Level 1

6 points

Yosemite OS 10.10 Mail Memory Leak

Since upgrading to Yosemite I have ran out of memory (MacMini, 16 Gbytes) three or four times. I have traced this to Mail.app. The trigger seems to be when you drag multiple files into the email to have them included. Then, the memory usage starts racing, eventually using up all free memory within seconds. The only way to recover is to use Force Quit from the Activity Monitor, normal Quit from within Mail does not work. See the attached screenshot. By the time I grabbed the screen shot and pressed Force Quit, it was already up to 17 Gbytes of Memory.

Has anyone else came across this problem?

User uploaded file

iPad 2

Posted on Oct 19, 2014 5:17 PM

326 replies

Old Toad

Level 10

218,112 points

Oct 27, 2014 12:14 PM in response to mswamp

Have you tried rebuilding all your mailboxes via the Mailbox ➙ Rebuild menu option? I was having different issues with Mail in Yosemite and the rebuild cleared it up.

Have you tried the fix posted here: [Guide] Solve Yosemite's memory leaks and CPU usage. - Apple (Mac ...

Oct 27, 2014 12:34 PM in response to mswamp

I have been having this problem as well. It seemed to be associated with Apple Mail. My work account is a Godaddy IMAP account. Using Window -> Activity in Mail I noticed that it seemed to stall continuously when accessing this account (not my other email accounts). So I spent some time going through Godaddy's (not so great) instructions on how to configure Apple Mail to see if there were any issues.

I noticed that Mail was configured to use the wrong port for an IMAP SSL connection. I changed it to the correct one (993) and (fingers crossed) the problem has not reoccurred so far. Checking this account for new mail does not cause the stall as it had previously.

Maybe this will help others in some cases.

Oct 28, 2014 2:35 AM in response to Old Toad

it was first thing i've tried

to be honest,it really happens only when attaching big size files or using new markup tool!so,there is a real feeling that "store drafts on server" causes the problem or just godaddy servers are not so good for such feature!

Oct 28, 2014 6:46 AM in response to mswamp

As suggested in one of the comments on this thread, I ran the mail app in safe mode (press and hold shift key, then open the mail app). For the last 10 minutes its been calm.

My mail app's RAM usage wasn't high before, what was high for me was kernel_task. I'm on a Mid 2011 MBA with Yosemite. 4GB RAM. Kernel_task at one point had 3.15GB or RAM occupied. Not fun to see the beach ball ....

If anyone has a permanent solution, please post. (Or repost if I missed it). I hope Apple updates this bug out of Yosemite soon.

etresoft

Level 9

58,946 points

Oct 28, 2014 7:06 AM in response to mdipresreyes

mdipresreyes wrote:

Kernel_task at one point had 3.15GB or RAM occupied. Not fun to see the beach ball ....

That looks like a different problem. Memory usage within the kernel is usually caused by kernel extensions. I suggest you start a new question and list all of your installed kernel extensions.

Oct 28, 2014 7:55 AM in response to etresoft

Thanks, Etresoft! Should I run this into the command line kextstat | grep -v com.apple ? Versus the lengthier result C-line of kextstat ....

Oct 28, 2014 8:11 AM in response to mswamp

OS X Yosemite RAM Issues - kernel_task

A new thread was made. FYI.

wal073

Level 1

0 points

Oct 28, 2014 8:21 AM in response to mswamp

My rule of not upgrading to the latest OS until at least 6 months is a golden rule which I will treasure. Seeing that there are already problems postpones my update to 1 year. Thanks to all of you,when I upgrade all these problems will have been ironed out.!

etresoft

Level 9

58,946 points

Oct 28, 2014 8:57 AM in response to wal073

wal073 wrote:

My rule of not upgrading to the latest OS until at least 6 months is a golden rule which I will treasure. Seeing that there are already problems postpones my update to 1 year. Thanks to all of you,when I upgrade all these problems will have been ironed out.!

Alas, that strategy was foiled by Apple. By the time you get ready to install Yosemite, Sequoia or whatever will be ready to install. And what are the chances that any of the fixes for Yosemite will go into that build instead of the new build, which will likely need new hardware for full functionality?

Oct 28, 2014 8:59 AM in response to Doren_Sean_Michael

Thank you Doren_Sean_Michael and etresoft for discovering the trick of disabling the "Store Draft Messages on Server" option for GoDaddy IMAP accounts!

I had tried all the other options in various combinations (zapping PRAM, rebuilding mailboxes, check mail every 5 minutes, safe boot, fsck - fy, etc.) and it seems (at least for my MacBook Pros) the single factor for stopping memory leak was disabling the storing of draft messages (only for) GoDaddy IMAP servers. It does not appear that my Google or iCloud IMAP accounts are involved.

You folks have saved me from pulling all my few remaining hairs out. Thank you, great detective work.

Oct 28, 2014 9:06 AM in response to rudedog_rules

Agreed - the *only* factor involved in this particular issue is saving drafts on a Godaddy server - making that singular change "fixes" the problem. My thanks to Doren, too.

etresoft

Level 9

58,946 points

Oct 28, 2014 9:34 AM in response to Steve Lidie

It may very well be specific to GoDaddy. That doesn't necessarily mean GoDaddy is doing something wrong. Apple has its own e-mail service and is big enough to start dictating how other people use "standard" e-mail protocols. This is standard procedure for all of the big players - Apple, Google, Microsoft. I used to think Apple was better than that, but I've lost a whole lot of confidence lately.

Oct 28, 2014 9:47 AM in response to etresoft

There was no implication as to a guilty party in my reply, only what most likely fixes the problem (Mail rapidly consuming large amounts of memory) from the user's (our) point of view.

nlesh

Level 1

22 points

Oct 28, 2014 10:19 AM in response to BraxDad

Same thing here tried all kinds of stuff. This is bad really really bad.

Oct 28, 2014 3:57 PM in response to Steve Lidie

The problem is absolutely, definitely, not isolated to GoDaddy email accounts. It happened to me, and I don't even use GoDaddy.

Doug

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Yosemite OS 10.10 Mail Memory Leak