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250GB of recovered messages!!

bozz2006

bozz2006

macrumors 68030
Original poster
Aug 24, 2007
2,530
0
Minnesota
Hello all, I was met with an unpleasant surprise this morning with my Mac Pro. I kept getting messages that my Home volume (I keep home on one HDD and boot volume on another) was full. This didn't sound right so I started doing some digging. My:
[username] > Library > Mail > Mailboxes > Recovered Messages (Gmail).mbox > Messages

folder has contents in excess of 250 GB. Something's wrong here. I have Apple's desktop Mail program set up on both my mac pro and my macbook, and the macbook doesn't even have this folder in the mail library. What should I do? Can I just delete that folder from my Mac Pro's library? I don't want to screw up the whole system... Thanks for the help.

Jake
 
250GB? :eek:

I don't even know why you have such a file there. I've got 3 GMail accounts registered on my machines an none of them shows such a file.

Which protokol are you using, IMAP or POP?
 
It's IMAP. I figured out more... I open mail and there is a folder with recovered messages in it. I have ~5800 messages that are all the same. It's an email I tried to send my brother with pictures in it. There were too many pictures at first so I had to go back and send several emails to get them all in. Why my Mail recoverd 5800 mail messages that didn't go through, I have no idea. I deleted them from Mail but still no idea why it even happened.
 
bozz2006 said:
It's IMAP. I figured out more... I open mail and there is a folder with recovered messages in it. I have ~5800 messages that are all the same. It's an email I tried to send my brother with pictures in it. There were too many pictures at first so I had to go back and send several emails to get them all in. Why my Mail recoverd 5800 mail messages that didn't go through, I have no idea. I deleted them from Mail but still no idea why it even happened.
Click to expand...

I bet they will come back. I'm having the same issue. I can delete the messages as much as i want in mail, but for some reason I can't get them to delete off the server. Are you using gmail by any chance?
 
Odd. Did you try to delete the message in GMail's web interface?

If the message can't be deleted there as well, I'd contact the google support. Usually they are very helpful.
 
I think it has something to do with the IMAP settings on gmail.com. I haven't been able to figure it out yet :(
 
I can't even find them in the gmail web browser... And I can't figure out how to actually contact google support.
 
bozz2006 said:
I can't even find them in the gmail web browser...
Click to expand...

In case that the messages are not in the web interface, you could try to delete your Gmail account in Mail, delete the 250GB file and setup the Gmail account again. Since it is IMAP the messages will be loaded from the google server again, so no data loss.
 
ECUpirate44 said:
I bet they will come back. I'm having the same issue. I can delete the messages as much as i want in mail, but for some reason I can't get them to delete off the server. Are you using gmail by any chance?
Click to expand...

I may have figured out how to stop it from recurring. I'm cautiously optimistic. Go into Apple's Mail program and right click the problematic email message. Then, Move to > Trash > Gmail. I believe this removes it from Gmail's server. Then I just sent the rest to my Mac's trashcan and have not had any new ones bounce in since I tried that, about two hours ago.
 
bozz2006 said:
I may have figured out how to stop it from recurring. I'm cautiously optimistic. Go into Apple's Mail program and right click the problematic email message. Then, Move to > Trash > Gmail. I believe this removes it from Gmail's server. Then I just sent the rest to my Mac's trashcan and have not had any new ones bounce in since I tried that, about two hours ago.
Click to expand...

Yup i've tried that too but they just go into the trash and eventually make their way back into the attached folder lol. I have messages from 2006 that i've deleted from my mac and gmail.com, but they just keep coming back lol.

Screen shot 2011-03-21 at 4.28.46 PM.png
 
what happens if you delete mail.app preferences file and delete the contents of ~/Library/Mail

i realize you will have to set up mail again but seems like an easy thing to do.
 
I think the issue exists in Gmail. It's just that the symptom shows up in Apple's Mail application.
 
Create an archive of all of your email accounts that setup with Mac Mail by going to Mailbox -- Archive Mailbox and then delete the following file

~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.mail.Plist

After deleting the file relaunch Mac Mail it will be as good as brand new. Import your email account archive by going to File --- Import mailbox

Everytime I have an issue with mac mail I solve it this way.
 
Hello aso. That's great that you developed that app! I'm actually in good shape now. I was able to get to the root of the problem and delete the problem message completely from the gmail server through web interface.
 
Actually its not just an Apple Mail problem. It happened to my girlfriend on Windows Live Mail. Just one day randomly the app crashed and she couldn't log in. After getting it set back up it had the "Recovered Messages" with ALL old emails in it. Hers was gmail also.
 
Thanks aso. And Dalton, as far as I can tell my problem was also a problem with Gmail, not Apple's mail client, just like yours.
 
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