Mail just quit working (Snow Leopard)

[fantanman]

My Apple Mail (ver 4.6) has stopped working. It’s installed on a 2010 Mac Mini (3.1) running OSX 10.6.8. When I open the app all I get is the spinning beach ball and all I can do then is force-quit. To try and fix it, I have…

-- Run Repair Disk Permissions (in Disk Utility) numerous times
-- Run Repair Disk from my system startup DVD (Snow Leopard)
-- Installed a new copy of Mail from my Snow Leopard system disk
-- Run Onyx
-- Copied a previously working copy of Mail from an external FW drive to my startup drive
-- Tried running Mail from the external drive
-- Rebooted cable modem and router

None of these fixed the problem. However, I started up my Mac Mini from an external FW drive holding a clone of my regular startup drive, and Mail worked fine.

Network Diagnostics shows all network functions are working on my regular startup drive. My 2010 MacBook, using the same wireless router, and also running the same vers of Mail and OSX, sends and receives mail.

There is still the option of reinstalling OSX, but I’m not keen to do that. Can anyone suggest where I might look to find the source of the problem? Thanks.

 

[JohnDS]

You may have to rebuild and re-index your mailboxes. See: http://www.computerworld.com/articl...by-rebuilding-and-reindexing-the-mailbox.html
[doublepost=1453986675][/doublepost]Here is an alternative method:

Navigate to a folder in your user directory. In Snow Leopard, this folder is ~/Library/Mail and in Lion and later (at least through Yosemite) it’s ~/Library/Mail/V2/MailData. Inside both of these folders are files that start with “Envelope Index” that store all your mailbox data, among other things.

Quit Mail, then delete all the files in this folder that start with "Envelope Index." On Yosemite that will be three (3) files (Envelope Index, Envelope Index-shm, and Envelope Index-wal); on older versions of OS X it may be simply one file. Once deleted, relaunch Mail and the file(s) will be rebuilt, along with your mailboxes.

 

[fantanman]

You may have to rebuild and re-index your mailboxes. See: http://www.computerworld.com/articl...by-rebuilding-and-reindexing-the-mailbox.html
[doublepost=1453986675][/doublepost]Here is an alternative method:

Navigate to a folder in your user directory. In Snow Leopard, this folder is ~/Library/Mail and in Lion and later (at least through Yosemite) it’s ~/Library/Mail/V2/MailData. Inside both of these folders are files that start with “Envelope Index” that store all your mailbox data, among other things.

Quit Mail, then delete all the files in this folder that start with "Envelope Index." On Yosemite that will be three (3) files (Envelope Index, Envelope Index-shm, and Envelope Index-wal); on older versions of OS X it may be simply one file. Once deleted, relaunch Mail and the file(s) will be rebuilt, along with your mailboxes.

Thanks, I'll think about this and get back to you.
[doublepost=1453991092][/doublepost]

You may have to rebuild and re-index your mailboxes. See: http://www.computerworld.com/articl...by-rebuilding-and-reindexing-the-mailbox.html
[doublepost=1453986675][/doublepost]Here is an alternative method:

Navigate to a folder in your user directory. In Snow Leopard, this folder is ~/Library/Mail and in Lion and later (at least through Yosemite) it’s ~/Library/Mail/V2/MailData. Inside both of these folders are files that start with “Envelope Index” that store all your mailbox data, among other things.

Quit Mail, then delete all the files in this folder that start with "Envelope Index." On Yosemite that will be three (3) files (Envelope Index, Envelope Index-shm, and Envelope Index-wal); on older versions of OS X it may be simply one file. Once deleted, relaunch Mail and the file(s) will be rebuilt, along with your mailboxes.

Gee, thanks! That was the magic bullet I was looking for! I removed that one file (after copying it), and started Mail again. It took about 3 minutes to rebuild my mailboxes, and now it's working fine. I'm much obliged.