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Mail Won't Delete

forafireescape

forafireescape

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jan 16, 2008
659
0
NJ
This may be kind of hard to explain, but bear with me.

I use Apple Mail and I've never had any issues. But about a month ago, I tried to delete some of my messages but they wouldn't move to the trash. When I click delete, the messages just gray out slightly but stay in the inbox. Now, the delete button says "undelete," but they're still in the inbox.

This only happened for about five messages about a month ago, and it hasn't happened since. But I really want them out of my inbox because I'm really anal about keeping it orderly.

Any ideas? I've tried everything, including command-click > move to trash, but the same thing happened. It's really more of an annoyance than anything but it just seems so weird and I haven't heard about it happening to anyone else.
 
DJAKO said:
Do you have the "move deleted messages to separate folder" option checked?
Click to expand...

Yup. As I said, it just seems weird that it would be these random five messages, on a random day after many normal days of Mac using, and never again. :)
 
forafireescape said:
Yup. As I said, it just seems weird that it would be these random five messages, on a random day after many normal days of Mac using, and never again. :)
Click to expand...

Anything special about these messages? Same sender, or anything along those lines? Do they have anything in common?
 
forafireescape said:
For one address I am, but all of the ones that aren't deleting are from a gmail POP account.
Click to expand...

Okay. Just asking because I ran into a similar issue with using IMAP where emails would reappear after deleting. The fix was to assign the imported IMAP folders as the ones Mail uses for Trash, Drafts, Sent, etc. Unfortunately, I don't have an answer regarding Gmail POP.
 
I'm just throwing this out there, but would clicking on the Mailbox menu and selecting Rebuild remedy this? no idea, just surmising...
 
Can you right-click the mailbox and select Erase Deleted Messages?

All of my mailboxes are IMAP and I know that I used to have to forcefully delete them as they were just 'marked for deletion'.

You can set up your GMail account to use IMAP now I believe? That wouldn't fix your problem today, but is a better option going forward. The instructions on setting it up are in GMail.

Is it possible to log into your GMail account online and delete the messages there? Your mailbox may have become corrupted and Mail thinks they are still good messages, but GMail knows them as deleted.

Cheers.
 
vanmacguy said:
Can you right-click the mailbox and select Erase Deleted Messages?

All of my mailboxes are IMAP and I know that I used to have to forcefully delete them as they were just 'marked for deletion'.

You can set up your GMail account to use IMAP now I believe? That wouldn't fix your problem today, but is a better option going forward. The instructions on setting it up are in GMail.

Is it possible to log into your GMail account online and delete the messages there? Your mailbox may have become corrupted and Mail thinks they are still good messages, but GMail knows them as deleted.

Cheers.
Click to expand...

If I use the erase deleted messages function, will it erase ALL my deleted messages, even in the trash? I don't really want to do that unless I absolutely have to.

EDIT: I deleted them from my actual Gmail account, but they are still there.
 
I had this exact problem a month ago and after endless searching I found the answer and couldn't believe it was actually this easy...

Highlight the offending messages and then command+x to cut them out, that's it, nothing else. They won't show back up and they just hang out on the clipboard until you cut something else.
 
cyclingplatypus said:
I had this exact problem a month ago and after endless searching I found the answer and couldn't believe it was actually this easy...

Highlight the offending messages and then command+x to cut them out, that's it, nothing else. They won't show back up and they just hang out on the clipboard until you cut something else.
Click to expand...

Ahhhh! That worked! Who would have thought? Thank you SO much! I am a happy girl :D
 
Can't delete mail

cyclingplatypus said:
I had this exact problem a month ago and after endless searching I found the answer and couldn't believe it was actually this easy...

Highlight the offending messages and then command+x to cut them out, that's it, nothing else. They won't show back up and they just hang out on the clipboard until you cut something else.
Click to expand...

Thanks, this has been very annoying for quite a long time, and it was so easy to handle thanks to you.

Micke
 
forafireescape said:
This may be kind of hard to explain, but bear with me.

I use Apple Mail and I've never had any issues. But about a month ago, I tried to delete some of my messages but they wouldn't move to the trash. When I click delete, the messages just gray out slightly but stay in the inbox. Now, the delete button says "undelete," but they're still in the inbox.

This only happened for about five messages about a month ago, and it hasn't happened since. But I really want them out of my inbox because I'm really anal about keeping it orderly.

Any ideas? I've tried everything, including command-click > move to trash, but the same thing happened. It's really more of an annoyance than anything but it just seems so weird and I haven't heard about it happening to anyone else.
Click to expand...


Before yesterday I had no problem deleting mail. Then yesterday mail would not delete from ANY box without going to the entry and manually deleting it. I too tried everything but I couldn't get it to delete. I simply quit the mail app and restarted it and now it behaves. I was going to reboot my Mac Pro next but this took care of it!
 
dburk01 said:
Before yesterday I had no problem deleting mail. Then yesterday mail would not delete from ANY box without going to the entry and manually deleting it. I too tried everything but I couldn't get it to delete. I simply quit the mail app and restarted it and now it behaves. I was going to reboot my Mac Pro next but this took care of it!
Click to expand...

I had the same problem and found this method to take care of it.

http://www.macworld.com/article/2048781/how-to-delete-gmail-messages-so-theyre-truly-gone.html
FH
 
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