index-shm" and "Envelope Index-wal", move these files to the trash also.
5. Restart Mail app. This will rebuild the mail index, resolving the issue above.

Note: This could cause a loss of messages in the "On My Mac" folder. I recommend mailing them to an online account first.

Ok, this started for me as well. Right after the latest Catalina update (10.15.3) I did yesterday (2/3/2020). Happening only on my Exchange account. My POP and IMAP/SMTP accounts are working as normal. No one else in my office besides me uses Mac Mail, but they all have an Exchange account from the same server that I do and none of them are having this issue on Outlook or the webmail client. It's obviously a Mac Mail/Catalina issue. Apple needs to stop with the "It can't be our product" BS.

I had 15 messages stuck moving, and now I have 3. Here's what I did to lower the number.

Took all mail accounts offline whether they are exchange accounts or not. Mailbox > Take All Accounts Offline

Then one by one I brought them all back online making sure the Exchange account was the last to bring up. Mailbox > Online Status > Take "account name" online

When the Exchange account came back online, there were only 3 messages that were stuck moving.

I'm still working to get the last 3 to move, or at least find out what messages they are to delete them. If I do, I will report here on what I did.

I'm not deleting my "Envelope" files from the Library like that one Google result says to do. Nice troll whomever wrote that up...

So, I had the same problem on not just my MacPro, but my MacBook Pro. Its was absolutely horrible.... Listen, most of the problems that we are having now a days is due to the fact that there is so much information going back and forth, that at times, you just have to refresh.

Most email nowadays, is on other servers, and very rarely on one's computers; lots of imap, exchange, cloud, etc. I searched and searched and what worked for me was to remove the email envelopes from the system (backing them up elsewhere), restarting the Apple Mail app, and let the system re-import/re-index the envelops. Until now, it working......

This is what I found and did, successfully - Shift, Command & "G" to path ~/Library/Mail/V2/MailData/ then go into the V7 folder, MailData, and backup all lines that have the word "envelope" in them, then highlight, move to trash and empty trash. I then restarted the application, it reimported and downloaded, while it re-indexed. Its working.....

Good Luck....

Hello To all, I have been experiencing the same problem, I was able to fix it about 2 weeks ago and now today it happened again, I started looking for other apps to use like OUTLOOK or SPARK but in the end the best scenario it to always use the native MAIL app as hopefully on the future it will keep improving and these bugs will be eliminated. So These are my recommendations, PLEASE READ CAREFULLY, this may NOT apply to all of you, but maybe to most:

1- Be aware when the Syncing stops: what this means is and what happenes to me is that in your Mac Mail app, it will behave normally, but when you open your mail one your phone you realize that email that you moved folder or deleted or answered on your MAC is not SHOWING, this is ALERT, since from this moment anything you do will not be going to the exchange folder and will be lost! So first thing is be aware as soon as it happens. Not necessarily have to see move mail message stuck.

2- Confirm its your MAIL app that has a problem: in safari log in your outlook365 account and look at your last emails, with your MAIL app open, from the MAIL on your Mac delete or move a message to another folder, see if it reflects on the online exchange account, if it doesn't, refresh the page just to make sure, and if it still doesn't, do the opposite, move a message on your online account on Safari and see if it reflects on MAIL. In my case, anything I do on the online outlook safari webpage will update on the MAIL app on the MAC and also Iphone of course. Also try to see if you eliminate or move a messagings on your iPhone will update the online account and probably your Mac as well. So this exercise what is does is narrow down the problem, you know that its the MAIL app ant not something else!

3-For your sake, and until you fix it, use the online go daddy or outlook exchange app to answer your emails, or iPhone: Doing this will prevent you to make things worse as the more you will use MAIL app to answer and reply, the more you will get data loss due to the next steps you will take. I lost so many sent emails that I know I sent but were not showing neither on the MAIL app or on the online account, they FUKIN VANISH!!! Watch out!

4-Remove exchange account from your Mac: Make sure your MAIL app is closed, Go to System Preferences, internet accounts, select the EXCHANGE account and click the "-" minus sign below on the box. Give it a minute, open your MAIL App and make sure your folders are not showing anymore. Restart your computer, just to make sure we start from clean.

5-Add your exchange again: Make sure your MAIL app is closed, Go to System Preferences, internet accounts, and click on the + sign and add your account by logging in, that's the best method.

5.1- DO NOT PUT RULES ON YOUR ONLINE FOLDER ON MAIL APP: THis is very important, the guys from SUPPORT did tell me that the first time, any rules you have for your messages to go from one folder to another or any RULE, you MUST set it up online on your outlook account configuration DIRECTLY, this will avoid major problems as then the MAIL app only needs to reflect what you have online and will not need to move messages when they come in and then send the info back to Outlook online, know what I mean?

6-Allow at least 10 minutes for it to sync most recent emails

7- TRY NOW: open on safari your outlook 365 online account and now from your MAIL all try moving or deleting an email and see if it reflects it online, if you have a LOT of data it might take a minute, but wont take more than that. If it works, GREAT, its solved, but be patient for all your old emails to download, that will depend how much data MAIL has to download, it might take hours or even a full day, however if what you do on your MAIL app reflects on the ONLINE outlook then your are GOOD!

Whats causing this error: I am not sure, but I THINK, I noticed this time it started when I moved on my MAIL app an email to another folder than I did UNDO too quickly, and it seems that that Caused the whole thing to go nuts again. So when you move emails from one folder to another don't do it too quickly or the syncing might suffer from it.

Guys I hope this helps, I have been very frustrated with all of this, its my first post ever but I did want to help others as I know how bad it is to have your mail not working properly!! 

Good Luck! Emanuele

I had a similar issue, with my Mail stuck on "Moving Messages" in Catalina. One of my IMAP accounts was stuck on this and apparently trying to move the same 4 messages.

If nothing else has worked for you, you can try reindexing the entire mail database. I did it with the following method:

Get out of the mail app & go to the Finder

Hit the command+shift+g & go to the path: ~/Library/Mail/V2/MailData/

Delete all the files that begin with Envelope Index (MAKE A BACKUP of these files before deleting)

Close the MailData Window & then Relaunch the Mail App to force re-indexing.

It took a while to re-download all the messages in my IMAP accounts (I had a lot). but after that the issue was cleared. HTH!

JVK

The same issue started for me yesterday. After some searching around, I found a tip to start the mail.app while holding down the shift key. This took a while, and eventually a number of dialogues appeared that certain mails could not be moved. I clicked 'ok' on each and after a long time (I let it run overnight, not sure exactly how long it took) the mail.app's window appeared as always when starting it.

Except, the issue was fixed and syncing worked again.

My mail backend is a MS Exchange environment for what it's worth.

As mentioned in a previous post in this thread, I had this exact same problem and tried everything. Finally I removed the Exchange account and reentered it as IMAP, and have not had a single problem since then. The mail is on an Exchange server run by GoDaddy (that is, I don't know this would work for Google mail). So I now have clean and (so far) problem-free access to all mail on desktop, laptop, and via webmail.

After upgrading to Catalina, I not only had the "moving messages" issue, but Mail was also constantly using up >100% of CPU capacity and heating up the laptop and triggering the fan.

After trying many, many different suggested solutions to both problems, the one that solved both of them was deleting the Envelope Index files and letting Mail reset everything. As DanRubCR notes, the one change to the instructions was to look for V7 rather than V2 in the Library folder.

The only complication was that about 200 messages I'd previously moved out of my Inbox appeared again and had to be refiled, but that was a minor annoyance compared to having the problems fixed!

Maybe this can help - I too have had this problem. Seems to be resolved with rules.

Have you checked any obsolete or duplicated rules, forward to obsolete or non-existant mailboxes, or others.

I got rid of a few useless or out of date rules that I had, and then I just turned all my rules off. Quit mail. Opened mail. And no more stuck moving messages. Re-activated all rules. Quit and reopened and all still fine.

I'll keep an eye over the next few days but only report back if the problem returns.

Hi, I know this is an old post, but I found a solution for rebuilding Apple's Mail database. Hopefully this will help others: https://c-command.com/spamsieve/help/how-can-i-rebuild-apple.

Try rebuilding the mail database. It fixed the issue for me. This link should help explain how. https://c-command.com/spamsieve/help/how-can-i-rebuild-apple