Mail constantly downloading messages

I have the same problem but only with my GoDaddy email account. I wonder if this has something to do with the GoDaddy's server itself rather than the app

I may be totally wrong here, but after struggeling alot with this problem and IMAP server connection failure + Mail crashes I

would suggest you try to UN-check the IDLE function, and change setting in the "Look for mail" to "every minute"

instead of automatic. More here: Recurring IMAP connection errors

My problems are solved now thanks to the combination of deleting V2 and V3 completely and unchecking the IDLE function.

It just works now. No zillions of emails non stop downloading, no server disconnection, no Mail crashes. 3 days and counting...

@Maksoud - I was having problems with a GoDaddy account too, but I had several other GoDaddy accounts on the same computer which worked fine. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I solved the problem by deleting both the V2 and V3 files and all mail plists and re-creating all my accounts from scratch.

@henkony - I think that setting "Look for Mail" to "every minute" may be counterproductive. I seem to recollect reading when I had the same problem several years ago that it could be caused by checking mail too frequently. If the client checks for mail before the previous download is completed, this can cause a synch problem which will precipitate a re-synchi.

My current settings are to check Mail manually only and IDLE is on. I seem to get mail fine now without having to check mail. The IDLE command pushes mail from the server instead of the mail transfer being initiated by the client.

@maksoud: I do not have a GoDaddy account, just an IMAP account, and I do have the problems.

@john: I will try your suggestion this week, when I am connected to the server (at my work) via an ethernet cable. Otherwise I will saturate the wifi connection at home when Mail wants to download all emails again.

@John Strung - You might be right regarding the first run after re-build, in that case I would still test to uncheck IDLE and set to get mail manually to make sure download first is completed before any new get-mail attempts are made. Could be worth at least trying...

The IDLE on is definitely a problem for me and my IMAP host (one.com). Been using IDLE on prior to El Capitan without any problems. Ever.

As soon as I turn IDLE on now, I get random server disconnections (every hour), weird everlasting connection attempts often followed by Mail crashes 7-10 times a day.

What I understand, In Capitan, Apple has changed the security protocol around IMAP, and it looks like many external hosts have a problem with this?

In my case it seems to be working perfect when Mail is making the request (IDLE OFF) - and not working when my IMAP server is poking Mail (IDLE ON)

So I'm just saying: Total re-build and IDLE off was the solution for for me.

Hope you guys soon find a work-around! Even better: Hope Apple is fixing it. Soon!

I also do NOT have a go daddy account... just one .mac and two .gmail

I still have this problem

I too have the issue. I've rebuilt, deleted etc. and it hasn't fixed it. It doesn't do it on my MBP but does on my iMac, both running the same OS version, both set up for identical accounts.

It's driving me nuts - I see it reporting that it is downloading 5 messages or so, for an hour; the messages are already downloaded sometimes and often other messages have downloaded since. Sometimes it gets a bit better but ultimately comes back. Mail is sucking up masses of CPU cycles doing absolutely nothing and obviously that affects other apps.

Apple appear to be ignoring, or unaware of the issue and/or this thread.

OK, so I just fixed this after having another look at it. As ever, YMMV and it could come back again but right now it has immediately sorted it for me. Basically, I have Avast Security (Free) installed. I disabled the mail protection in the prefs and quit mail. I then fired Mail up again and it downloaded a load of "stuck" messages, then the activity viewers no longer showed it constantly downloading mail.

If this is simply coincidence, then maybe it will all go pear shaped again shortly but for now it seems OK. There are a bunch of options within Avast to control what it does with Mail but I'm too buy right now to do a load of testing to see which one, if any, is the issue. Either way, it seems fine right now. I'll report back if it falls back into old ways.

Interestingly, Mail's behaviour has changed. Instead of being stuck, the activity/status window still shows it checking and then reports "no new messages", then closes the connection as it should. It does check really often though, and it's supposed to be getting messages pushed through - Weird.

For those of you who don't have Avast, I hope you manage to sort this. It is worth checking to see if you have any Mail extensions installed, especially from old installations or anything else which might somehow interact with Mail, I suppose.

Hi John:

Are things still working fine after a few days? I tried your suggestion but it did not work for me (too bad...) It may be that I did not delete all the plist files that you deleted cause I am not sure which ones are those... Anyhow, thanks for the advice.

Mariano

It is still working fine.

I gave up on this. Downloaded the mail app PostBox for 15 bucks. It's actually pretty great and has lots of very handy features. I'm going to use this until I find out Mail is fixed, or at this rate I may just be a convert.

I've not experienced the problem until I upgraded to El Capitan and, after what I thought was a flawless upgrade, found that Mail was (seemingly) endlessly downloading messages that didn't seem to actually materialise. The counter went mysteriously from 10 up to 10,000 and Mail "unexpectedly quit" on three or four occasions.

I took all of my accounts offline and then brought my iCloud email back online and Mail behaved as expected (no constant downloading). When I took that offline again and bought my virginmedia account online, the counter problems started again. A third email account behaved as expected. So that narrows it down to the virginmedia account. I don't use the account much - it is a mandatory email account from my broadband supplier - so I deleted it from Mail preferences and set it up again from scratch. It now works as expected and the constant downloading issues appears to have resolved.

So, for me, deleting a mail account and reinstalling it in Mail seems to work. Appreciate that might be a step too far for those of you with really big mailboxes (and I wouldn't have liked to have deleted my iCloud account) but it does seem to resolve the issue and suggests that there is something in the email account settings that is going wrong. Possibly a minor tweak to the mail app between OSX releases?

Hope this helps

Hi all

Just in case this helps anyone - for me i had a continuous "downloading new messages" stopping and starting all the time, when there were definitely no new messages, but luckily i didn't have the huge log files problem or particularly bad CPU usage (although Mail would crash almost every day), so was reluctant to try some of the more drastic fixes suggested like deleting the Mail folder or all the accounts...

So to try and isolate which account it was i disabled them all, quit Mail and then re-enabled them all one by one, and somehow the symptom didn't return (yet 😉)

So, that might be worth trying as a first step as it's non destructive and quite easy (using the "Enable this account" checkbox on the account settings in Mail Preferences).

HTH

This issue started for me a few days ago and even the Apple representative I spoke with on the phone had not heard of the issue. Thanks to this thread, I managed to fix the issue.

1. Remove the mail account from all devices using the mail account. Close mail on macbook or mac mini or mac pro. I have three accounts all using IMAP but only one has many thousands of messages so I only removed that one. Also make sure you haven't exhausted your allowed space for mail with your email provider.

2. Delete V2 and V3 mail folders. HD > Users > USER_NAME > Library > Mail > V2/V3

3. Disable Mail from your iCloud settings. This was the missing step from other messages that finally got it working for me.

4. Setup mail on your desktop machine (macbook, min, pro, etc.) Let it go through the recovery process that it wants to and then through the mail app enable the account again.

5. Turn off IDLE while messages are downloading. Mail > Preferences > Accounts > Advanced Tab > Bottom Checkbox.

6. Add email accounts to other devices again. When adding to non iOS devices, make sure you do the same process.

Let the entire messages downloading process happen and then it wont keep downloading. Im on about three days without any issues.

I'm having the constantly downloading mail messages in Mail - Window - Activity. Tens and over a hundred thousand if I let Mail run. But these messages aren't going anywhere that I can see. It only happens on my MacBook Pro - early 2011 - since moving up to El Capitan. It's not happening on any other Apple computers nor iPhone - one desktop on El Capitan is running POP and the other on 10.6.8 is on IMAP as my MacBook Pro is. I'm reluctant to move my second recent iMac over to IMAP in case it starts doing this there as well. Should I try re-installing El Capitan? I have TimeMachine running.