Apple Mail can't delete emails or move them to folders

Question

Apple Mail can't delete emails or move them to folders

I moved to Apple Mail from Outlook about a year ago, and have found it a bit clunky, but it works well enough. I make extensive use of folders to keep my inbox clean and sort mail into client or subject-relevant mailboxes. Over the last month, Mail will work well enough when I first open it, but now after only a few minutes it will stop deleting emails (it moves on to the next email, but leaves the one I tried to delete in the inbox) and it will not allow me to drag messages into mailboxes.

I have deleted all of my 6 email accounts from mail and reinstalled only 1 this morning, and the same problem remains.

Any thoughts as to what may be happening and how to fix it? I'm about ready to go back to Outlook (reluctantly).

Mail-OTHER, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.2)

Posted on Mar 4, 2013 10:22 AM

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Answer 1

Eric Root

Level 10

685,257 points

Mar 4, 2013 11:22 AM in response to laurafromhuntsville

There is a subject on messages don't delete in this Apple article, with links to other articles. Hopefully, you'll find an answer.

Mail Problems

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Answer 2

Mar 4, 2013 12:46 PM in response to Eric Root

This did not help. I have already set up deleted messages to go to Trash. At this point I have only reinstalled one account to see if I can isolate the issue.

Any other suggestions?

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Answer 3

Linc Davis

Level 10

209,739 points

Mar 4, 2013 1:42 PM in response to laurafromhuntsville

Please follow these directions to delete the Mail "sandbox" folder.

Back up all data.

Quit Mail.

Triple-click the line below to select it:

~/Library/Containers/com.apple.mail

Right-click or control-click the highlighted line and select

Services ▹ Reveal

from the contextual menu. A Finder window should open with a folder named "com.apple.mail" selected. If it does, move the selected folder — not just its contents — to the Desktop. Leave the Finder window open for now.

Relaunch Mail and test. If the problem is resolved, you'll have to recreate some of your Mail settings. You can then delete the folder you moved and close the Finder window. If you still have the problem, quit Mail again and put the folder back where it was, overwriting the one that may have been created in its place. Post your results.

Caution: If you change any of the contents of the sandbox, but leave the folder itself in place, Mail may crash or not launch at all. Deleting the whole sandbox will cause it to be rebuilt automatically.

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Answer 4

Mar 4, 2013 5:14 PM in response to Linc Davis

Hi Linc,

Thanks for the suggestion. I had to find the com.apple.mail file another way, but succeeded in moving it to Desktop. That seems to have fixed the problem!

Thank you!

Laura

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Answer 5

BigFig

Level 1

9 points

Jul 29, 2013 12:36 PM in response to laurafromhuntsville

I had this issue as well - was not able to move messages from an Ooutlook webmail address to my Mac Trash folder. They were sitting in my sent mailbox and I regularly got the "can't move your email to the trash..." message. I tried Linc Davis' suggestion above - didnt work for me. On a whim, I tried forwarding the emails to myself at my home address - they went, and vanished from the mailbox - problem solved, but I cannot tell you why. Try forwarding the individual emails out - see what happens...

Good Luck

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Answer 6

Feb 18, 2014 9:10 PM in response to Linc Davis

This didn't work for me. The only thing that changed when I reopened Mail was that it opened in a smaller window 😟. Any Ideas?

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Answer 7

alan78

Level 1

0 points

Mar 12, 2014 1:59 PM in response to laurafromhuntsville

My problem was similar: Whatever messages I deleted from whatever mailbox/server, they always 'came back' after reopening mail. I moved (deleted)

/Users/YourUserName/Library/Caches/com.apple.mail

and that soved my problem. I am running OSX 10.9.2

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Answer 8

Jul 17, 2016 4:33 AM in response to BigFig

Thanks this worked for me for 4 stuck emails I could not move to trash but could after I forwarded them to another email address. Strange but so far so good:)

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