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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

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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!
23 replies
Question marked as Best reply

Jan 12, 2011 12:11 AM in response to b_durruti

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!

Jan 12, 2011 12:43 AM in response to b_durruti

hello b_durruti

you write;
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.


It would be the former. Simple solutions are quickly posted. Your situation is outside most people's normal email experience in that you are intending to download 15,000 emails. Not many people would have ever done that, and so feel remote from your situation and not emboldened to suggest anything.

From what you have described, if Gmail works OK and Hotmail stops after a time then it looks as if the hotmail server is the problem.
Maybe at their end an anti-spam mechanism is kicking in at a certain point, and stops the server. This is just a guess.

Jan 12, 2011 1:25 AM in response to roam

Hello roam,
I think your reply has already been of help, in that you suggest the problem lies with the number of e-mails on my server. Can I somehow make Mail start downloading the most recent emails first, instead of the oldest ones? That way I would have all mails I currently need, while the old ones would still be on the server, in case that I have to look something up. Could that be a solution?
Because I thought deleting the already downloaded emails from my harddrive would make space for new ones to be downloaded, I have already lost 3000 old mails, which Mail then also removed from the server (which I thought it would not do, if I unticked "Remove copy from server after retrieving a message". Am I also wrong about that?)
Thanks!

Message was edited by: b_durruti

Jan 12, 2011 4:33 AM in response to b_durruti

I have already lost 3000 old mails, which Mail then also removed from the server (which I thought it would not do, if I unticked "Remove copy from server after retrieving a message". Am I also wrong about that?)

No, they should not have been removed if that was unticked.

What happened to the 3000 emails that are now lost? I mean did they ever appear in the inbox before they disappeared?

What Mail app were you using before you recently started using Apple Mail and why did you switch over?
I wondering if an existing email application on your machine is complicating things with the POP account.

Jan 13, 2011 1:25 AM in response to roam

Yes, these were the e-mails that showed up in the inbox, i.e. they were the chunk of mails that I could download before Apple Mail stopped the downloading at all. I deleted them because I thought it would make space for newer ones to be downloaded.
No, I have not used any other Mail application before. I used to go directly to the hotmail-webpage.
Interestingly, I have deleted the whole account again and set it up anew - which enabled Apple Mail to another round of downloading mails when I did it the last time. This time however, nothing happened: again, the bar on the left appears for a second, telling me that around 12000 mails are on my server and that all have been downloaded in about this second. But they do not show up. It remains a mistery to me, even more so as Mail is obviously able to detect all mails on the server (when I check under Account Information, Emails on Server) but not to download them.

Jan 13, 2011 2:58 AM in response to b_durruti

It took a while, but now I have the full list of emails that Mail registers as being on the server. Every single email from about 2007 to 2009 is chronologically displayed. Then the chronology is interrupted and the five most recent emails are listed (amongst them the one that I sent to myself). Thus about one year and a half is not displayed. But above the most recent mails the list continues - actually it is longer that the one for the mails of 2007 to 2009 - displaying mails in various sizes but all with unknown senders and without subject; and they are all listed as being received at the same time, which is the time when the scan was finished (in this case today at 3:53, local time).
I don't know if that can tell you anything.

Jan 13, 2011 3:39 AM in response to b_durruti

As few would have done what you are attempting, downloading over 10,000 emails, perhaps you have discovered a flaw in Apple's Mail 3.6, in that there may be a limit to what is can process. It did the first few years 2007 to 2009 and then seemed to have stumbled.

If they have any value to you, so as you don't lose any more, it would a good idea to archive them in some manner.

Also if you want to keep using Mail 3.6 it is possible to create 'smart mailboxes' under the On My Mac tab at the left sidebar, and move bunches of the received emails into them. Perhaps one for each year maybe.

Jan 15, 2011 5:46 AM in response to roam

I can't give any advice regarding POP service as I don't use it (why use it if there is IMAP?). But I may confirm 10.6.5 Mail easily handles 12350 emails and counting on my Exchange 2007 account. So overall Mail can work with/download 10k+ emails. Though I plan archiving mails soon as generally email clients are not specifically made for storage.

Mar 9, 2011 9:13 AM in response to DmitryT

I have exactly the same problem. I only have 600 email on my hotmail account and apple mail only downloads about 60, and I can't find any way of making download all the other, even though it sees that I have all those emails on the server. And it only downloads the oldest ones. How can I get it to download all my emails?

Mar 9, 2011 2:48 PM in response to smix

This just happened to me. I use Network Solutions POP account. As of about noon PST, March 10 2011, my mail has stop downloading. The activity shows new messages and indicates that the download is taking place but shows 0kb and nothing appears in Mail. Also, I can see the new messages on the Account Info server list but they do not download to Mail. I've tried re-importing the account and get messages up to the same time but no further.

Tried quitting Mail, restarting the computer -- nothing.

I have not made any changes to my Mail accounts and have been using the same account for years. I automatically have old messages removed from my server after about one month so there are not that many messages online. I do keep about a year's worth of messages in Mail then archive.

Mar 17, 2011 5:27 AM in response to Metography

I have exactly the same problem as Metography.

My Network Solutions POP account stopped downloading mail at about 1000hrs GMT+1 on March 15, 2011.

I can see the emails in Account Information and I see activity indicating the retrieval of mail, but nothing is downloaded to the computer.

My Gmail, Yahoo and .me account download just fine. I can send mail from the Network Solutions account, but no downloads.

I have quit Mail, restarted the computer several times, connected to about 5 different ISPs. My iPad and iPhone have no problems with the Network Solutions account.

Any help would be appreciated.

Apple Mail stops downloading emails at a certain point

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