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MacOS Mail delete function has a repeatable bug regarding deleting more than 1 message.

This affects Mail for Catalina and Big Sur. It affects both the delete keyboard key and the delete button with the mouse. It happens about once every 40 messages or so. It is not a stuck key, I have extensively tested the delete key in various apps and it never fails. It does not have anything to do with threaded conversations.


What happens is, say you have 10 messages in your inbox. You have a message highlighted and press the delete keyboard key or use the mouse to press the delete icon. Most of the time, a single message will be deleted, but every 40 messages or so, it will delete the message you're on and the next message down.


I am not pressing the key too long. It never happens in any other app, just MacOS Mail. It happens even with the mouse click on the delete icon. I think it is a timing/scan issue or something - a software bug. Not hardware.


Thanks for looking into this.

MacBook

Posted on Jan 12, 2021 2:02 PM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Jan 12, 2021 3:01 PM

Boot into Safe Mode by booting with the Shift key held down and reboot normally. Then test to see if the problem is gone or not.


NOTE: Safe Mode boot can take up to 10 minutes as it's doing the following; 

• Verifies your startup disk and attempts to repair directory issues, if needed

• Loads only required kernel extensions (prevents 3rd party kernel/extensions from loading)

• Prevents Startup Items and Login Items from opening automatically

• Disables user-installed fonts 

• Deletes font caches, kernel cache, and other system cache files


3 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Jan 12, 2021 3:01 PM in response to lorcan458

Boot into Safe Mode by booting with the Shift key held down and reboot normally. Then test to see if the problem is gone or not.


NOTE: Safe Mode boot can take up to 10 minutes as it's doing the following; 

• Verifies your startup disk and attempts to repair directory issues, if needed

• Loads only required kernel extensions (prevents 3rd party kernel/extensions from loading)

• Prevents Startup Items and Login Items from opening automatically

• Disables user-installed fonts 

• Deletes font caches, kernel cache, and other system cache files


Jan 12, 2021 8:24 PM in response to lorcan458

No one in our family can reproduce your anomaly and none have encountered it. Using three laptops (two MacBook Pros, One Macbook Air, two iMacs. The iMacs and one laptop are used with a mouse and keyboard, two laptops are used with trackpad and built in keyboard. All have Apple Mail running. Never seen your issue. In Particular, my wife must get 300+ emails per day (don't ask why) and she spends a lot of time deleting emails one at a time or many at a time. She would have noticed this sort of thing.


Alternatively, your keyboard might be "sticky" with that delete key, although the fact that it also happens with the mouse-click-delete seems to contradict that possibility.


Both the mouse and keyboard have preferences that can modify how responsive they are and how quickly they "repeat." Perhaps you can experiment with those settings. You said it only happens in Mail but keep in mind that for some users, that is the app that makes the most use of the delete button.

MacOS Mail delete function has a repeatable bug regarding deleting more than 1 message.

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