Q: Mavericks Mail not sync'ing IMAP act. (Not GMail)

Hello amblue,

I fully endorse your views/comments. I too have migrated form Windows environment 18 months ago, and Apple is a huge improvement. But Apple Mail with Mavericks is indeed broken...

I have taken a similar route, but not with Thurderbird (which I haven't tried) but with Airmail. It too works exactly as it should with my 3 gmail IMAP accounts. I love it - and there are some aspects of it that are much better than Apple Mail (apart from the fact that it functions correctly).

I am still monitoring Apple Mail in the background... out of interest. It works fine for long periods of time, but then has a 'bad day'. Just for fun I set one of my gmail accounts with 'all-mail' checked recently, and left the other 2 accounts with it 'unchecked'. The changed account did some verty strange things for a few hours in Apple Mail, but then settled down to perform ok. And one of the other accounts, left with all-mail 'unchecked' is now losing count of opened emails! It clearly isn't a simple problem.

But Airmail is correct, on all accounts, all of the time, whatever the 'all-mail' setting. (Much as your Thunderbird seems to be). So I can rely on it.

This clearly isn't a simple problem for Apple, but I hope they get to the bottom of it soon, or even eventually.

Thanks Tonyc19v.  Glad you are having success w Airmail.  I echo your sentiments, just so surprising that in the Post-Jobs era a mission critical app like Mail could go broken for so long.  Good luck w Airmail.

I have a workaround. Annoying, but it works. Use the following script whenever you want to force a sync:

tell application "Mail"

          set myAccounts to name of every account

          repeat with myAccount in myAccounts

                    tell imap account myAccount

                              try

                                        if enabled then

                                                  set enabled to false

                                                  set enabled to true

                                        end if

                              end try

                    end tell

          end repeat

end tell

If you want this happening automatically, say every 5 minutes, extend the above script as follows, and save it as an application with the option to keep it running:

on idle

tell application "Mail"

  set myAccounts to name of every account

  repeat with myAccount in myAccounts

  tell imap account myAccount

  try

  if enabled then

  set enabled to false

  set enabled to true

  end if

  end try

  end tell

  end repeat

end tell

return 300

end idle

I've been having this problem for awhile now as well and have recently made a change that I think has helped and hopefully more of you can confirm the same success (assuming you have similar setups).

I own a MacBook Pro, iPhone, and iPad – all configured to check my IMAP mail at GoDaddy. I recently set my iPhone and iPad to "manually" check mail as opposed to "fetch". I close the Mail app on both devices while I'm at my computer and my mail retrieval seems to be MUCH improved. I don't have much more than a few days with this setup but so far so good.

The following script works in a more transparent way (it willnot periodically put your accounts offline). It works for me.

on idle

          if application "Mail" is running then

                    tell application "Mail"

                              repeat until (background activity count) = 0

                                        delay 10

                              end repeat

                              tell application "System Events" to tell process "Mail"

                                        set theMenu to menu "Mailbox" of menu bar 1

                                        if enabled of menu item "Take All Accounts Offline" of theMenu then

                                                  try

                                                            click menu item "Take All Accounts Offline" of theMenu

                                                  end try

                                                  repeat until enabled of menu item "Take All Accounts Online" of theMenu

                                                  end repeat

                                                  try

                                                            click menu item "Take All Accounts Online" of theMenu

                                                  end try

                                        end if

                              end tell

                    end tell

          end if

          return 300

end idle

Dear Yankee,

I think you are on the right track. The "fetch" issues too many requests to the IMAP server and with multiple devices from the same IP-address hitting the same user-ID the maximum number of connections is exceeded. I reduced my handheld devices and the problem got (slightly) better on one email account. The other account (with a different provider) was blocked several times a day due to suspected DoS attack because too many requests were coming from my 4 devices (and also from icloud?), after I removed two of them (and icloud!) the problem with this provider was gone.

For my iphone I disabled the WiFi at home (and thus it was now hitting the IMAP server from a different IP-address via the mobile phone network) and the problem immediately stopped on this device.

I am also having this problem and its very fristerating. Outlook 2011 works like a charm however. Overall its the superior client but Mail does have a few advantages.

Hey! So I tried changing setting in gmail because that is where my email is stored and I think the below settings corrected everything. I think the problem is acutally gmail not apple. Make sure you sync in your mail account too before you even make any changes.

Yogie2010, this solution seems to work for me. Although I tried having Gmail "archive" instead of "move to the trash" in the 3rd setting there.

I found that my Gmail IMAP settings (located in Settings on the Gmail website) had limited IMAP folders to 1,000.  By selecting "Do not limit..." I was able to download my mailbox's history.  Thanks yogie.

anyone tried this:

https://discussions.apple.com/message/25550621#25550621

i have and all my counts are now correct. i know its not 'core' problem but the count thing is sort of linked to the issues being recieved...

this has worked for me...

I've been a mac user for a long time. Their software seems to be slipping a bit. Why the heck do I have to rebuild my mailboxes all the time for IMAP to work?

APPLE PLEASE NOTE: Email is one of the OLDEST pieces of the internet. You look REALLY bad here.

I fought with this for two weeks before I found a solution. Create a new account following these instructions. Substitute the server names and ports you need to set up your account. Don't add "mail." to the server name unless that is really part of the server's name. There's something weird about having to use the email address as a user name that this fixes. Good Luck.

I have the same problems with my IMAP GoDaddy email on my macbook pro (2009) OS 10.8.5, apple mail 6.6 (1510). I never had this problem with 10.6.8. I recently upgraded my os so thought maybe that was the problem.

Email syncs eventually but chuncks of them are about 12-18 hours behind. iPhone, iPad sync perfectly and immediately. Strangely, if I send a test, I will receive it, but all the emails that should've come in for the previous 12 hours haven't synced yet.

Incidentally, I have another GoDaddy IMAP account that syncs just fine in apple mail.

GoDaddy says it's not their problem if the email is sending and receiving online.

Apple says it's GoDaddy's problem.

A very simple solution if you have 2-step verification turned on in Gmail: you need to make sure that your passwords are taken from the 2-step verification code, not from your normal Google accounts password, and you need to have this saved in three places:

1. System Preferences/Internet Accounts: Google settings/ Details/ (password)

2. Mail App Accounts/ Account information (password)

3. Mail App Accounts/  SMTP outgoing server settings/Advanced (password)

That should solve your issues.