Mail on mac stuck 'moving messages'

We all need to log this issue with Apple Support, I have done it - fairly easy to do on their online chat support. We will get their attention for a fix only if more people complain... otherwise get ready to use the horrible Outlook email client for Mac that does not support your contacts in iCloud/Mac Address Book either.

Sadly, that is not it, as I have version 3608.80.23.2.2 of Mail.app, updated as part of Catalina 10.15.4; I'm in the same boat as many of y'all, namely that my Exchange account using Office 365 through work started stalling in mail.app, and messages turned up blank. I was able to get it restarted using the "remove all accounts, re-connect" steps, but it appears to come back every 30 days (likely the auth window expiring), and I really DON'T want to run through the same steps to reset every month.

This is NOT an exchange server administration issue; NOTHING CHANGED save I "upgraded" to Catalina. As this is also the new MacBook Pro I got through work I don't even have an option for downgrading to a working version.

Mail.app is broken via a vis Exchange accounts, Apple... do NOT call this pilot error (Mac Genius, Burlingame, 2003-2005), and stop blaming MS when IT WORKED IN MOJAVE.

Agree here -- I noticed this week that the problem has come back....after about 30 days.

Quesiton Yohannon -- can you *please* put a trouble ticket in with Apple and reference the original ticket 101014877688. In addition to confirm here is another thread as well with the same issues: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/251018274?answerId=252061410022

If you would please contact Apple Support and make it clear you are having the same issue. I agree completely with what you are saying which is that Apple just blames MS but the MS product works fine and there is clearly an Apple configuration issue.

Thank you.

Doubt this will be helpful to most but I just recently had the need to completely wipe my hard drive (due to nearly constant spinning beach ball) and reinstall everything from a Time Machine backup. It took hours but it fixed the problem, at least for the time being which has been about a week for me.

PS. Other suggestions for those who have a LOT of email:

This of Course is personal. The more email you leave online on the server the more problems you will have syncing so here are a few tips that I personally do:

1- I have a list of Folders that are online on my exchange, these include my active projects and any other important email I need to have access to

2-I have a LARGER list of folders on my MAC Mail app, which are stored directly on my Mac, from many years back, this will "lighten" your online account and you will always have access to these emails even when offline.

3-MAKE sure you are using time machine, since these emails on your MAC will be lost if your Mac breaks or your hard drive breaks, so remember, they wont be online anymore, it will help you with your exchange account size and syncing but definitely watch out, so either have TIME MACHING on an external hard drive or have it all backing up on iCloud.

Good Luck guys, Emanuele!

Same issue. Narrowed it down to my work Exchange account. Only occurs on my MacBook Pro and not my iMac or iPhone. When I delete or move an email received via Exchange on MBP it does not sync across the other 2 devices and I get a perpetual 'moving messages'. If I delete from the iMac or iPhone it does delete correctly on the MBP. Weird. Always some kind of issue with the Apple mail client!

Call Apple Support

Open Up A Trouble Ticket with them on your issue

When you get the person on the phone tell them lots of people are reporting this issue and give them this number as an originating case Apple Case Number:

Case ID: 101014877688

I have the same problem, with the difference that it didn't occur when I first upgraded my 27" Core i7 iMac to Catalina. Instead everything was fine until I updated from Catalina 10.15.4 to 10.15.5 earlier this week. Since then Apple Mail always reports that it is "moving messages". The sum of mails being moved ranges from 2 to 207 (and back again) but the message never goes away entirely. I've restarted my mac several times since the update, and on a few occasions I've left the Mail application active for many hours in a row.

I've also tried resetting NVRAM, started the mac in Safe Mode, checked the internal (Fusion) drive using First Aid in Disk Utility via macOS Recovery start up, etc. The day before yesterday I ran an Apple Diagnostics test on the hardware, pressing the D key during startup.

All tests say that all the hardware and software is okay, but the Mail application is still acting up trying indefinitely to "move messages". My iPhone is connected to the same iCloud- and Exchange accounts as my iMac and there everything is fine and dandy, including the Mail app.

I have the same here with Catalina Mail. "Moving Messages" eternally... To solve it I had to remove and add my Exchange account. But now it's happening again after few days. Pretty annoying! I really don't want to move to Microsoft Outlook, but...

What version of Mail.app are you running? For example, the version I had that was exhibiting this issue every 30 days or so (I kept thinking it was something weird with password expiry initially) was 13.4 (3608.80.23.2.2) as detailed in "About Mail".

I've been meaning to update to the latest this week anyway, I'll give that a try. Of course, then it's a waiting game to see if the problem comes back in 30-60 days, but at least it's something.

Had the same issue. Followed recommendation from this article

https://jimmitchellmedia.com/rebuilding-the-mail-envelope-index/

If you have issues with Permissions, follow this article

https://osxdaily.com/2018/10/09/fix-operation-not-permitted-terminal-error-macos/

This worked even on macOS Sierra. Dis the draft box change and just clicked the others even when selecting the same option. The moving/downloading messages sped up amd now it’s finished! Try this as I’ve exhausted all suggestions and wasted so much time with the issues coming back.

Same exact problem here. The only solution appears to be that I delete the exchange mail account, then reinstall it and reboot the mail app. With this trick things used to work fine for a couple of months at least, and then eventually they'd get stuck and I'd repeat the process. Now it works for only a couple of days... Getting quite tired and frustrated about it. I keep rebuilding the entire mailbox, which takes forever. Apple, can you fix this please?

One astute poster detailed the handshaking between the iCloud mail server and the macOS and exactly what handshaking gets stuck. Both macOS Mail App and iCloud mail server are waiting for the other to send a tag -- effectively stopping the self-synchronization between the iCloud mail server and the macOS app. This stand-off does not exist in the iOS version of Mail. Still exists at least on Catalina if not Big Sur. Any way to get this to the Apple Mail macOS development and maintenance teams?

I wish there was a better way to bubble up really serious user experience issues to Community Specialists and Apple Mail team. From what I can tell, several thousand users have the same problem with Apple Mail running macOS on their desktop. The common user experience is:

a) macOS on desktop, Apple Mail application

b) hangs forever with "Moving Messages 1 of xxx" in bottom left corner of Inbox screen (I have 580 for xxx and growing.)

c) inbox INCLUDES iCloud mail account (IMAP)

d) new messages delayed for hours or until Apple Mail re-launched

e) attachments not downloading for new messages (either blank email with "loading..." displayed or the email shown with the icon for the attachments shown with blue "Downloading..." under each attachment icon) -- relaunching Apple Mail does not help

f) at the same time, there is NO problem with the mail on iOS devices -- people running to their iPads and iPhones to salvage their mail and workday

Right - it's ridiculous. There is no way to solve the problem without Apple support and Apple just ignores it, acting like there is no way it could be a problem on their end.