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Level 1

19 points

Mail is always "Downloading Messages".

I've noticed that Apple Mail is always "Downloading Messages". This process will happen approximately every 10 minutes. This is usually about 250-270 messages. (screenshot) However, there are no duplicate or extra emails. Further, the number of emails being downloaded usually doesn't change (maybe by 1 or 2 later in the day).

I have 4 emails accounts in Mail, all of which are Gmail accounts. I have gone through each account settings and made sure they are all handled similarly and have the same options checked.

I believe I found the problem account, because I have tried to right-click and select "Take account offline" when I see that it starts to download messages. Once I take it offline, the downloading stops. I have tried deleting this suspected account and re-adding it, but it still does the same thing. Any help would be appreciated!!

Posted on Oct 7, 2016 9:47 AM

Best reply

AtomicChilli

Level 1

9 points

Posted on Jul 16, 2017 3:38 PM

I'm sticking my fingers down my throat at this response to a perfectly legitimate question by ggerritis, with whom I have complete sympathy. For a number of years now I have had similar issues when first opening Mac Mail on a number of different Mac computer's but this never happens on Windows email clients upon which I don't have any particular love for - so this is not a Windows promotion by any means. There has definitely been something wrong with Mac Mail over several versions on different releases of Mac OS X (mac OS) from at least Maverics through to El Capitan and maybe Sierra as well whereby despite every attention to detail regarding setting up accounts there are still a few (not always the same on each different computer) accounts that absolutely refuse to abide by the user deliberately deselecting "include when automatically checking for new messages" which is a very obvious plain English statement that the user should expect to function exactly as it says period, or as we have said in the UK for centuries "full stop". There is obviously a random bug in Mail software, so please do not insult users intelligence by using nice sounding corporate spin excuses and fobbing people off into a false wild goose chase. What is the point of including a perfectly obvious option if it systematically refuses to carry out the function as described. Let's have the truth for once and an honest answer that there is absolutely an issue and that it has been recognised and that is being seriously looked into.

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38 replies

Jan 30, 2018 12:05 PM in response to Paula Robertson

On my iPhone and iPad I downloaded Outlook for iOS. Surprisingly ( or not) Outlook had no issues and didn’t delete emails before downloading again. The messages come from the same server so there is something wrong with the Mail app.

I deleted my mail account on both the iPad and iPhone and setup again. The Mail app is now working correctly. I use imap so all messages are on the server.

Feb 5, 2018 3:47 AM in response to insooth

I think it should be okay – if you only have a V3 folder instead of V3 that probably means you're running an older version of Mail.app than the most current which comes with macOS High Sierra. So I guess you're not using macOS High Sierra then?

I have tried deleting the three files suggested by @skablits now and will see if it helps in the long run. So far so good, but I think a simple quit and re-launch of Mail.app would also take away the problem temporarily.

lars114

Level 1

4 points

Feb 13, 2018 2:22 AM in response to ggerrits

Hey all... I found this post thread today and decided to do some more scouring on the world wide web... I too had the same problem... 11000 emails downloading constantly...

But I found this little nugget, which totally sorted it out. (At least I think so....its only been an hour, but normally the download of the mails start every 5-10mins.) So this could be a fix... fingers crossed.

http://www.rawinfopages.com/mac/content/stop-gmail-downloading-thousands-emails- mac-mail

Feb 15, 2018 1:51 AM in response to star-affinity

Why can't we edit/update previous posts? Unfortunately the solution by @skablitz didn't work for me in the long run. The problem is back. 😟 But a re-launch of Mail.app seems to fix things up. Until it happens again…

Mar 20, 2018 3:36 AM in response to ggerrits

IS there an official solution to this anywhere yet? I've been having this problem on the mac since the last update and email is PAINFULLY slow also. I give up usually and just pull out my phone, it's the only thing that seems to work with email at this point (the iPad is having the same issue as well!)

Mar 20, 2018 3:41 AM in response to clinkinfo

What I mean by slow BTW, it takes me about 20-30 seconds to open an email. So any new email I click on will take that long before it actually shows anything in the right pain of the screen. In addition, if I click the refresh mail button in the upper left, it takes a good 2 minutes before it will show anything. I'm on a gigabit connection, it's not the internet speed, everything is is stupid fast. So for me at least, this is not a "cosmetic" issue, mail is DOING SOMETHING in the background, and always displays downloading 1 of 14,500 messages.

drevicko

Level 1

8 points

May 1, 2018 11:50 PM in response to tygb

Do you have a network monitor such as littlesnitch running?

I do - when mail shows it's downloading the 20k messages in the offending gmail inbox, it is indeed downloading them and using a lot of internet bandwidth to do it.

tygb

Level 9

64,588 points

Aug 30, 2017 5:42 AM in response to kurtfromwhitehorse

Today I had issues in my mail application , deleted the account and configured once again , you can see the pic , its just a normal behaviour .

tygb

Level 9

64,588 points

Sep 15, 2017 8:15 AM in response to Neddog

Feb 14, 2018 7:06 AM in response to lars114

That's interesting, but I didn't have to do that. For me it seems the suggestion by @skablits here worked:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7699760?answerId=32458376022#32458376022

i_rina

Community Specialist

Oct 8, 2016 12:08 PM in response to ggerrits

Hello and welcome to Apple Support Communities, ggerrits.

If I’m understanding your post right, Mail on your Mac keeps showing that it's downloading hundreds of emails every 10 minutes. I can certainly understand how it could become a nuisance to continuously see that alert even though no new messages are actually downloading. I'm happy to help you get it to stop appearing.

You have done some excellent troubleshooting already to help narrow down which email account this is happening with. The next thing I would recommend doing is making sure you're running the most up-to-date version of OS X El Capitan, which should be 10.11.6. For help updating your Mac, take a look at Update the software on your Mac . If you haven't done so already, I would also recommend restarting your Mac. Test out Mail after you have done both of these things.

If the issue persists, follow these steps:

With Mail open, select "Mail" from the upper-left corner of your screen and then select Preferences.
Select the Accounts tab.
Select the email account you're having the issue with.
Select the Advanced tab.
Uncheck the box next to "Automatically detect and maintain account settings".

Next, close and then relaunch Mail to see if you're experiencing the same thing.

Thanks for using Apple Support Communities.

Take care.

ggerrits Author

Level 1

19 points

Oct 8, 2016 3:07 PM in response to i_rina

Hello. Thanks for the information. However, that options ("Automatically detect and maintain account settings") is grayed out. The box is checked, but it is not available to uncheck. Please advise. Thanks!!

Eric Root

Level 10

684,057 points

Oct 9, 2016 5:29 PM in response to ggerrits

Mail/Preferences/Accounts/Account Information and uncheck Enable this account. See if you can change the setting. If so, after making the change, go back and Enable the account.

ggerrits Author

Level 1

19 points

Oct 10, 2016 5:44 AM in response to Eric Root

Unchecking "Enable this account" does not allow me to change the setting for "Automatically detect and maintain...". That option is still grayed out.

Oct 10, 2016 7:46 AM in response to ggerrits

FWIW, this seems to be only a cosmetic glitch. The display for some reason is not updated and that message remains, but your mac is NOT downloading any messages.

I have had this happen a few times. Every time it did, I just quit and restarted Mail and it went away.

Mail is always "Downloading Messages".