unread mail count wrong

Stranks.

"MAC OS X 10.7 Lion hides the ~/Library directory by default. This is easy to reverse and show Library all the time with a terminal command:"

chflags nohidden ~/Library/

Try that. (Source:http://osxdaily.com/2011/07/22/access-user-library-folder-in-os-x-lion/ )

Delisle (@iamdjdmoney)

my problem was ultimately resolved. it was an issue with the "plist" within the library.

although i did try the mail>v2>mail data trick twice before i called apple care. they walked me through the plist fix.

Well played guys. I located the "envelope" files and rebuilt the mailboxes. All is back to normal. I will speep better tonight!

Here's what worked for me:

1- I quit out of Mail.

2- I moved the Accounts.plist file from ~/Library/Mail/V2/MailData to the Desktop.

3- I launched Mail and then made a sandwich while it redownloaded and rebuilt a bunch of stuff.

-->Important: Don't panic during Step 3. You will not lose data or screw up your accounts.<--

4- Once it was done working, I quit out of mail.

5- I moved the saved Accounts.plist file from the Desktop back to ~/Library/Mail/V2/MailData, allowing it to overwrite the new Accounts.plist file which was creaed during Step 3.

6- I launched Mail – Dock icon is now showing the correct number of unread messages total in all my accounts!

John,

Was just your dock count wrong? Or was your inbox folder count and dock count incorrect?

I'm trying to better understand. The plist method was a fixed for one and the envelope for others.

You have 2K plus points, assuming you know a thing or two ;). What is the difference between plist method and envelope method? (one in the same?)

Does everyone have multiple accounts? I see it's hitting both IMAP and exchange.

Delisle (@iamdjdmoney)

Try to not pay too much attention to points. At least in my case. I know just enough to have a grasp of how little I really understand.

The method I described doesn't change the Accounts.plist file (since you put back the original as one of the last steps) so it won't help you if the problem you're experiencing is rooted in that file rather than in some other component. For instance, it won't repair the inbox folder count issue (at least, I don't think it will) but it will repair the unread-count-in-the-Dock-icon issue, which is the problem I was experiencing.

FWIW, all my accounts are IMAP. In Snow Leopard, I had no issues with Mail. When I upgraded to Lion, Mail's Dock icon was displaying the unread count only for the inbox of one of my accounts rather than the total of unreads in the inboxes of all of my accounts. I just lived with it for a few weeks, but eventually it started to really bug me. I figured that deleting the Accounts.plist file would force Mail to rebuild most of everything else (which should — and did — resolve my problem) and I could then recover all my settings and whatnot by replacing the original Accounts.plist file once that was done. So I tried it and it worked. If it didn't work and/or screwed my Mail somehow, I had both a Time Machine backup I could roll back to and a bootable backup, both of which I updated just before making the attempt.

So the problem is still not solved. I've done what Chris suggested below. I still have 1 unread email according to the dock icon, but there is no unread email. I even made a smart mailbox and set it fro unred messages. Nothing. Please help, this is driving me insane!!!

This is what i did so far:

In your library ( ~/library/ ) mail>mail data folder there are several "envelope" files, ie. envelope, envelope-shm, envelope-wal... remove these to your desktop... incase you want to put them back.

Restart mail, it will rebuild these files probably correctly.

If satisfied, drag the old versions"envelope" files on your destop to the trash.

Alternative, OnyX is a Mac utility that has a "rebuild envelope files" option, does the same job.

Chris's suggestion worked for me, but this annoying problem came back a few weeks after I got it back to normal... Sigh...

John Hammer1 steps worked prefectly for me:

1- I quit out of Mail.

2- I moved the Accounts.plist file from ~/Library/Mail/V2/MailData to the Desktop.

3- I launched Mail and then made a sandwich while it redownloaded and rebuilt a bunch of stuff.

-->Important: Don't panic during Step 3. You will not lose data or screw up your accounts.<--

4- Once it was done working, I quit out of mail.

5- I moved the saved Accounts.plist file from the Desktop back to ~/Library/Mail/V2/MailData, allowing it to overwrite the new Accounts.plist file which was creaed during Step 3.

6- I launched Mail – Dock icon is now showing the correct number of unread messages total in all my accounts!

Thanks John!

This worked for me ! Created a smart mailbox with only unread mails and it shown up some messages from a recovered IMAP thingy. Marked all as read and voila !

Thanks !

Hi all

I have tried most of your suggestions and it didnt work for me so I tried something very simple - I had one mailbox showing an unread mail but no unread mail inside it, so I created a new mailbox, moved all the mails out of the old one into the new one - now there were NO unread mails showing in the new one - so I deleted the old one (still showing an unread mail but the mailbox was empty!!!) and then renamed the new one back to what the old one was called - voila - problem solved!

That worked for me, too. This is the simplest solution!

Thanks! I made a smart mailbox for unread messages and Viola! 77 unread messages. I marked as read and the problem is solved. My problem started after I restored my computer to a new harddrive with TimeMachine. This little "ghost in the machine" is finally exorcized!

Remoed the Envelope Index files and reimported which triggered resending emails from ages ago. Not sure how that works... The unread count looks right now though.