Apple Mail - Flagged message count is wrong and it multiplies with each mailbox rebuild!

On my Mac Studio Macmail, flagged message count is off and I wanted to fix it by following the methods described in the community in ascending order of involvement:

  1. Synchronize accounts
  2. Disabling and re-enabling accounts from Mail > Settings > Accounts
  3. Rebuild mailbox
  4. Exit Mail, Go to Users/mymacname/Library / Mail / V# / MailData and delete all files named "Envelope Index"


1-3 did not do the trick. Many say option 4 works but in my case, each time I perform this, flag count multiplies. The flag count was off to begin with, but having performed this step twice, now the total flag count is 3x the original wrong flag count.


Should I take more drastic action and delete the entire contents of library mail folder? Either that or are there more files in MailData that I should delete together with "Envelope Index" files?


Any help greatly appreciated.


All my mail accounts are IMAP and while I have two inactive accounts, they are also IMAP (GMail and prev. work). Nothing is stored on my Mac.


Mac Studio

Sonoma 14.3.1




Posted on Feb 24, 2024 6:23 AM

Reply
5 replies

Feb 25, 2024 1:37 AM in response to Late_Bloomer

Pleased it seems to have work


Experienced the same Flag Mismatch count some time ago, t was a process of elimination in my setup.


3 computers and an iPhone


Turned out the iPhone kept the Mismatch Flag count even after doing the V10 thing.


Thusly, the shutdown on iPhone and presto, the computer counts returned to working order


From what I have read from another Contributor, the Flag function in Mail is iffy and can get corrupted quick easily

Feb 24, 2024 4:27 PM in response to Owl-53

Thank you, that seemed to have done the trick.


I did the same on my MBP as well to clean it up as it also had some mismatch. On the Mac Studio MacMail, there is a persistent phantom flag but at this stage, I'm happy enough that the count is close enough and I've a feeling that the it will be off again for other flags in a few month's or week's time. You win some, you lose some.


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Apple Mail - Flagged message count is wrong and it multiplies with each mailbox rebuild!

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