Tom Kramer

Q: Mail slow after Sierra upgrade

Since my upgrade to Sierra, Mail has been slow in loading messages.  Before, when I selected a message in mail it would appear almost instantly in the viewer allowing me to quickly go through the mail with either the arrow or delete key. Now when a message is selected it takes a second or two for the message to appear in the viewer.  Really annoying.  Anyone have any ideas?

 

Thanks, Tom

MacBook Pro, macOS Sierra (10.12), 500GB SSD

Posted on Sep 30, 2016 1:04 PM

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Q: Mail slow after Sierra upgrade

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  • by John Galt,

    John Galt John Galt Sep 30, 2016 1:55 PM in response to Tom Kramer
    Level 9 (50,379 points)
    Mac OS X
    Sep 30, 2016 1:55 PM in response to Tom Kramer

    I can understand how that would be annoying. I suggest rebuilding the Mailbox, or all Mailboxes, according to the following: Mail for Mac: Rebuild mailboxes.

     

    It will take a few moments to complete, depending on the total number of messages in those Mailboxes. Until it finishes, it's normal to see the contents of Mail's message preview column flash or briefly disappear as it rebuilds the message database. Mail's operation will also be slow until it finishes.

     

    It would be prudent to back up your Mac prior to doing that, but if rebuilding a Mailbox causes any email messages to be deleted they were probably not recoverable anyway. I recommend backing up in this particular circumstance only in an abundance of caution, but it's something everyone ought to be doing.

  • by Tom Kramer,

    Tom Kramer Tom Kramer Oct 4, 2016 1:24 PM in response to John Galt
    Level 1 (34 points)
    Mac OS X
    Oct 4, 2016 1:24 PM in response to John Galt

    Thanks John,  I did the rebuild but nothing changed.  I might try to delete the account and add it back in.  Either that or live with it and see if an update fixes it. 

     

    Tom

  • by John Galt,

    John Galt John Galt Oct 4, 2016 1:28 PM in response to Tom Kramer
    Level 9 (50,379 points)
    Mac OS X
    Oct 4, 2016 1:28 PM in response to Tom Kramer

    Are you using any non-Apple "anti-virus" software? Trusteer "Rapport" or any similarly categorized product?

  • by Tom Kramer,

    Tom Kramer Tom Kramer Oct 4, 2016 1:49 PM in response to John Galt
    Level 1 (34 points)
    Mac OS X
    Oct 4, 2016 1:49 PM in response to John Galt

    No. Not since system 7.  Macs don't get viruses.

  • by John Galt,

    John Galt John Galt Oct 4, 2016 2:38 PM in response to Tom Kramer
    Level 9 (50,379 points)
    Mac OS X
    Oct 4, 2016 2:38 PM in response to Tom Kramer

    If the accounts are IMAP or Exchange accounts you can certainly delete them, and re-enable them using Internet Accounts. If they are POP you need to save your emails before deleting the account, assuming you don't want to lose those emails.

     

    I don't know if that will fix the problem though.

  • by Ouzone,

    Ouzone Ouzone Oct 7, 2016 1:48 AM in response to Tom Kramer
    Level 1 (8 points)
    Mac OS X
    Oct 7, 2016 1:48 AM in response to Tom Kramer

    Same problem here - And Mail is not the only app that has performance issues!

     

    I have no intention to delete my mail accounts and then re-create them. Mainly because I will lose my sent mail - or at least it's possible to lose the link between the original message and the response. That is not a solution for this. Rebuilding mailboxes would be a solution, if it would work. But it did not help and it has similar disadvantages.

     

    Why do I feel that every recent Mac OS update should be a clean install?

     

    My solution: Take a day off and reset everything! That's the way to do it - or buy a new mac

     

    But seriously, I would love to see a real solution for this - or a quick fix update for Sierra.

  • by sakaguchinet,

    sakaguchinet sakaguchinet Oct 10, 2016 12:44 PM in response to Tom Kramer
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Mac OS X
    Oct 10, 2016 12:44 PM in response to Tom Kramer

    Same issue here. After upgrading to 10.12 the mail app got very slow. And it is only the mail app. Almost all actions done within mail are taking some several seconds.

    Switching (by clicking) between different mailboxes e.g. Inbox takes about 10sec. Opening one Email takes about 2 sec.

    I do have about 100.000 Emails in all my boxes. With 10.11 everything was fine and reacting within 1 sec.

     

    Rebuilding the mailbox did not bring any improvement.

     

    My system: MacBook Pro Retina 15" (Late 2012).

  • by Tom Kramer,

    Tom Kramer Tom Kramer Oct 10, 2016 1:14 PM in response to sakaguchinet
    Level 1 (34 points)
    Mac OS X
    Oct 10, 2016 1:14 PM in response to sakaguchinet

    Yes, it's only the mail app, though switching between mail boxes seems normal.  My problem seems to be only in my icloud account which is my main account and contains thousands of emails.  My gmail account, which I rarely use, works normally, displaying the message almost instantly.  Seems like this may be related to having a lot of emails in the account.  I'm going to wait to see if an update fixes this. If not, then I might delete the account or add it back in or maybe reinstall the OS.

  • by Ouzone,

    Ouzone Ouzone Oct 12, 2016 6:03 AM in response to Ouzone
    Level 1 (8 points)
    Mac OS X
    Oct 12, 2016 6:03 AM in response to Ouzone

    Replying is also SUPER slow.

  • by pfriedel,

    pfriedel pfriedel Oct 13, 2016 8:38 AM in response to Tom Kramer
    Level 1 (14 points)
    Oct 13, 2016 8:38 AM in response to Tom Kramer

    My inbox is the antithesis of inbox zero (40,000 read messages and counting), but it seems to help if I apply the unread filter.  It feels like Mail is going into an expensive inbox display re-threading after every deleted message, but if I limit the view to only a few messages, it seems to be a bit better for me.

  • by Apple-Ron,

    Apple-Ron Apple-Ron Oct 13, 2016 9:24 AM in response to Tom Kramer
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Oct 13, 2016 9:24 AM in response to Tom Kramer

    Mail is super slow and buggy (hangs up or has the endless "connecting" script) for me as well after the Sierra update.  Really hope Apple has a fix coming.

  • by Rob J,

    Rob J Rob J Oct 13, 2016 12:16 PM in response to Tom Kramer
    Level 2 (152 points)
    Mac OS X
    Oct 13, 2016 12:16 PM in response to Tom Kramer

    I found that nearly everything (including Mail) was slower after the upgrade. Once I turned off Spotlight everything seems to have returned to normal.

  • by Ouzone,

    Ouzone Ouzone Oct 13, 2016 8:48 PM in response to Rob J
    Level 1 (8 points)
    Mac OS X
    Oct 13, 2016 8:48 PM in response to Rob J

    Turning off Spotlight for Mail & Messages from System Preferences made a big difference.

  • by anzola,

    anzola anzola Oct 14, 2016 8:23 AM in response to Rob J
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Oct 14, 2016 8:23 AM in response to Rob J

    Spotlight off seems to help so far. Should be fixed as why have good functionalities that impair normal performance

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