Mail 6.3 uses CPU 100+%?

OverSpun · Mar 29, 2013

This has to be one of the strangest things I've seen while I'm writing emails or even reading email sometimes... I went to Activity Monitor and I noticed that Mail was using 103% CPU, how could that be possible?

Mail has been working terribly since I upgraded to ML, starting with this- with strange signature issues and never fixed.(https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1413726/)

I just deal with the signatures but the 100% CPU happens maybe every few days or so. I either quit and open Mail again or restart and everything is smooth again.

I couldn't find anything from searching but I can't be the only person who has seen this or any ideas?

MrMacMack · Mar 30, 2013

How many mail accounts do you have added?

OverSpun · Mar 30, 2013

MrMacMack said:
How many mail accounts do you have added?

I have 5 emails on it but I never noticed any issues in Lion or SL or earlier. I usually see it while I'm composing an email and the cursor disappears and the text also lags by at least a few 5-10 seconds and it makes it slow to finish an email.

MrMacMack · Mar 30, 2013

Open console and then type v2 layout in the filter and see if there's anything concerning in the log.

OverSpun · Mar 30, 2013

MrMacMack said:
Open console and then type v2 layout in the filter and see if there's anything concerning in the log.

I tried it but v2 layout wasn't found. Strange.

GGJstudios · Mar 30, 2013

OverSpun said:
This has to be one of the strangest things I've seen while I'm writing emails or even reading email sometimes... I went to Activity Monitor and I noticed that Mail was using 103% CPU, how could that be possible?

You can have up to 100% for each CPU core, physical and virtual.

MPG - Mac Performance 101: Cores, Processes, Memory - CPU Cores Explained

OverSpun · Mar 30, 2013

GGJstudios said:
You can have up to 100% for each CPU core, physical and virtual.

MPG - Mac Performance 101: Cores, Processes, Memory - CPU Cores Explained

Thanks, that is helpful but I wish it would make sense about Mail since its the only app that has issues.

My Quad 2.5 MBP came with 4gb ram w/ 750gb 7200HD and I still had these issues. I eventually upgraded to 16GB and it didn't change anything about Mail if it was bad ram. Of course, the machine runs a lot better besides Mail.

I would like to upgrade to an SSD but a SATA drive shouldn't have caused this.

Weaselboy · Mar 31, 2013

OverSpun said:
Thanks, that is helpful but I wish it would make sense about Mail since its the only app that has issues.

My Quad 2.5 MBP came with 4gb ram w/ 750gb 7200HD and I still had these issues. I eventually upgraded to 16GB and it didn't change anything about Mail if it was bad ram. Of course, the machine runs a lot better besides Mail.

I would like to upgrade to an SSD but a SATA drive shouldn't have caused this.

Let's try rebuilding the Mail index. A corrupted index can cause your symptoms.

First quit Mail app.

Click the Desktop to bring focus to the Finder. Now hit shift-command-g (all three at once) and a box will pop up. Paste the below line in the box and hit enter. Now delete any files starting with Envelope like in my screen shot.

Launch Mail and wait while it reindexes your mailboxes.

Code:

~/Library/Mail/V2/MailData

OverSpun · Mar 31, 2013

Weaselboy said:
Let's try rebuilding the Mail index. A corrupted index can cause your symptoms.

First quit Mail app.

Click the Desktop to bring focus to the Finder. Now hit shift-command-g (all three at once) and a box will pop up. Paste the below line in the box and hit enter. Now delete any files starting with Envelope like in my screen shot.

Launch Mail and wait while it reindexes your mailboxes.

Code:

~/Library/Mail/V2/MailData

Image

Thanks and a quick question before I try this-

Will affect any of my stored emails "On my Mac", pop3 emails, etc?

Weaselboy · Apr 1, 2013

OverSpun said:
Thanks and a quick question before I try this-

Will affect any of my stored emails "On my Mac", pop3 emails, etc?

Nope. Everything will still be there. This is just an index of the messages, not the messages themselves.

TimmyR · May 28, 2013

Weaselboy said:
Let's try rebuilding the Mail index. A corrupted index can cause your symptoms.

First quit Mail app.

Click the Desktop to bring focus to the Finder. Now hit shift-command-g (all three at once) and a box will pop up. Paste the below line in the box and hit enter. Now delete any files starting with Envelope like in my screen shot.

Launch Mail and wait while it reindexes your mailboxes.

Code:

~/Library/Mail/V2/MailData

Image

Good morning, I was having the same trouble with Mail, and after reindexing, I received the following e-mail.

"You have now exceeded your iCloud storage, including an additional amount provided to allow you to continue receiving email. As a result, you will not be able to send or receive new email messages with your iCloud email address until you free up storage space or buy more storage."

Will this resolve itself or does it require further action?

Weaselboy · May 28, 2013

TimmyR said:
Good morning, I was having the same trouble with Mail, and after reindexing, I received the following e-mail.

"You have now exceeded your iCloud storage, including an additional amount provided to allow you to continue receiving email. As a result, you will not be able to send or receive new email messages with your iCloud email address until you free up storage space or buy more storage."

Will this resolve itself or does it require further action?

It sounds like you have exceeded the storage limit for the account. Right click your Inbox then select Get Account Info to see what percentage of the storage space you are using.

TimmyR · May 29, 2013

Well that iCloud exceedance was temporary. I took my laptop to Genius Bar then called Apple Care later. Fan has been checked. Mail has been rebuilt and reinstalled. Mail still runs straight to 100% CPU and I am now noticing Safari will bog down for some simple internet tasks. I created a second user account and have seen none of these problems. I am calling Apple Care again and need to figure out how to transfer my programs and documents to the new user account. For example, I do not want Office 365 to ding me for another install.

Weaselboy · May 29, 2013

TimmyR said:
Well that iCloud exceedance was temporary. I took my laptop to Genius Bar then called Apple Care later. Fan has been checked. Mail has been rebuilt and reinstalled. Mail still runs straight to 100% CPU and I am now noticing Safari will bog down for some simple internet tasks. I created a second user account and have seen none of these problems. I am calling Apple Care again and need to figure out how to transfer my programs and documents to the new user account. For example, I do not want Office 365 to ding me for another install.

Is iCloud the only mail account you have? If it is, you might try going into Mail prefs and just delete the whole account from Mail. Then delete the entire contents of ~/Library/Mail/V2/ Then add the iCloud account back and start fresh. You won't loose any messages as they are all on the iCloud IMAP server and will be redownloaded.

Dickmason · Jun 24, 2013

Mail hangs while reindexing

Weaselboy said:
Let's try rebuilding the Mail index. A corrupted index can cause your symptoms.

First quit Mail app.

Click the Desktop to bring focus to the Finder. Now hit shift-command-g (all three at once) and a box will pop up. Paste the below line in the box and hit enter. Now delete any files starting with Envelope like in my screen shot.

Launch Mail and wait while it reindexes your mailboxes.

Code:

~/Library/Mail/V2/MailData

Image

------------------------
I have some 77000 mails on the IMAP server. Followed the above and Mail hangs around 2500 messages as it tries to "import messages" according to the dialog box. Does a "preparing" step and the proceeds up to near 2500 and stalls. Mail is hung and won't do anything except do this over again when I quit the "import" and restart Mail. Only change is that the total message count seems to go down by 2 or 3 every time I restart Mail and get the "import messages" and hit "continue". I'm stumped.

Any suggestions are appreciated.

Weaselboy · Jun 24, 2013

Dickmason said:
------------------------
I have some 77000 mails on the IMAP server. Followed the above and Mail hangs around 2500 messages as it tries to "import messages" according to the dialog box. Does a "preparing" step and the proceeds up to near 2500 and stalls. Mail is hung and won't do anything except do this over again when I quit the "import" and restart Mail. Only change is that the total message count seems to go down by 2 or 3 every time I restart Mail and get the "import messages" and hit "continue". I'm stumped.

Any suggestions are appreciated.

I'm sorry, beyond what was already suggested I can't think of what would cause that.

Dickmason · Jun 26, 2013

Reinstalled the 3 deleted Envelope Index files

Did a 4.7 gb 10.7 Combo reinstall. Just in case it was some subtle corruption in something else.

I found ~Library/Mail/V2/MailData/Envelope Index files with 20 or so letter and number file names. Apparently one for every one of the 10 or so failed attempts at "importing". Deleted them all. When I reinstalled the 3 old backed up ///Envelope Index files I had deleted, Mail returned to normal operation. 100-120% CPU usage.

Put all 4 Mail accounts offline. Opened Windows/activity in Mail and stopped all activity. Mail dropped to 85-95% CPU usage. This is nuts. Nothing is supposedly going on, but Mail continues to hog the better part of one CPU.

ryanrayla · Oct 22, 2014

Solved

I had a persistent Spinning Wheel of Death (SWOD) that would interrupt me typing emails constantly. Mac Mail was hardly useable. Following the instructions below, I removed the "/" from the name of all labels in my gmail account and the CPU stopped its perpetual loop.

http://blog.martinshouse.com/2014/06/fix-for-100-cpu-use-in-apple-mail.html#comment-form

I then noticed, however, that there was an occasional SWOD, not nearly as persistent, but quite annoying. Your suggestion to rebuild my mailboxes, Weaselboy, appears to have done the trick!

Thank you very much!

akm3 · Nov 4, 2014

Had same problem, the envelope deleting trick seems to have worked for now. Thanks!

Mail 6.3 uses CPU 100+%?

macrumors 65816

macrumors 6502a

macrumors 65816

macrumors 6502a

Attachments

macrumors 65816

macrumors Westmere

macrumors 65816

Moderator

macrumors 65816

Moderator

macrumors newbie

Moderator

macrumors newbie

Moderator

macrumors newbie

Moderator

macrumors newbie

macrumors newbie

macrumors 68020

Our Staff