Mail is a 177.35 GB and Holding... can't delete

[Bushwood]

I have deleted thousands of emails - I started by sorting by file size and deleting all the big ones. Still 177.35. I then deleted everything from 3 months back and older - in all three email accounts on the machine and the Archive and Important files... Still 177.35.

I emptied every trash can. I deleted the deleted emails - Mailbox - Erase Deleted Item - In All Accounts... still 177.35 GB

Any ideas where all these emails are going? Is there some super hidden secret vault where all these emails are hiding?

Thanks!

 

[Bushwood]

Today's effort:
- deleted all three email accounnts from the machine
- deleted all webmail - the same accounts' online counter parts - deleted innbox, trash, drafts...
Still at 177.35

Side note: My "B" key stopped working for a couple hours. It's back. But the "N" key then stopped working - but only for a little while. It's back but much more sennsative... I'm constanntly typing double "N"s.

Three techs at Apple (two "Senior" level) are stumped. Next step: the Genius bar. Looks like yet another Apple innduced vacation from work - as the Genius will sure poke around for a couple minnutes, shrug his/her shoulders and tell me "We'll send it back to Apple (meaning their contract manufacturer in Tennessee)... you should have it back in four or five days.

 

[imaccooper]

I had this happen to me a few weeks ago. Mine was set on 77gb.

What eventually solved my problem was to take all of my accounts offline and then delete everything locally. Secondly, I sign out of all accounts on my Mac. Not sure this was necessary, but I just wanted to be sure. Then finally I went online and deleted everything from there. In my case I had gmail accounts causing the problem so I went to gmail and deleted everything in the trash and archive and basically all but about 10 emails I was keeping. I expect the same would be true with iCloud or whatever else could be the problem as well.

Once I deleted everything from the online servers, then I signed back in on my Mac, everything synced and was back to normal at a like 50mg rather than 77gb. Sounds like you have essentially tried this, but Good luck.

 

[Fishrrman]

Where would anyone GET 177gb of email?

My email folder (from Mail.app) is about 1.3gb in size (including attachments).
That represents 15 years (perhaps even more than that) of email accumulation...

 

[Bushwood]

Right. Something else is going on...
- Multiples (like 50 x) are being downloaded and stored
- The 177gb is not just Mail and associated attachments
- The 177.35 isn't accurate and/or associated with Mail at all. I've deleted 90% of the mail - all accts, all folders, all trashcans, etc. Nothing changes the 177.35

 

[Bushwood]

Thanks imaccooper... yeah, I've deleted the accts a couple times - dumped everything onnline too. Even I'm missing folders, I'd expect that 177.35 to move some... nope.

I spent some time on the phonne (the "n" key is still hypersensative) with a couple techs at Apple - two of whom are "Senior"... they're stumped. The issue is being bumped over (up?) to the enngineers (and I'm tired of going back annd deleting ns)