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Mail messages come and go?

D

duncangohl

macrumors member
Original poster
Aug 31, 2014
42
2
Krugersdorp
Spent 10 hours reading up on solutions with no positive results???
My mail message body goes from perfect messages to blank every few minutes. One minute I can read the message then a minute later they all disappear. Can read some if I double click, sometimes I cant. Macbook pro with elcapitan
 
duncangohl said:
Spent 10 hours reading up on solutions with no positive results???
My mail message body goes from perfect messages to blank every few minutes. One minute I can read the message then a minute later they all disappear. Can read some if I double click, sometimes I cant. Macbook pro with elcapitan
Click to expand...
What version are you on?
 
Sadly I'm a novice user....
El Capitan 10.11.4
13" mid 2012
Mail 9.3(3124)
Problem started 2 days ago without me changing anything.
Steps to rebuild Mail ? Is it something an old codger could do?
I have about 20 on my mac boxes with old emails. Will deleting them help?
Thanks folks....
[doublepost=1470119728][/doublepost]Yesterday someone walked me through deleting Library/containers etc but I still see the following;
db-shm 33kb
db-wal 12kb
db 53Kb
no idea what this means
[doublepost=1470119904][/doublepost]Also cleared Mail downloads yesterday.
[doublepost=1470120371][/doublepost]Ran First Aid. All ok.
 
Super easy:

Open Mail
Select: Mailbox (on the top tool bar)
Select: Rebuild (at the bottom of the Mailbox drop down menu)

Mail, like all modern email clients, is actually a database. This allows us to easily search and sort so much data so quickly. Like most data bases, it is dependent on a sort of indexing system. If/when the index is out of whack, use the Rebuild option to fix it.

How do we know it is out of whack? When stuff you know is there cannot be seen, or can't be found in a search, etc.

Think of the index of a data base like the old dewie decimal index cards in ye olde library. If the index cards are out of order, or missing.....very hard to find a book. The book is there....but we need the index cards to find them.

Makes sense?

Zero risk to rebuild (the index of) Mail. It can take a while depending on the size of your mailbox, and stuff will appear to disappear while it is rebuilding. But it will all be correct once done.

And if this does not solve your issue....no harm done.
 
Thanks for tip. I did a rebuild yesterday. Don't know if I did it correctly. Emails disappeared for while. Also deleted 1267 stored emails. All ok this morning. Holding thumbs.
 
Hmmm....no. Never seen Mail so whacked that a rebuild is needed more than about 1-2 time per year.

Did some digging, looks like you can force a manual reindex....which is a bit different than a rebuild.

Check this article for a good step by step of both....sounds like you are ready to jump to step 2.
 
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