09-23-2009, 05:15 AM

My OS 10.6.1 mail is now showing duplicate incoming messages ( MS. Exchange account)bearing same time/date stamp !!

anyone else going through same experience?

09-23-2009, 08:43 AM

Find the file called <com.Apple.Mail.plist>
It is in your Home folder (whatever you named it)>Library>Preferences NOT PreferencePanes.

Find that file and drag it to your Desktop. Now start up your Mail program and see if it's back to normal.
If it is, you can Trash that file you moved. Mail created a new one to replace it.
If for some reason you think you should keep the old file (more problems than you had before) you can.
Just drag it back into the Preferences folder and click YES to overwrite the one just created.

01-26-2010, 11:34 PM

Thank you toMACsh. That fix worked for me too. I am glad there is an easy fix but would love even more to not have to fix it in the future. Why does mail duplicate the emails? This is the second time they have spontaneously replicated. How can I prevent it?

The only thing I can think of is that maybe I opened two mail viewing windows but I don't think that I did.

TIA

01-27-2010, 01:11 PM

Wish I knew. Actually, I've never used Mail once!

01-27-2010, 01:25 PM

Wish I knew. Actually, I've never used Mail once!

01-27-2010, 01:47 PM

What do you use instead? Or are you using something like Gmail or some other webmail?

04-16-2010, 10:12 PM

I tried removing the plist (com.Apple.Mail.plist) and that didn't work. I lost all of my e-mail ... !!! Good thing I kept the original ... !!!!

When I first removed the plist from the Library Preferences folder, I was at the original window where you have to set up your e-mail all over again.

So .... That method won't work for me. What can I do to stop the duplicate e-mail from pouring in ... ???

I get literally multiple thousands of duplicate e-mails. This has been happening for several years, and is getting to be extremely frustrating and very time consuming to remove them one by one ....

I probably still have over 10,000 (that's over ten thousand!) duplicate e-mails that I am working on removing manually ....

What a pain ....

04-16-2010, 10:33 PM

I'm still searching for the download for this application which is supposed to remove duplicate messages in Apple Mail:

apple mail duplicate email remover

Has anyone tried this app? Did it remove all duplicate e-mail?

Is there any way to stop duplicate e-mail ... ???

04-17-2010, 01:55 PM

vja4,

If I am understanding you correctly, I think the plist removal did not work for you because you missed a step.

Find the file called <com.Apple.Mail.plist>
It is in your Home folder (whatever you named it)>Library>Preferences NOT PreferencePanes.

Find that file and drag it to your Desktop. Leave it there because you will need it if this does not work.

Now open your mail and run Rebuild (last item under the Mailbox menu).

Another similar possibility is to do it this way:
You can try forcing the database to rebuild. Shut down Mail if it is running and use the Finder to navigate to ~/Library/Mail. Drag the file named Envelope Index to your desktop and then start Mail again. The database will get rebuilt and your messages should come back. You can then trash the index file.

I don't know why the emails duplicate BUT since I rebuilt the database it has never done it again. Good luck!

Lastly, I have heard about programs to remove duplicates but have never tried any.

09-30-2010, 02:32 PM

"HD/library/preferences...." the list there skips from "...logwindow..." to "...mediaio...". "Spotlight" shows no such thing. Wheres' my "com.apple.mail.plist" ?

09-30-2010, 08:56 PM

Originally Posted by lazur

"HD/library/preferences...."

Not there!

HD/Users/YourUserName/Library/Preferences

02-18-2011, 12:03 AM

Just put the com.apple.plist back where it was! I too experienced the "the original window where you have to set up your e-mail all over again" and decided to put back the one I had saved. Lo and behold, this time Mail came up with the duplicates gone. Magic. Why Mail decided to give me duplicates all of a sudden is a mystery.

02-18-2011, 11:56 PM

Originally Posted by rocketmouse

Just put the com.apple.plist back where it was! I too experienced the "the original window where you have to set up your e-mail all over again" and decided to put back the one I had saved. Lo and behold, this time Mail came up with the duplicates gone. Magic. Why Mail decided to give me duplicates all of a sudden is a mystery.

I haven't had problems with duplicate e-mail for quite some time now. Strange that every so often it happens. I know that some people say that Macs don't get viruses, but I'm wondering if this duplicate mail could be a virus ...

02-19-2011, 12:24 AM

A virus? I doubt it. I only have ClamXav sentry running so I'll do a scan with something else as well, but it'll be a while before I do because I just determined that I had removed the other AV programs I had. But I promise that if I find anything suspicious I'll let you know.

02-19-2011, 10:33 AM

Originally Posted by toMACsh

Wish I knew. Actually, I've never used Mail once!

Originally Posted by IslandOwl

What do you use instead? Or are you using something like Gmail or some other webmail?

Yeah, I know this is old, but, yes, I use webmail, and have never set them up to be imported into Apple's Mail.

Originally Posted by vja4Him

I know that some people say that Macs don't get viruses, but I'm wondering if this duplicate mail could be a virus ...

No. The people who say that know what they're talking about. It's kind of hard for a Mac to get a virus when there isn't one to get. Before anyone denies that, you must provide documentation of one to rebut that contention. Name, date, news story, etc....