Unread message count is wrong in Mail and Dock

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.

I don't know for sure whether this will fix your problem, but there is a way to I have confirmed that this works. Reset the dock, where the dock resets itself to the state when you bought it. This might fix the icon issue... Enter the following text into the command line:

defaults delete com.apple.dock; killall Dock

Wait a few moments and your dock will disappear, and come back again.

I have the same issue, but it's on a MacBook Air, also on 10.7.3 - in my case it's showing 2 unread messages in the Junk folder as well as in the inbox. All related to an Exchange account. I restarted the computer, I rebuilt the inbox as well as the junk mail folder. I looked directly on the Exchange server, there were no unread messages there. Sounds like a solid timebomb bug in 10.7.3. to me. Can't wait to get to the next OS - this Vista version of Mac OS's really isn't the greatest...

More on this: I went to the Genius Bar - No help there. The only recommendation was to re-install Lion, which I did. But it didn't fix it. So, if the genius can't figure it out, I am settling for a solid bug and we seem to have to wait.

There is a small glitch, and you guys are close.

In Mail Preferences under General, there is the option for:

Dock Unread Count --

Your choices in the dropdown are either:

None

Inbox Only

All Boxes

The problem is that I've often seen the Inbox Only is checkmarked, and stays as checkmarked, even when you last told it to use either None or All Boxes.

It is possible that Alconic see's Inboxes Only checkmarked, when in fact it's All mailboxes that are set to be showing.

Try to re-check "Inbox only" even though it's already checked and see what happens...

Thanks for the tip, but that didn't do it. The unread count in my case magically appeared a few days after I upgraded to 10.7.3 from the Junk mailbox. It keeps showing 2 unread junk mails, but there are none there (there = in my exchange account). All other iOS devices (phone, iPad) show no unread email count for the same exchange eMail, so it's a local Lion problem. Rumor has it that some index might be screwed up, but rebuilding and all the other good stuff doesn't help. And deleting some preferences files might kill all of my mail settings including all of my local mailboxes, so the Genius Bar guy didn't recommend that. - The wait for Mountain Lion is on.. ;-) -

The file responsible for mail index is the envelope.index file. It is located in your Home Library folder/ mail/ V2/ MailData. You can quit mail, navigate to that folder, move the envelope files to the desktop, and restart mail. Hit continue in the message box and it will rebuild the index.

Thank you, HACKINTOSH and Glenn -- your solution worked for me!

This fixed it for me, too. Took me a while to be that brave. Thanks!

HACKINTOSH and Glenn, THANK you so much, been bugging me for days now! it worked a treat, god I love Apple discussions 😍

Thanks HACKINT0SH. That worked for me. It took a while to reindex my 34,000 messages.

http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1907

tnx Glenn Leblanc

it worked for me too..

have a nice one

Luka

You're welcome. Good to see others are getting help from this Post.

Just joining in here . . . because I had the exact problem, solved by this process. Thanks a million. -Jeff

🙂