Mail fail: "Mail cannot update your mailboxes because your...

Question

Level 1

0 points

Mail fail: "Mail cannot update your mailboxes because your...

....home directory is full. You must free up space in your home folder before using Mail. Delete unneeded documents or move documents to another volume." And the only button on the error window is...quit.

I get this when starting my Apple Mail application. Can't load Mail.

I run an older OS, Tiger 10.4.11 on this powerpc. I have 37 GB available on a 152 GB hard drive ( only had 20 available when I first got the message, then cleared 17 GB off...but still get the error message).

A new computer is in my near future, but not having access to my mail program is a pain. Any suggestions?

Thanks!

powerbook G4, G4 tower, 3 emacs, Mac OS X (10.4.2)

Posted on Feb 6, 2012 3:45 PM

Reply

Answer 1

Best reply

BDAqua

Level 10

239,189 points

Feb 6, 2012 3:54 PM in response to wiggs

Hi Wiggs,

"Mail cannot update your mailboxes because your home directory is full' alert"...

http://support.apple.com/kb/TA24486

Reply

Answer 2

wiggs Author

Level 1

0 points

Feb 7, 2012 11:30 AM in response to wiggs

Duuuudeee! Thanks very much...worked like a charm! Weird it would give the message in the first place, but I'm glad it can be fixed.

Reply

Answer 3

BDAqua

Level 10

239,189 points

Feb 7, 2012 11:42 AM in response to wiggs

Great news, thanks! 🙂

Reply

Answer 4

wiggs Author

Level 1

0 points

Feb 7, 2012 4:51 PM in response to BDAqua

Spoke too soon....

....so my old emails loaded into the mail viewer window just fine and it looked, on the surface, as though all was rainbows and unicorns. But when I actually click on one of those re-loaded emails I get no text where the email should be except, for example:

"The message from Mark Roknich <mark@roknich.com> concerning “Need a Laugh?” has not been downloaded from the server. You need to take this account online in order to download it."

Also...if I go to the mail library where the actual messages are stored, I can click on the email and it opens with all original text in place. So I still have the emails and the program put the titles in the mail viewer...but the mail viewer is not loading text. Ideas?

I can't get all the emails from the last five years from the server...they are deleted after a couple of months.

Bummed again.

Reply

Answer 5

BDAqua

Level 10

239,189 points

Feb 7, 2012 5:29 PM in response to wiggs

Holy cow, is it just the most recent ones that can't be load/aren't there, like since whenever there wasn't room to download them?

How old is the oldest missing one?

Reply

Answer 6

wiggs Author

Level 1

0 points

Feb 7, 2012 5:50 PM in response to BDAqua

nope...all the messages that had been previously downloaded from the server (from 2007 to January 30 2012) came back as "ghosts" when I re-imported after moving the "envelope" per your article..."ghosts" being my term for an email in the view with title and date but no original text in the message.

I got new messages from the server (300-some messages from a week of not downloading them from the server)...these are fine. It's just the ones pre mail-fail that came back weird.

I did go to the mail library and opened one of the messages from there. Message looks fine.

Reply

Answer 7

BDAqua

Level 10

239,189 points

Feb 7, 2012 6:09 PM in response to wiggs

You mean one of the "missing text" old ones was fine?

If so, for safety...

On Mail...

First Quit Mail, then I'd backup these two Mail folders, by right clicking on them in the Finder, then choose Archive/Compress.

Users/YourUserName/Library/Mail

Users/YourUserName/Library/Mail Downloads

(Could be a different folder here if you chose such in Mail Prefs)

Right click on that Mail folder, choose archive, you'll get everything in the folder, and the folder itself in a file called Mail.zip, move it to a safe place, same for the Mail Downloads folder... only the plist is separate.

/Users/YourUserName/Library/Preferences/com.apple.mail.plist

Not certain, but this can fix myriad Mail problems...

Safe Boot from the HD, (holding Shift key down at bootup), it will try to repair your Disk Directory while the spinning radian is happening, so let it go, run Disk Utility in Applications>Utilities, then highlight your drive, click on Repair Permissions, then move this folder & file to the Desktop.

Move this Folder to the Desktop...

/Users/YourUserName/Library/Caches/Mail/

Move this file to the Desktop...

/Users/YourUserName/Library/Mail/Envelope Index

Reboot.

Reply