Mac Mail Sent emails disappear and re-appear

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Level 1

3 points

Mac Mail Sent emails disappear and re-appear

I have been having the same problem for several months: I hit "send" in Mac mail and the dialogue box would go away like normal and then nothing else would happen. No status bar on the bottom left or "whoosh" and then the sent mail does not appear in any of the sent mail folders (I have 3 email addresses and this happens on all 3). This does not happen 100% of the time but rather about 40%.

Since I can't tell if my email got sent, I then have to quit and re-start the program to try to make sure. SOmetimes it sends later out of nowhere (or the next day). SOmetimes it was sent but I can't really tell until I get a reply on it. Other times the sent emails magically re-appear out of nowhere in my sent mail box. Sometimes my inbox messages appear and disappear.

This is **** on wheels trying to work during the day when I can't ever tell if my emails have sent. And to top it off, when I hit the little "replied" arrow next to an inbox item, all I ever get is "Mail was unable to find your reply to the message “RE: credits”. You may have deleted the message."

Anybody seen anything like this? I have deleted my plist and mailboxes and re-created them several times to no avail. I have a godaddy account, a mobile me account and a gmail account. All 3 smae problem.

thanks

Macbook, Mac OS X (10.6.6)

Posted on Feb 3, 2011 4:49 PM

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Answer 1

amz1

Level 1

0 points

Feb 3, 2011 5:30 PM in response to martini27

I have this problem too. C'mon Apple, get your act together. It's the 21st century and your Mail program is buggy like crazy!

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Answer 2

Feb 3, 2011 5:33 PM in response to martini27

Is your email account only configured on one computer or do you have it set up on multiple devices?

Is the account IMAP or POP?

Who is your ISP?

Matt

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Answer 3

martini27 Author

Level 1

3 points

Feb 3, 2011 6:47 PM in response to Matthew Morgan

my main email is POP. not sure on mobileme but gmail is IMAP. I have all 3 set up on my iphone 4 as well. Godaddy is the ISP.

chris

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Answer 4

Feb 3, 2011 7:03 PM in response to martini27

And which account are you having the problem with? Or is it all of them.

Matt

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Answer 5

martini27 Author

Level 1

3 points

Feb 3, 2011 8:32 PM in response to Matthew Morgan

all 3 accounts act the same way. It has to be something with the way Mac mail handles "sent" mail. Sometimes the sent mail just goes right to Outbox and sits there until I Quit Mail and then re-start Mail. Then it sends. No difference between the accounts - I've tested that.

chris

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Answer 6

Feb 3, 2011 9:02 PM in response to martini27

OK.

Where do you store all your messages?

Locally on your Mac or on the server of your ISP?

If you're storing a lot of messages on your ISPs server, that could be your problem.

Matt

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Answer 7

martini27 Author

Level 1

3 points

Feb 4, 2011 10:14 AM in response to Matthew Morgan

I store all messages on my Mac (they download from the server). The ISP only keeps about a week's worth of emails on it. That should not affect my outgoing mail in mac mail program.

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Answer 8

martini27 Author

Level 1

3 points

Feb 4, 2011 10:18 AM in response to Matthew Morgan

Here's another thing it does: after a successful email is sent and I can see a copy in the sent mail, it sometimes creates a copy in draft folder that just sits there until I move it to some other folder or delete it. ????

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Answer 9

rgomez

Level 1

22 points

Feb 4, 2011 10:41 AM in response to martini27

I've been experiencing some similar problem (where the email is sent but not stored anywere)

Just saw in the Console log that it stores an error that reads like:

"Error (null) ocurred while trying to append messages to outgoing store"

Do you have an error like that also?

I've just enabled the debugging log on my IMAP Server (MailEnable 5) to see if it happens again, what's stored there (as I did not find any error in the activity log), but I have the feeling this has more to do with Mail.app than with the Mail Server itself (and if you have that also with gmail and/or your ISP would "confirm" it)

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Answer 10

martini27 Author

Level 1

3 points

Feb 4, 2011 11:02 AM in response to rgomez

not sure where to find the console log. This is happening with my godaddy email, gmail account and mobileme. So it happens on POP and IMAP. IT has to be a Mac Mail bug, I'm just wondering if this is a known problem, is there a fix I can do on the fly or if I need to throw out my entire Mac Mail program and re-install (and is this possible without re-installing the entire OS).

thanks

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Answer 11

Feb 4, 2011 2:51 PM in response to martini27

I store all messages on my Mac (they download from the server).

Including messages you send?

Matt

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Answer 12

Feb 4, 2011 2:55 PM in response to martini27

it sometimes creates a copy in draft folder that just sits there until I move it to some other folder or delete it. ????

That indicates to me some sort of a network issue.

Do you find you have problems when you are on any network or is it just limited to the network in one location.

I'll occasionally get left over Draft when I'm on our lousy network at work, but it never happens when I'm on my network at home.

Matt

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Answer 13

martini27 Author

Level 1

3 points

Feb 4, 2011 3:28 PM in response to Matthew Morgan

Including messages you send? Yes

I'm not sure if this happens at home I have not had my laptop there for a minute. I"ll try tonight and see if that impacts it at all.

chris

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Answer 14

martini27 Author

Level 1

3 points

Feb 5, 2011 11:18 AM in response to martini27

ok I am not having the problem at home so it must be a network issue at the office. Now to figure out what the problem is. I'm on an Apple Extreme wireless net connected to Time Warner Cable internet. Has anyone seen specific issues with either or these?

thanks

chris

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Answer 15

Feb 5, 2011 6:12 PM in response to martini27

I have the exact same problem on my 24 inch Imac. If I exit our of apple mail and then send a message it works, but if I then send another message it doesn't work. If I exit out of Apple Mail each time, i can send the messages each time.

I also have a macbook pro and 27 inch imac with the same imap email account and there are no problems with either of them.

HELP!

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