You can make a difference in the Apple Support Community!

When you sign up with your Apple Account, you can provide valuable feedback to other community members by upvoting helpful replies and User Tips.

Looks like no one’s replied in a while. To start the conversation again, simply ask a new question.

AlconicCF Author

Level 1

14 points

Unread message count is wrong in Mail and Dock

Just last week I noticed that both my Email Inbox & Mail Dock Icon is showing an incorrect unread message count on both my MacBook & iMac. I am using a Microsoft Exchange Hosted account (Office 365) and it is the only email account tied to both of my Macs. My iPhone shows the correct unread message count as well as Outlook Web Access, and on a seperate windows-based computer, Outlook is showing the correct unread message count of 3. Both Mac systems are using OS X 10.7.3 and I have never experienced this issue before.

The MacBook is showing 39 unread messages, and the iMac is showing 16, in actuality there are 3 unread messages. If I create a smart mailbox that shows only unread messages - it shows up with the correct number (3), when I sort by "Unread Messages" for Inbox, it only shows that I have three unread messages.

I have rebuilt the inbox, I have deleted the email account from the computer, restarted the computer and then readded it, all it did was bring the unread message count from 19 to 16 on my iMac (still - it should be 3).

I have also gone to Mail -> Preferences -> General and verified that Show Dock Unread County is set to "Inbox" but oddly enough, when I click "All Mailboxes" the unread count on the Dock changes to 3.

Is there a file I can delete to reset that unread message count? I feel like I've done everything that's suggested to no avail.

Thanks!

iMac (21.5-inch Mid 2011), Mac OS X (10.7.3)

Posted on Mar 4, 2012 7:10 PM

Top-ranking reply

HACKINT0SH

Level 5

5,810 points

Posted on Apr 2, 2012 7:52 PM

Ok, let's go with Glenn's suggestion here:

Quit Mail if it’s open.
In ~/Library/Mail/V2/MailData, delete any file that begins with “Envelope Index,” such as Envelope Index or Envelope Index-shm.
Your home Library folder is hidden by default. To display it, choose Finder > “Go to Folder” and then enter “~/Library.”
Open Mail.
Mail creates new Envelope Index files. This process may take a few minutes, depending on how many messages Mail is reindexing.

View in context

99 replies

kernreed

Level 1

14 points

Aug 26, 2013 5:25 PM in response to agreene61

Disabling my Exchange account, quitting Mail and then enabling the Exchange account worked! It may be temporary but with the new operating system coming soon, it's not a hard fix if it happens again.

Having just one phantom email "not read" was driving me absolutely nuts. So glad I read the post from "thwart".

Thanks!

kernreed

Level 1

14 points

Aug 27, 2013 9:07 AM in response to kernreed

Alas, the fix was extremely temporary. Plus, all rules for that account get unchecked so I had to recheck the rules each time I applied this fix.

Back to searching to see if anyone else has an idea of how to get rid of phantom unread messages. It's only one but it drives me to distraction!

nchvidt

Level 1

4 points

Sep 13, 2013 2:37 AM in response to AlconicCF

Deleting the envelopes also worked for me. Very irritating for a month or so. Thanks

just1ed

Level 1

13 points

Oct 30, 2013 11:45 PM in response to AlconicCF

It worked for me too! Thanks a lot.

Nov 6, 2013 5:22 AM in response to AlconicCF

The envelope thing didn't work for me. But I used the Mailbox rebuild selection and it worked great

jdfurny

Level 1

4 points

Nov 10, 2013 5:33 PM in response to brookyang

I am a recent convert to Mac. Just upgraded our iMac to Mavericks and Mail shows 5 Unread. When I follow your instructions, I get this response:

dougs-imac:~ Doug$ cd ~/Library/Mail/V2/MailData

dougs-imac:MailData Doug$ sqlite3 Envelope| Index

-bash: Index: command not found

Any help is appreciated

Jonnny

Level 1

10 points

Nov 10, 2013 5:47 PM in response to jdfurny

Mark them all unread...then, mark them all as read

Nov 10, 2013 7:02 PM in response to jdfurny

jdfurny,

dougs-imac:MailData Doug$ sqlite3 Envelope| Index

should be

dougs-imac:MailData Doug$ sqlite3 Envelope\ Index

jdfurny

Level 1

4 points

Nov 13, 2013 4:42 PM in response to brookyang

Thought this posted the other night, but apparently not. Here goes again:

Thanks for getting back to me. Tried that also. Could something be different with 10.9?

This is the screen shot:

dougs-imac:MailData Doug$ sqlite3 Envelope\ Index

SQLite version 3.7.13 2012-07-17 17:46:21

Enter ".help" for instructions

Enter SQL statements terminated with a ";"

sqlite>

jdfurny

Level 1

4 points

Nov 14, 2013 4:48 PM in response to jdfurny

Never mind, seems to be erratic. Maybe an upcoming update will fix it... For a while last night it was correct, now it is stuck on 1 Unread.

Nov 28, 2013 12:13 AM in response to Glenn Leblanc

I just had the same problem after upgrading from 10.7 to 10.9 - my "unread" smart folder in mail showed a number besides its name but the folder itself was empty.

Glenn Leblanc's solution worked for me too. 🙂

Thanks and have a good time!

Nov 28, 2013 1:05 AM in response to AlconicCF

In Mountain Lion - I simply marked all messages unread and then read again.

Jan 8, 2014 1:22 AM in response to SteveakaStyx

Fix

Close mail

In terminal paste this

mv ~/Library/Mail/V2/MailData/Envelope* ~/Desktop

Open mail and wait

RichB

Level 4

1,584 points

Jan 30, 2014 4:31 PM in response to HACKINT0SH

This was a simpler fix and worked for me to select "Dock Unread Count: All Mailboxes"

Thanks!

AZJOHN

Level 1

8 points

Feb 1, 2014 9:52 AM in response to RichB

You may want to check Mail Preferences, Accounts, Advanced. For accounts you don't want to have included in the total unread, make sure "Include when automatically checking for new messages" is not checked.

Unread message count is wrong in Mail and Dock