My mail is stuck on download, (300 messages!)

Question

Level 1

3 points

My mail is stuck on download, (300 messages!)

Hi,
My mail is stuck on downloading incoming messages. Appears one message is messing up the works.(19 of the 300!) It was starting to not automatically download before this happened, that is why the backlog of stuff.
How can I get around this so I can get my messages? I had this happen with my last Mac and had to ditch the whole program and use my funky earthlink mail account. Any help would be appreciated.

imac intel dual core, Mac OS X (10.5.8)

Posted on Dec 10, 2010 1:48 PM

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Answer 1

Jij1

Level 1

4 points

Jun 19, 2017 3:43 AM in response to Mettanurse

I had the same problem. Mine seemed to be related to my gmail account. I resolved it by logging into my gmail account via my web browser and cleaning up all unwanted messages and folders. Now when I check for email on my MacBook pro I immediately get the feedback message "no new messages" instead of "downloading xxxx new messages"

Good luck

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Answer 2

Ishi2

Level 1

16 points

Nov 15, 2017 11:08 AM in response to Mettanurse

This was the easy fix to my Stuck on Download problem. My Mail app was stuck on downloading well over 3000 messages over 5 mailboxes and because it got stuck it would not let any current incoming e-mail in.

Thanks Mettanurse!

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Answer 3

Yodsquick

Level 1

100 points

Dec 11, 2010 4:12 AM in response to Mettanurse

If it is one stuck message message, try logging into your mail account from the web.
Once in the email providers mail program, sort through you mail and see if you can manual find and delete that questionable 19th email.

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Answer 4

Mettanurse Author

Level 1

3 points

Dec 11, 2010 8:34 AM in response to Mettanurse

thanks for your answer,
I've done that with the earthlink email account, deleted most everything from that account. Mac mail program is still stuck downloading the 300 emails, even though there are no longer the 300 to download. Must be a glitch. Hate to abandon the program, as it works so much better than the Earthlink one that came with the server company. Any other suggestions?

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Answer 5

Yodsquick

Level 1

100 points

Dec 11, 2010 7:11 PM in response to Mettanurse

Run connection doctor.
It's under window on the menu bar.

I would also test the mail program in another user, see if it works there.

Sounds like might be little glitch someplace, now we just have to find it.

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Answer 6

Feb 5, 2011 1:14 PM in response to Mettanurse

MIne was doing the same thing. There is no "bad e-mail," as you've discovered. It seems to be a corrupted preference.

Fixing this is possible, but not that straightforward.

I moved all my messages into folders which I had created in the "ON MY MAC" section of mail. I have a folder there called "Correspondence", with subfolders divided by year and month to store messages I want to keep. I also save my sent messages in a "My Sent Messages" folder, with subfolders by year.

I do this because deleting the preferences will delete all your accounts and mailboxes (or at least make them invisible).

Once there was nothing in my Inbox or my Sent box, I trashed the Preferences. This left me with no accounts; I then recreated all my accounts. This is fairly quick and easy, since all you have to do is enter the e-mail address and password, and Mail will do the rest.

Once this is done, Mail will download any messages still on the servers, depending on your settings. (In my case, all accounts except for Gmail 2 weeks back).

Mail now works like a charm.

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Answer 7

nifflerX

Level 4

2,826 points

Apr 28, 2016 5:07 AM in response to Mettanurse

Another thing you can try before following luba petrusha's excellent advice is to disable all your accounts. This can be done from the Preferences > Accounts tab. With all your accounts disabled you will likely still have to force quit Mail. Once Mail is closed open it back up and you should see nothing. No email, no accounts. Now open up Window > Activity Monitory, then go back to Preferences > Accounts and start enabling the accounts one at a time. I recommend starting with the smallest accounts first. With Activity Monitor open you can enable an account and wait until it's fully sync'd, then enable the next one. This won't solve the issue if it's a corrupted preference file, but if your connections are just stuck on stupid it's a nice way to force them clear. Plus you don't have to move any messages around. HTH.

-NifflerX

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Answer 8

mizsh

Level 1

4 points

Aug 25, 2016 7:06 AM in response to Mettanurse

I had this happen to me. I followed the disabling all and enabling one at a time to find the corrupt account.

But instead of deleting it and moving messages, I simply put in bogus information in that account and put a X at the beginning of it and left it disabled.

Then created the same account again with the correct credentials. All my filters and emails stayed the same.

You need to delete any emails from the server before doing this or you could end up re-downloading everything that is there.

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Answer 9

Sep 16, 2016 2:29 AM in response to Mettanurse

I had this problem and then I read online that turning off the wifi, then quitting Mail and then reopening it with the wifi off fixes this problem and it worked for me!

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