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Level 1

9 points

Apple Mail stops downloading emails at a certain point

Hello,
I have just recently started to use Apple Mail (3.6) and set up two accounts: one POP for hotmail and one IMAP for gmail. While sending mails works fine with both accounts, the hotmail one stops downloading mails from the server at a certain point.
From the approximately 15000 mails on the server, Mail downloads about 3000 (the oldest ones, which I neither need nor want on my computer anyway) and then stops. When I click on receive new mails, it will show the connecting sign as usual. The bar on the left, which indicates how many e-mails remain on the server and how many are currently being downloaded, pops up for a second, telling me that all remaining 12000 e-mails have been downloaded in the same time span - which obviously didn't happen.
I have already tried deleting downloaded mails from my computer, thinking that there might be a limit to the number of mails saved on the desktop. Also I deleted the whole account and set it up again, but the same thing happened at exactly the same point, respectively the same email downloaded. What to do?
Thanks to everyone who can help me out with this!

MacBook 5,1, Mac OS X (10.5.8)

Posted on Jan 2, 2011 9:35 PM

Best reply

b_durruti Author

Level 1

9 points

Posted on Jan 12, 2011 12:11 AM

Hello again,
as nobody has answered to my question yet, I am wondering if the problem is so unique that no one is able to solve it - or if it is rather so simple that no one deems it worthy of replying to. If the latter is the case, someone please give me a hint, even if it means that I am seriously lacking basic computer-skills. If you need more details to address the issue properly, please tell what information I should provide.
Thanks!

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23 replies

annexit

Level 1

23 points

Mar 23, 2011 8:36 PM in response to chiedu. c

I was having a similar problem today (and may have the date mentioned in your email) - I was surprised not to have received email I was expecting and had noticed a couple of times recently that after waiting for replies, not getting them and moving on, that later seeing mail came in supposedly at the time dated but I know they weren't there for several hours after that time. Today, I had 17 email I could see on webmail, but they would not download to MAIL even though I tried several times during the day. Then I decided to email myself to test - at the same time, my sister was checking the same account on another computer - one or the other action triggered the download of all 17 email. She can't remember if the one I sent myself appeared at the same time. Too weird. I use bellsouth.

W. Jonz

Level 1

0 points

Apr 2, 2011 2:11 PM in response to b_durruti

I have been experiencing the same problem for the last 3 weeks. The inbox shows downloading new messages but they don't appear. If I close mail and re-open a few might appear but not all. I get all emails on my iPhone no problem. I started to delete a few thousand old emails to see if that would work, I was up to 7K messages, but it did not help. I have had problems with mail before but have been able to fix. I can't figure this one out. HELP!

Apr 4, 2011 8:47 AM in response to b_durruti

I have the same problem, my Macbook downloaded the 2006 messages from my Hotmail account then stopped, I deleted all but six, yet it still does not download any more messages although it shows a further 1700 messages. any assistance would be appreciated.

Apr 5, 2011 10:57 PM in response to Whitelocks

I have the same problem. Figure if I add to myself to the list, someone will go to the trouble of posting a solution. I have only recently transferred to Mail from Entourage (am currently running both in parallel... could this be part of the problem?). Hotmail has no prob downloading to Entourage or my iPhone. I only have 200 messages waiting to be downloaded so size is not the issue. Somebody please figure this out.

ilaria85

Level 1

10 points

Aug 4, 2011 12:43 PM in response to b_durruti

OK I've been literally fighting with this the whole afternoon! I've just solved the problem out of sheer luck! (I am not by any means an expert!!!). I was so desperate that I started trying pretty much everything and it finally worked! that's what I did:

1) access hotmail using your browser

2) move all but 20-40 of your emails from the inbox to another folder (I've created a new one just to be on the safe side!!!)

3) then suddenly MAIL starts dowloading the 20-40 emails you've left in the inbox

4) if you now move all the other emails back into the inbox they will be authomatically downloaded in MAIL

5) if you now receive a new message it will be downloaded as well (tried sending an email to miself!)

at least it worked for me! I've done that half an hour ago and it's been working alright since then!

still have really no idea why it does that though!!!

hope that helps!

BDAqua

Level 10

239,267 points

Aug 4, 2011 1:04 PM in response to ilaria85

Great tip, thanks for the post! 🙂

roadcrew

Level 1

0 points

Mar 31, 2015 4:47 PM in response to b_durruti

I realize this is an older post, but in case this might help someone else, I'll post my fix:

I too have had this problem for years. . . on several Macs with several different email accounts. I tried the various fixes suggested by others around the web, to wit: pulling up "account settings" from the lower-left corner icon; taking the accounts offline/online; deleting the next-in-line email from the server; and moving everything out of the inbox/breaking it up into smaller segments. Each of these solutions worked only intermittently. . . a few more emails (sometime dozens, sometimes a couple hundred) would load, but eventually Apple Mail would stop and hit a wall again. Nothing would make it respond.

So here's the fix: go into your webmail account with your mail service (Yahoo, Gmail, whatever) and check the account settings. Look for a setting for "enable conversations" or "arrange by conversations" and turn it OFF. That's it! The problem is, when conversations are turned ON, the server groups emails by subject line, rather than in simple chronological order. Apple Mail will chug along, downloading messages from the server, but when it hits one out of chronological sequence, it chokes. Ever since making this change, message transfer has been MUCH smoother and faster. And for those who think large volumes are the problem, I was able to download over 54,000 messages without a hiccup!

Hope this helps someone out there.

BDAqua

Level 10

239,267 points

Mar 31, 2015 4:57 PM in response to roadcrew

Great tip, thanks!:)

Apple Mail stops downloading emails at a certain point