Yosemite Mail still has sync problems with Gmail - any solutions?

Tom,

I'm pretty convinced that all of these symptoms are due to the fact that Apple Mail gets overwhelmed with work to do -- which is because it's endlessly syncing and re-syncing mailboxes needlessly. I experience the same thing with the blue "read" dot on occasion.

I mentioned in a previous message that I was going to be instructing Google to hide my huge mailboxes (ones with over 10K messages) from Apple Mail. After I did that, I deleted all of the "Envelope Index" files to that Mail would re-index everything. And, that has pretty much taken care of the problem. The "Activity" window now shows no activity for lengthy periods of time, unlikely previously when it was continuously re-syncing mailboxes that hadn't been touched in months.

So, it's not perfect, but it's much better. I now have about 120,000 messages in 35 different mailboxes. Before, when it was problematic, I had 600,000 messages in about 50 different mailboxes, with some of those mailboxes having more than 50,000 messages.

I'm thinking that the problem occurs when you have a large mailbox rather than a large number of messages, but I'm not 100% sure about that.

FJ9999, how do I find which index files to delete in order for Mail to re-index everything. Thanks.

Larry,

Basically, you go to ~/Library/Mail/V2/MailData and delete everything that begins with "Envelope Index." This article (step 2) explains it in more detail. Be sure to Quit Mail before doing that. To get to your user Library folder, choose the "Go" menu in Finder, hold down the Option key to see the "Library" option.

When you re-open Mail (after deleting those files, usually three of them), it will re-index all of your messages, which may take a few hours if you have a lot of mail. So, be prepared to wait for that process to happen.

Hope that helps!

Thanks!!

I have used Mail for several years with satisfaction. I bought a new iMac three months ago, it runs Yosemite while my other computer has Mavericks. Mail works well with Mavericks but has given me fits with Yosemite with Gmail and IMAP, mostly sync, send, and lost messages. My POP accounts seem to be OK. . I've tried many of the fixes suggested in this thread, to no avail, and could try more. However, I feel I bought something that should work without a lot of fiddling and decided to try alternatives.

I tried a few third party mail applications and settled on Airmail 2. It works well with my IMAP and POP accounts and seems especially tuned for Gmail folders and labels. Its user interface is different and takes getting used to. It is available on the App Store for $9.99. The current version is 2.1 which has better reviews than previous versions.

@fal4144 - over the years I've tried all email clients with my Gmail accounts, and none are perfect, especially Apple Mail. Everything you read in this thread is basically true, even if there are a few users who do not experience the issues. I feel they don't because they have a minimal amount of email messages so the sync problems don't manifest as they do with most of us.

Later this month a new dedicated Gmail client for Mac will launch in the MAS and I've been fortunate enough to have been using its preview version. It is amazing. I have absolutely nothing to do with it but you can read about it here - http://www.kiwiforgmail.com/

Doug,

I've used Gmail since it's inception, and I've also used "every" single browser-based app that works with it, such as Mailplane and others. While Mailplane isn't bad, it had enough issues for me to obtain a refund for problems the developer could not solve. I think you'll find Kiwi for Gmail is not at all the same as Mailplane, but only you'll be able to make that decision. For me...I'm hooked enough that I even moved my secondary email address to a Google Apps for Work account just so I could have it in Kiwi for Gmail. There is enough written on it thus far to show you where it's going, but unfortunately, due to embargoes, no one will be able to fully write about all it's features until after it launches in the MAS.

It is always dangerous to think a long standing problem has been fixed, at least until a few days have past, but as of the release of 10.10.4 yesterday, all the odd and annoying desktop Mail behaviors I have been experiencing have gone away. Desktop Mail now seems to be working as well as my iPhone Mail. Whew! I was just about ready to abandon Apple and go to a gMail client.

Doug,

I only have 1 gMail and 2 IMAP accounts. I didn't have crash problems, just very slow updates from gMail, long pauses on mail sends, and very glitchy UI behavior, like having to close the Mail window and reopen to get the blue dot "read" tags to update on the screen.

Although nothing was mentioned about Mail in the 10.10.4 update, clearly they did something that, at least, helped me (again.... so far...)

Good luck,

Tom

I have been using Airmail 2 for some months now. In addition to Gmail, I have Yahoo IMAP mail, another IMAP account, and 3 POP accounts. Everything just works. Airmail 2 is especially friendly with Gmail and you can even synchronize labels, this is more functionality than Mac Mail ever had.

Doug,

My problem is similar to others on this thread including yours. I cannot match the emails in my Apple Mail Inbox and Sent folders to those shown on my Gmail account Inbox and Gmail folders. I followed the procedure that you outlined to uninstall and reinstall the account. For a few minutes, I thought it did the trick, but it did not. When I created the new account, the number of emails in Apple Mail did not coincide with the number of emails in my Gmail account. So, I proceeded to go to the Library/Mail/Maildata and remove the Envelope files. It then rebuilt the files and everything came up fine. The emails in the Apple Mail Inbox and Sent folders exactly matched those in my Gmail account. I though I was home free. However, as soon as I quit the Apple Mail and reopened it, I was back where I started.

At that point, I, again, went to the Library and removed the Envelope files. This time, when I opened Apple Mail, I could watch the progress bar in Maill Activity as it showed, for example, that 7 emails were downloaded into the Inbox (which is the correct number of emails in the Gmail account). But, when I went to the Apple Mail Inbox, there were only 3. As far as the All Mail folder on Apple Mail is concerned, all of the correct number of emails have been downloaded and both Apple Mail and Gmail account match, so that is not the problem. I just cannot get Apple Mail and Gmail to match up in the Inbox and Sent folders.

I looked thru the Gmail Account and everything looks good there.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

I am using latest version of Yosemite on my iMac 27".