Mavericks: Mail uses 100% cpu

Also have high CPU utilization on Apple mail after upgrade to mavericks. It is so bad, that I don't use Apple mail; instead, I'm using the trial verions of PostBox, hoping that Apple fixes the problem with an update before I have to pay for PostBox! (I use my Gmail account with PostBox and Apple mail.)

Would love to have my mail app back!

fwiw . . . a few months ago, I unplugged Safari due to performance, went to Chrome, where I still am.

fwiw . . . a few days ago, upgraded to Mavericks new Pages . . . Two-Up view gone, Recent Files gone at template chooser, . . . .

seems to be a trend where every recent update from Apple results in reduced function. I hope I have an overactive imagination, but I don't think so!

Hi,

Same Issue, really boring I have to close mail to work on something else

Very same issue since I upgraded to Maverick (new install) + Mail 1.0 upgrade ... now Mail.app always around 100% CPU ... cannot afford to have it run all the time (battery, heat/fan noise) ... ????

Hi

I deactivated the iCloud Contact sync. Seems that there was a loop between iCloud and my Google contacts.

Its much better now

bye

I am having a similar problem on my Mac Pro. It came to a head today when an error message popped up telling me I was out of RAM. I have 32GB of RAM and was only using Finder to sort files while listening to some music in VLC. I had Mail open at the time.

I have noticed that recently (I would say from the time I upgraded to Mavericks) Mail has taken ages to simply launch, maybe 3-5 minutes, while sucking RAM. I have watched its usage in Activity Monitor, and it goes from ~200MB to 13GB when loading and shutting down. 13GB!

Actually, the first time I explored the usage in Activity Monitor, it wasn't mail that was sucking the RAM, but kernal_task. It was using somewhere around 20GB. Craziness...

I thought that maybe my large amount of saved emails was causing a slow load time, so I cleared out my mailbox by about half or more, but I am still having the problem.

Even as I type this, I am watching the RAM usage climb from 2GB to 4GB, then drop back down to 170MB. What's going on?

I found an article in the internet

http://www.macbeginner.de/mail-app-ueber-100-prozent-cpu-usage-15063.html

which seem to help improve the situation ... I am down to below 40%

For those who can't speak German, here an attempt for translation:

1. Close Mail.app
2. Log off user and log in again (or reboot) ... make sure you have the option "Reopen running programs" deactivated.
3. Open finder and go to “~/Library/Mail/V2/MailData/"
4. Delete all file(s) within this folder of which names begin with "Envelope" (especially "Envelope Index"). Make sure you empty trash bin (and if you can't delete these files, this means Mail.app is still running somehow ... logout again!).
5. Reopen Mail.app .... Program will now re-create the mailbox index again, which can take some time depending on size of mailbox(es).
6. done!

Good luck!

Update:

CPU is now below 5% .... it really fixed the problem.

@Conpuerus,

give yourself another 24h .... it seems like spotlight is creating and updating some index files .... it will eventually drop to the low level .... at least this is how it happend on my machine.

Deleting and rebuilding my envelope files may have helped a bit, but I still have the same basic problem. For my Gmail accounts, Mail is repeatedly synchronizing all Gmail/IMAP folders. In my case, that uses a lot of resources. It's Mail using the CPU, and I can see what's happening by displaying the Activity window in mail.

My Acitivity window apparently shows something similar: repeatedly building and syncing. I deleted the Envelope files, and the Activity still going crazy, high CPU and high Disk usage. Abandoning Mail again.

Tried deleting the envelope files. Thought it worked for a few days but then I noticed Mail was still devouring RAM at startup. And it still takes a few minutes to load.

Same here: after deleting envelope files (not waiting day, however) Mail hogged CPU and Disk. Removed Mail from my dock and daily life until Apple or google provide a remedy. Now on second day of trial version of MailPlane, since I don't need mail on my hard drive. Mailplane working nicely, my MacBook Pro is snappy again.

Deleting the envelope index files and reindexing the messages did not help in my case. 6 hours later, CPU usage by Mail is still at 100% - independently of whether there is a network connection or not. With network connection the activity window provides no indication that Gmail/IMAP folders are repeatedly synchronized. There is also no indication that spotlight is updating index files, as md* processes are close to 0 % CPU usage.

Sampling the Mail process for 3 seconds with 1 millisecond of run time between samples (1984 samples in total), shows where the time is used:

1984 RunCurrentEventLoopInMode (in HIToolbox) + 226 [0x7fff8c04af0d]

1984 CFRunLoopRunSpecific (in CoreFoundation) + 309 [0x7fff88895275]

1607 __CFRunLoopRun (in CoreFoundation) + 1525 [0x7fff88895aa5]

! 1607 __CFRunLoopDoTimers (in CoreFoundation) + 298 [0x7fff8894b76a]

! 1607 __CFRunLoopDoTimer (in CoreFoundation) + 1151 [0x7fff888da25f]

! 1607 __CFRUNLOOP_IS_CALLING_OUT_TO_A_TIMER_CALLBACK_FUNCTION__ (in CoreFoundation) + 20 [0x7fff888da724]

! 1603 __NSFireDelayedPerform (in Foundation) + 333 [0x7fff8ea07c57]

! : 1124 ??? (in Mail) load address 0x106003000 + 0x8c7f2 [0x10608f7f2]

! : | 944 ??? (in Mail) load address 0x106003000 + 0x8d5e4 [0x1060905e4]

! : | + 431 ??? (in Mail) load address 0x106003000 + 0x17d31b [0x10618031b]

! : | + ! 424 ??? (in Mail) load address 0x106003000 + 0xdaa83 [0x1060dda83]

! : | + ! : 424 ??? (in Mail) load address 0x106003000 + 0xdad6b [0x1060ddd6b]

! : | + ! : 85 ??? (in Mail) load address 0x106003000 + 0xdafc1 [0x1060ddfc1]

I'm afraid there is no other option than hoping for further bugfixes from Apple...

It is a great shame that Apple's quality control did not discover the severe errors in an application that is so important for many customers. Did Apple's business administration, while pushing for quick solutions, prevail against engineers? Well-known high-tech companies have perished from this (epidemic) disease.

works for me and my mid 2010 iMac. according to one the later posts in this thread I still have to wait a couple of days before realy raising the flag, but still, today I'm happy :-D

Thnx!!