Lag in Typing in Yosemite's Mail w/ External Apple Keyboard

The way Yosemite (and Mavericks, I think) handles memory differs from past OS versions. Here's how I understand it:

It deliberately tries to keep RAM in use. There's no advantage to the user to have free memory if the OS can free up memory when needed.

That may be what you're seeing in Mail.

As to the second-by-second ratchet, that could be caching the current version of the e-mail you're composing. Once you send the e-mail, Mail will no longer keep caching, but won't automatically release the memory. Once Mail is in the background, and you set up a memory demand with another app, the OS takes care of that.

The Memory Pressure graph at the bottom of the Activity Monitor window tells you much more than the amount of memory any give app is using at a point in time.

For example, as I type this, AM shows 32 GB physical memory and 31.4 GB used. All I'm doing is typing in Safari. There are no bad effects of this behavior that I've ever heard of. Some users are uncomfortable with this, but then some users are uncomfortable with "flat" traffic-light buttons on windows.

I certainly don't see the text-display lag on any regular interval. I've watched and done screen recordings, and can't relate it to when a draft is saved or cached to iCloud (for Handoff).

For me, at least, the problem is so intermittent that I can't reliably demonstrate it even to myself. Sometimes I can type for paragraphs, sometimes Mail just stops displaying text after a few words.

Excellent observations and thank you for your help. I never had the Auto Detect and Maintain feature on in the Mail preferences. I did follow your steps and I'm hoping the lag comes less frequently. I would have to agree with you about the Memory Leak as I notice it while using other apps. I use Adobe InDesign and notice slow redraw issues that made me think it was a Memory Leak. I always have Mail turned on. I also get the spinning beach ball a lot and it has surprised me because I thought buying a new Mac would be faster than my old 2007 24-inch iMac.

iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, Late 2014)

16 GB Memory

Veeeeerrrryyyy interesting reading:

http://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/mac-experts-weigh-in-os-x-quality-is-decl ining?utm_source=macobserver&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rss_everything

ugh, thought it was something about the mail lag. otherwise, just more words. yosemite for me is awesome, EXCEPT for the mail issue. (your mileage may vary)...

fisherKing wrote:

ugh, thought it was something about the mail lag. otherwise, just more words. yosemite for me is awesome, EXCEPT for the mail issue. (your mileage may vary)...

I think the article(s) noted in The Mac Observer are *very much* about the Mail lag and, more specifically the general software instability many, many people, including some of the biggest "Apple fan boy" journalists are currently experiencing. If you want a fairly detailed list, see Glenn Fleishman's post here:

http://glog.glennf.com/blog/2015/1/6/the-software-and-services-apple-needs-to-fi x

I agree 110% - Apple's software QA department is asleep at the wheel - many of Yosemite's heralded features don't work reliably enough for them to have been released to the wild... yet.

That said, I continue to try to use Mail in 10.10.1 and I'm really finding the Command-S keystroke comes in handy. If I'm in a situation where I've typed something and it hasn't appeared on screen yet, Command-S seems to snap Mail out of it's stupor.

I've also downloaded and started using Thunderbird a bit. I miss the Markup feature in Apple Mail, but for text-only email, Thunderbird works quite well.

Kirk out

Dumb question: Are people on this forum able to reply to the email notifications or is it required to come back here to the web interface to post a reply? I have (obviously) been doing the latter.

Kirk out

i always come back to the thread to post. i've never had an issue with OS X where someone didn't find a fix, or at least a workaround. i keep promising to migrate (temporarily) to Postbox, but...haven't yet. as these things go, i'll spend a half a day on it and THEN there will be a fix (come to think of it, maybe that's a way to bring a fix forward)... 😀

Yes fisherKing, please take one for the team. I'll get Murphy on the line...

Testing. I’m replying to this comment via email to see if it ends up in the web conversation.

Kirk out

and there it is...

So yes, you *can* reply to the notification emails and the text will be parsed into the web-based discussion. Most of you probably already knew what - sorry for the extra bandwidth.

Like.

Kirk out

I didn't know this. It'd be handy.

But when I tried a response it didn't work. Do you have to be logged in? I get logged out after a few minutes.

I’ve been away from my machine all afternoon (several hours) and I am definitely not logged in. Let’s see if this reply gets posted in the discussion.

Kirk out

Can you tell us what you actually do to make this work? Maybe I'm just doing it wrong.

we've established that this is a yosemite/mail issue? i've never seen it until 10.10. but i JUST got a call from someone i work with; she described the same lag...only she's running 10.7.5. anyone? anyway, i will be there tomorrow, and will check it out. just surprised, since she's on a much-earlier OS...