grayed but not gone

Sometimes Mail does not let me delete. The file may just gray out. Opening Mail later displays the file as if it were never deleted. I have tried "Move to Trash." Doesn't work. I now have dozens of old, unsuccessfully deleted files in my In Box. I Tried to trash the Mail Application and reinstall it from the original disk. When I try to open the reinstalled Mail I get a dialog box "You can not use this version of the application Mail with this version of Mac OS X. So I downloaded the Mail Update 1.0 from Apple (not knowing if it will fix my problem of not). When I try to install this upgrade I get "You cannot install Mail Update on this volume. This volume does not meet the requirements for this update." I am using Mail 3.6 (936) on OS 10.5.8, installed together off original disk. Have installed all OS upgrades as they pop up.

Not sure where u are at but try these 2 steps. Double click on each of the greyed email files which should then open them and give u the choice to delete them and also download and run Mac OS X 10.5.8 Combo Update which should give you the latest apps and reset your upgrade attempts. Not sure which order you should try these - your call.

no banana

Thanks for your suggestion, Collin. I did the delete (button, edit menu, and right click-send to trash) both opened and as an unopened item in the In Box list; I also downloaded and installed the OS X 10.5.8 Combo Update, even though the docs for the update said it was for OS X 10.5 - OS X 10.5.7 and I was already using 10.5.8, and the update didn't mention specify any Mail fixes. I did it anyway. Same-O, Same-O. Then I did the delete routine again, as above, after the update. Again. No bananas.

OK how about Rebuild in the Mailbox drop down - see if that helps. As u probably have guessed i am running out of ideas.

pref's worked

The Rebuild option was grayed, so I couldn't try that. Here's what did work: Mail/Preferences/Accounts/Mailbox Behaviors - unchecked the "Notes" and "Trash" option for each account. I'll try adding the options back one at a time to see which one was the culprit. Thanks again for your response.