HT205579: About the OS X El Capitan v10.11.2 Update
Learn about About the OS X El Capitan v10.11.2 Update
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Dec 16, 2015 7:53 AM in response to juneann10by Linc Davis,The new version of Mail stores its database in a different format than the old one, so the database has to be converted before Mail can use it. Sometimes the conversion fails because the old database is corrupt, or because of a bug in the conversion code.
What you should do depends on what kind of mail accounts you have.
If you know that you have IMAP or Exchange mail accounts only
The easy way to recover is to discard the old database and start afresh. You can do that without losing any messages, provided that:
☞ All your incoming mail accounts are on an IMAP or Exchange server
☞ You store sent messages on the server
☞ You don't have any "On My Mac" mailboxes
Most well-known independent mail services such as iCloud and Gmail are based on IMAP. On the other hand, ISP-hosted mail services often use POP. If your ISP is one of your mail service providers (or the only one), you may not be able to use this procedure. See the section below in that case.
If you know that the conditions above are satisfied, please continue as follows.
Quit Mail if it's running. Back up all data.
Open the Internet Accounts pane in System Preferences. Make a note of the settings for each Exchange or IMAP account, then delete the account. The messages will remain on the server. Leave the preference pane open.
Open the Library folder in your home folder by holding down the option key and selecting
Go ▹ Library
from the Finder menu bar. Inside it is a subfolder named "Mail." Move that folder to the Desktop. You're not moving the Mail application; you're moving a folder named "Mail."
In the Internet Accounts pane, recreate your mail accounts other than iCloud with the same settings as before. To recreate an iCloud mail account, open the iCloud preference pane and check the box marked Mail.
Launch Mail. If all goes well, your mailboxes should be restored automatically. The messages will be downloaded from the servers, so it may take a long time if you have very large mailboxes. Some people have mailboxes in the gigabyte range, and that may be a problem if your bandwidth usage is metered.
If the mailboxes are created successfully, you can delete the folder you moved to the Desktop. You may have to recreate your Mail rules, signatures, and custom stationery. If it's very important to you not to have to do all that, ask for instructions before deleting the folder.
If you have POP or "On My Mac" mailboxes, or if you don't know what you have
This discussion is a good example of how to recover from the error. Some details, such as the names of mailboxes, will be different in your case, but the technique should be the same.