You can make a difference in the Apple Support Community!

When you sign up with your Apple Account, you can provide valuable feedback to other community members by upvoting helpful replies and User Tips.

Looks like no one’s replied in a while. To start the conversation again, simply ask a new question.

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

Reply
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Oct 19, 2014 7:52 PM

Since installing the last beta of Yosemite (the first I tried), I have had multiple instances of "Out of Application Memory." I've never had them before under any OS on my MacBookPro 15", Early 2011, 16 GB RAM. I chalked it up to "it's a beta," but since installing the final version today, the problem continues. Since I had to get some emails written, I just closed the other apps and left only Mail running. I soon get the same error and Mail becomes unresponsive. If I try a few times to unpause Mail, the computer itself will lock up and I have to reboot it. I'm watching my RAM usage and very soon after Mail is launched, available RAM quickly goes from around 13 GB down to around 100 MB, then I get the message. I reboot, launch only Mail and watch the same thing occur.

326 replies

Oct 22, 2014 10:17 AM in response to mswamp

Possible Workaround - Hi, Folks. Same issue here... but a possible workaround to try.


In your mail settings/general/check for new messages - change it from Automatic to an interval like 5 minutes.


At least for me, this seems to have helped the issue and mail memory has been stable and consistent for the last few hours.


Also, of those having a problem, how many are using IMAP GoDaddy accounts? My experience (and others too) is that Apple Mail has some odd issues with automatic retrieval of IMAP GoDaddy accounts and have had to do some workarounds there too. Wondering if we are experiencing a carryover issue now manifesting itself inside Yosemite as a memory glitch.

Oct 22, 2014 11:00 AM in response to ran4139

My Mail app is set up for 3 GoDaddy accounts, 1 Gmail and 1 iCloud account. I had been experiencing issues with the Gmail account, not being able to send mail until I changed the SMTP port. That being said, I only had a couple of emails (Gmail) in the Outbox waiting to be sent successfully.


The only "irregular" thing I had done that may have contributed was to email photos from iPhoto. The problem seemed to arise, possibly coincidentally, soon after that action. So far for the past day, I haven't experienced the problem.


Posting this issue on other forums, such as Macintouch (as I did), may also help get Apple's attention.

Oct 22, 2014 11:30 AM in response to mswamp

My mail is set up with 1- Gmail, 1- from my .com account and 1 - from my internet provider. Seems the most trouble is from my .com and Gmail accounts. My upgrade was from Mountain Lion.


Changed my preferences to settings/general/check for new messages - change it from Automatic to an interval like 15 minutes. So far so good but have not tried sending anything yet.

Oct 22, 2014 1:16 PM in response to mswamp

I've tried the "shift-start" method of starting Mail and have changed my settings to check for mail every 5 minutes instead of automatic. Still eventually getting the memory leak. The latest addition to the problem is - if I am able to quit mail before the system freezes - when I try to re-start mail the icon just bounces and it won't restart. The system thinks it is started, however, but when trying to force quit it won't quit. It won't let me re-start because it says Mail is still open. It doesn't matter how many times I try to force quit and how long I wait - nada. I then have to quit everything else and hold the power button to force the machine to shut down. Then a restart and all is well until it happens again after anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour.


This latest time everything was fine, and I was working on an e-mail. I glanced at activity monitor and mail had shot up to 60.4GB of memory usage. Not sure what to do, but this is getting really old and Apple needs to chime in on this. My current fix is to use AirMail instead of Apple Mail - I have no problems then (but I'm not a fan of AirMail over Apple Mail for various reasons).

Oct 22, 2014 1:22 PM in response to BraxDad

Me too, just tested, switching to 5 minute intervals from Automatic did not fix the issue for me. But I have run another test by disabling my GoDaddy account so only my iCloud account was using Mail and for, at least, 60min it seemed to be ok. This is only partially good news because my GoDaddy account is my business account and I can't run my business without it.

Yosemite OS 10.10 Mail Memory Leak

Welcome to Apple Support Community
A forum where Apple customers help each other with their products. Get started with your Apple Account.