Corrupted Gmail Account in Mail app

Question

Level 1

7 points

Corrupted Gmail Account in Mail app

Hello,

I have a managed gmail work account and it's set up in my iMac and MacBook Pro in the mail app. One day without warning, the MacBook Pro's gmail account stopped retrieving email. The status bar continuously says "Moving Messages 1 of 3".

I thought the mailbox was corrupted, so I tried to rebuild the mailbox for each location that account shows up in mail (inbox, received mail, etc) but clicking rebuild does absolutely nothing. It should erase all the files and re download them from the server.

The gmail account is just fine on the iMac, so the problem is related to the MacBook Pro, not the mail account itself.

I've tried turning the account off for this computer and turning it back on. Nothing changes. Perhaps I could delete the local folders holding the email and that would trigger the mail app to recreate them and download from the server again?

I appreciate your help!

Thanks,

Steig

MacBook Pro with Retina display, macOS Sierra (10.12.5)

Posted on Nov 2, 2017 7:41 PM

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Answer 1

Eric Root

Level 10

685,257 points

Nov 3, 2017 8:28 AM in response to steigw

You are welcome. Try deleting the account and adding it back. Make sure you move any e-mails in the account's mailboxes that you want to save before deleting.

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Answer 2

tygb

Level 9

65,010 points

Nov 2, 2017 11:59 PM in response to steigw

See this article View Mail activity - Apple Support

Also verify what is your mail data is it exceeding storage limits , try to export mail boxes Mail for macOS Sierra: Import or export mailboxes or reduce ( by deleting them ) the unwanted mails , optimize them .

See this article and click on the articles in bottom for optimize storage free up storage account , View email account information - Apple Support

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Answer 3

Eric Root

Level 10

685,257 points

Nov 2, 2017 7:58 PM in response to steigw

Mail (El Capitan): Mail troubleshooting

Mail (El Capitan): If you can’t receive messages

Mail not sending or receiving messages after updating OS X

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Answer 4

steigw Author

Level 1

7 points

Nov 2, 2017 9:04 PM in response to Eric Root

Thanks for the links.

I've verified this emails settings are the same on both iMac and MBP.

I then launched the activity window and noticed that it had an entry saying "connecting" and then listed the email account that is a problem right now. Even while it would say connecting on the activity window, the accounts preference window would show that account as being online as does the connection doctor.

The other three activity items in the activity monitor never seem to change...

Any other ideas?

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Answer 5

Eric Root

Level 10

685,257 points

Nov 3, 2017 8:47 AM in response to steigw

You are welcome. Good troubleshooting.

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Answer 6

steigw Author

Level 1

7 points

Nov 3, 2017 8:37 AM in response to Eric Root

Yeah I did that this morning. Keep in mind that it's working on all other apple computers & you can't just delete without affecting those other computers due to keychain syncing.

But on the computers that worked great, I locked their keychains so they wouldn't be impacted. Then on the MBP in question I turned off the account (didn't delete it), then edited the keychain to remove all entries to just this account, then added it back. All emails downloaded from the server as they should have when I attempted to rebuild it.

So it all works fine now. Thanks!

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