Mail takes 9 minutes to download and says "resuming interrupted append"

Stephanie,
if you can access that account using webmail, delete the first one in the queu and see if that relieves your issue.

Yes indeed. This is different from your Mail program that will actually download the message to your Mac.

You can access your emails through the website (via your browser) and delete it from there before reading it. This would clean up any nasty attachment that is interfering somewhere along the way.

If you have trouble getting in your MSN via webmail, you can try the following:

Quit Mail and restart while holding the shift key down until the mail viewer appears. This will prevent Mail from opening any mailbox.

In the right pane, where you have a list of emails and possibly the bottom half showing parts of the emails, drag the divider between those parts all the way down. This will now prevent any mail from opening when you select it from the list view. Now select the email that is giving you problems and trash it.

If this was indeed the issue, the next email should now come in easily. You can drag the divider back or just double-click on it.

How many messages are contained in the account's Inbox mailbox in Mail?

If your OS detail provided is correct (10.3.9), something to try.

Quit Mail first and using the Finder, go to Home > Library > Mail > this POP account named folder (named by the user name and incoming mail server for the account) > INBOX.mbox.

Move the INBOX.mbox to the Desktop.

Launch Mail and a new INBOX.mbox will be created automatically by Mail within the account named folder. This should allow the Mail.app to function properly again while working on the old INBOX.mbox moved to the Desktop which I believe has some corruption.

Control-click on the old INBOX.mbox moved to the Desktop and at the menu window that appears, select Show Package Contents.

List the package content file names and size of each here.

Every email client has limits and with the Mail.app, it isn't the number of messages contained in a mailbox that is important but the overall size of a mailbox.

The recommended mailbox size limit for Jaguar and Panther Mail is 1 GB and for Tiger Mail, 2 GB.

This mailbox has some corruption. All messages and message attachments should be stored in the mbox package content file and some messages are being incorrectly stored in the content_index file and table ofcontents. There is also a package content file that is missing.

Since an account's Inbox mailbox is usually the most active mailbox and more prone to minor corruption over time, it is not a good idea to use the Inbox mailbox for an account as the final storage location for all received messages not deleted. You can create and utilize "On My Mac" location mailboxes to sort received messages by category and it is also a good idea to use the Rebuild Mailbox function on the most active mailboxes on a regular basis - once a month or so depending on activity.

Did you move the account's INBOX.mbox from within the account named folder to the Desktop with the Mail.app quit before doing so?

If so, this should have resolved the downloading process unless there is another problem.

What is your hard drive capacity and available free space?

Allan,

What makes you think that some messages are stored in the content_index and tableofcontents files? Actually, I still don't know what the size of the mbox file really is. It looks like the OP was viewing the package contents in List view and manually wrote the sizes as the Finder was displaying them, with some digits missing in the case of the mbox file -- try this yourself with a Size column that's too narrow to see what I'm talking about.

And what file is missing from the package content? The only file that I miss is Info.plist, which AFAIK is not required to be there.

The content_index package file should not be 7.5 MB in size and the table ofcontents file is also larger than normal based on my previous experience using Jaguar and Panther Mail. These files should be KBs in size only and not over 20-30 KBs in size.

The Info.plist package file may not be critical but it was available with all my mbox files under Jaguar and Panther Mail so I can only assume it serves a purpose or it wouldn't be created.

I do know this INBOX.mbox has a significant problem based on the size of the content_index package file and it does appear the actual size provided for the mbox package file may not be accurate.

The content_index package file should not be 7.5 MB

It could very well be if mbox is more than 120 MB, which I believe is the case here (I'm pretty sure there are digits missing in the size reported by the Stephanie).

in size and the table ofcontents file is also larger
than normal based on my previous experience using
Jaguar and Panther Mail. These files should be KBs in
size only and not over 20-30 KBs in size.

Well, looking at a backup copy of the the Panther files I keep still, I can see a mailbox with the following sizes, for example:

content_index 624 KB
mbox 5,7 MB
table ofcontents 192 KB

There was nothing special about this particular mailbox. It imported into Mail 2.0 without problems, and I see similar sizes in other cases. Taking into consideration that the size of her mbox file is probably more than 20 times greater, a content_index that's only 12 times greater and a tableofcontents that's only 4 times greater seem entirely reasonable to me.

The Info.plist package file may not be critical but
it was available with all my mbox files under Jaguar
and Panther Mail so I can only assume it serves a
purpose or it wouldn't be created.

It's a very short XML file that contains viewing settings only. If the OP didn't ever view that particular mailbox individually, but only as part of the Inbox group, the Info.plist file might very well never have been created.

it does appear the actual size provided for the
mbox package file may not be accurate.

The problem is not that it may not be "accurate". The problem is that it may be wrong by a factor of 10 or more...

It could very well be if mbox is more than 120 MB,

Sorry but i believe this is incorrect.

Where are you basing a proportional relationship in size on between the mbox file and the content_index and table ofcontents package content files?

For the backup copies of your Panther mbox files, do all have the same or similar proportional relationship in size to the mbox file?

Although 624 KB in size for the content_index file and 192 KB in size for the table ofcontents file does not indicate a problem, did you use the Rebuild Mailbox function on all Panther mailboxes before upgrading to Tiger?

Before upgrading to Tiger, I had a number of mailboxes at or near 500MB in size. I didn't allow a mailbox to exceed 500MB or so in size before upgrading to Tiger and I used the Rebuild Mailbox function on all mailboxes once a month or so.

I never had any Panther mailbox with a content_index file at 624 KB in size or a table ofcontents at 192 KB in size regardless the overall size of the mailbox - even for the mailboxes at or near 500 MB in size so I'm not sure about your proportional relationship in size for the other package content files to the mbox package file. I certainly never had any mailbox with a content_index package file at 7.5 MB in size.

I helped a large number of people with "overstuffed" mailbox issues before Tiger was released and when asking for the package content files and size of each, all those with this problem had other package content files (besides the mbox file) that exceeded MBs in size regardless if the overall size of the mailbox exceeded 1GB in size or not.

I'm not positive about this but I've been frequenting these Discussions for 3 years now and I've never seen any discussion about a proportional relationship in size between other package content files and the mbox file with Jaguar or Panther Mail.app mailboxes.

Where are you basing a proportional relationship in
size on between the mbox file and the content_index
and table ofcontents package content files?

I'm not establishing any proportional relationship. Note that the scale numbers I used were notably different for each file (20+, 12 and 4). I would expect, however, that the larger the mbox file is, the larger the other supporting files should be as well, more so if there is a problem with that mailbox, as is clearly the case here.

Rebuild Mailbox function on all Panther mailboxes
before upgrading to Tiger?

I believe I did, but I cannot say for sure now. Given your numbers, it could very well be that I didn't. Note, however, that the mailboxes I'm talking about were "On My Mac" ones (my Inbox contains unread messages only), with little or no activity other than moving messages into them.

I helped a large number of people with "overstuffed"
mailbox issues before Tiger was released and when
asking for the package content files and size of
each, all those with this problem had other package
content files (besides the mbox file) that exceeded
MBs in size regardless if the overall size of the
mailbox exceeded 1GB in size or not.

And this is exactly what I'm talking about. I was just wondering what made you believe Mail had stored any actual messages in the supporting files. With an mbox file size on the order of 120 MB, the sizes reported by Stephanie for the supporting files seem pretty consistent with many other problematic cases I've seen reported here, and I've yet not seen a single case that made me even consider the possibility that Mail could have stored actual messages in the supporting files.

What I was saying is just that I don't believe it can be inferred that Mail has stored any actual messages in the supporting files (actually, I'm pretty sure it hasn't), neither in this nor in any other case. I wasn't suggesting any proportional relationship in the file sizes. I chose my own mailboxes as an example to illustrate a case where even in the absence of any problems, the size of the supporting files could be much larger than you would expect, despite the corresponding mbox file being more than 20 times smaller. Sorry if this has caused any misunderstandings.

I would expect, however, that the larger the mbox file is, the larger
the other supporting files should be as well,

Not based on my experience.

I was just wondering what made you believe Mail had stored
any actual messages in the supporting files.

Based on some I have helped with a package content file other than the mbox file being the largest file by far as in the content_index package file and the mbox file being reversed in size for a mailbox with significant size.

In addition, since the manual procedure for deleting all package content files except for the mbox file does not work for such a problematic mailbox, the mbox breaker script I have sent to those with such a problem mailbox has successfully recovered all existing messages contained in the mailbox.

This indicates the supporting package content files for a Jaguar or Panther mailbox can incorrectly store messages and message attachments especially when the mailbox has sever corruption but I have no other evidence to support this.

Not based on my experience.

I think I actually agree with you here in the sense that one mailbox may have smaller supporting files than another, despite its mbox file being larger, if that's what you mean.

Based on some I have helped with a package content
file other than the mbox file being the largest file
by far as in the content_index package file and the
mbox file being reversed in size for a mailbox with
significant size.

OK. I've never seen such a case. That would have made me wonder as well, indeed.

In addition, since the manual procedure for deleting
all package content files except for the mbox file
does not work for such a problematic mailbox, the
mbox breaker script I have sent to those with such a
problem mailbox has successfully recovered all
existing messages contained in the mailbox.

Are you saying that your script has successfully extracted actual messages out of the supporting files in some cases?

BTW, thanks for all these explanations, I really appreciate them.

Are you saying that your script has successfully extracted
actual messages out of the supporting files in some cases?

I did not write the script. I downloaded it from the script writer's website which is no longer available.

Based on email replies after forwarding the script, it has successfully recovered messages from a severely corrupt mailbox with a supporting file or all supporting files combined larger than the mbox package file.

I can't say this is overwhelming evidence but it seems so.

You're welcome and now in an attempt to answer the OP's question or to provide a solution, if she moved the account's INBOX.mbox out of the account named folder to the Desktop which creates a new INBOX.mbox within the account named folder when re-launching Mail, what is the reason the download process is still taking so long? Maybe a problem with the MessageUidsAlreadyDownloaded file for the account or not a Mail.app problem?