Using Snow Leopard (10.6.8) my Mail program is using 100% of my CPU when getting mail according to Activity Monitor. It is also very slow. I've tried rebuilding mailboxes, checked account settings, and removing (and putting back) the mail plist. Nothing has helped. Is this "normal"? Please advise if you have had any success with this issue.
I'm using a 2009 MacBook with 4 GB Ram.
MacBook, Mac OS X (10.5.8)
Quit Mail. Try moving /Home/Library/Preferences/com.apple.mail.plist file to the Desktop. Then delete /Home/Library/Caches/com.apple.mail/ folder. Restart Mail.
Quit Mail. Try moving /Home/Library/Preferences/com.apple.mail.plist file to the Desktop. Then delete /Home/Library/Caches/com.apple.mail/ folder. Restart Mail.
Kappy, I tried your suggestions. Now when I open Mail, I don't see any of my current accounts. I see an old ME account (mobile me) only, which I never have used. Where should I go from here - put the plist back? Need to restore mail from my current accounts. Any ideas?
Thank you.
Yes, go ahead and put it back. First, quit Mail. But did you check to see if the original problem was fixed?
I first put the plist back and opened Mail - still showed only the Mobile Me account. Then restored the folder to the Caches and I'm back to where I started. I have 3 mail accounts, none of which are the Mobile Me one. I didn't check to see if the Mobile Mee account had the same problem - I was afraid to do much.
Is it normal for Mail to use 100% of CPU?
Thank you for your patience.
No, that is not normal. You can try rebuilding each of your mailboxes in each of the accounts. Or if they are all IMAP accounts, then you can try deleting them from Mail and then re-creating them. As IMAP accounts this should not affect the data which is on the mail servers. Make a backup first, just in case something goes wrong.
I have rebuilt the mailboxes. Just changed how long messages are kept on the server. I'll see if that makes a difference. Only one of the accounts are IMAP (gmail). The other two are POP.
Still a mystery.....
Try this:
Create a new user account with admin status. Log out of this account and log into the new account. Open Mail then check to see if the CPU usage has dropped. If it has then re-create your IMAP account. All the account data should download from the IMAP server. Check again to see if CPU usage is still back to normal. If it all seems OK, then quit Mail.
Now, you will need to transfer your files from the old user account to this new one: Transferring files from one User Account to another.
Thanks Kappy. I don't think I have the confidence to try your latest suggestion to create a new account. I appreciate your help though.
Mail CPU usage
