How to fix Mail.app "ghosting" behaviour?

February 2, 2010 1:46 AM

Mail.appFilter: instead of deleting messages, Mail has taken to "ghosting" them, turning them grey. I've tried the "vacuum" trick via the terminal, and eliminating the Envelope Index and reimporting all the messages (more than once), as previously suggested - but the behaviour continues, and erratically, at that. Any suggestions for getting Mail back to normal?

I'm on 10.5.8, Mail is 3.6 (936), on a Macbook Pro; my accounts are both IMAP, one gmail and one work mail, which i sync to an iPhone.

The strange behaviour started in the Drafts folder (which i'm having issues with: Mail autosaves endless iterations of emails that I'm writing - first it seemed to do this when I was offline, and I guessed as it couldn't sync with the two imap servers I use, it needed to save locally, but now it seems to be doing this willynilly.)

Other things which might have some bearing on this problem:
- Mail previously showed ridiculously high counts of messages (without showing actual messages) in some folders, again, principally in Drafts, so occasionally I've deleted the thousands of files contained in "Draft" folders in Library>Mail.
- After the first elimination of Envelope Index + reimport, I now find two files, a larger, current Envelope Index and a smaller Envelope Index-1, dated at the last reimport.

Any wise hints/tips from your own experience?

posted by progosk to computers & internet (3 answers total)

Just to make sure, have you selected "Hide Deleted Messages" (Command + L) in the menu bar? It'll read "Show Deleted Messages" if it is disabled.

I get the multiple draft issue too. Think it has to do with IMAP. My work-around has been to delete all of them and immediately select Mailbox : Erase Deleted Messages : In All Accounts. I've never found a permanent fix for that.
posted by qwip at 1:59 AM on February 2, 2010

Ah! Thanks qwip - that's the grey message thing dealt with. (how banal.)

I'll try your workaround for the drafts. Mail currently says i have more than 4 billion of them ;-)
posted by progosk at 6:02 AM on February 2, 2010

Glad it worked out. If you do find a permanent fix for the drafts, please post. It's harmless, but annoyingly persistent.
posted by qwip at 8:27 AM on February 2, 2010