Mail - Recovered Messages or gmail will not sync

Hope this will save someone else a headache.

I made the mistake of attaching a 120MB file to an outgoing email using my gmail account in Mail. Of course, it popped up a message telling me the max file size was 34MB. Ok, silly me.

But that wasn't the end of it. For the last three days, Mail has run with a spinning ball on gmail in it's attempt to send that message. No other messages could be sent or received thru the gmail account. And the network showed 225kb data sent continuously.

I couldn't delete the message either. The message was not located in drafts or sent items. Spotlight couldn't find it either. Not even with all hidden files shown.

Meanwhile, it placed that email in a new folder called Recovered Messages no less than 40-50 times a day. Hadn't had time to mess with it until tonight.

After a search through the Mail folder, found the key location.
Delete everything in the following folder:
~/Library/Mail/[email protected]/.offlinecache

edit: replace "email" with your gmail name

See Post # 30 for a step by step walkthrough provided by Erudite.Warrior

Thanks

I did the exact same thing. I noticed because I don't have that much space left on my laptop hard drive, so I kept running out of space. I found the emails it kept generating myself, but it would have taken me a while to find the .offlinecache folder.
Thank you very much for posting this.

thank you

Thank you very much indeed for posting this. We had exactly the same problem, went up all the blind alleys you did and then went to MacForums. We sorted it in minutes after finding the instructions you so generously posted.

Gillian

Glad to see it's helping a few others.

i am having the EXACT same problem, except I cannot find the .offlinecache file ANYWHERE!! i tried looking in the file path you said it would be in, but it is not there. I also tried searching in spotlight for it and nothing..

please help this is crippling my mail client and my internet :/

any help is GREATLY appreciated, thanks

~ means your home folder, so you'll look in MacIntosh HD / Users / your user / Library ...

Not at my Mac now, but that may be a hidden file also. If it is, you'll also have to show hidden files.

please help

I'm having exactly this issue... only I can't find .offlinecache in the folder:
~/Library/Mail/[email protected]/

I'm not sure how to "show all"... It seems they are all there... I can't receive any new mail and my computer is very slow because of this..

Thank you!

.offlinecache is a hidden folder

You will have to show hidden folders to see it.

I use Onyx to do that and several of the other common utilities have the ability to do this.
You can also use the terminal - copy and paste the following into terminal


When you are done - put in the same and just change YES to NO

thanks!

Thanks for the quick reply!

I fixed my problem another way, I simply removed my account from mail and went in and deleted the folder for the account as well... it's still updating all of my emails from gmail, but that seems to have done the trick!

recovered messages

Hi,

I'm so sorry, but I am a big beginner with Mac

I've got the same issue as written and can't find hidden folders as well,
I've also tried to copy&paste to terminal but nothing happend

could you please help me little bit more

I try to download onyx but not sure what exact things mark to delete.

Many many thanks in advance

Jeana

bobtomay said:

.offlinecache is a hidden folder

You will have to show hidden folders to see it.

I use Onyx to do that and several of the other common utilities have the ability to do this.
You can also use the terminal - copy and paste the following into terminal

Code:

defaults write com.apple.Finder AppleShowAllFiles YES

When you are done - put in the same and just change YES to NO

Click to expand...

Did you open Finder after you pasted the above into terminal and browse to the specified location to look for the files?

yes I did and there's nothing new

Log in and out, it should show it. Then, turn it back off by changing the last word to "NO". Then log in and log out. After that, it may take a while for gmail to recognize that you're not going over bandwidth

Thank you very much, issue is solved ;D
My husband has solved it according my instuctions from this forum

Thank you very much bobtomay!! I was in panic, and was told to use the web interface :S
I tried everything for the last 2 hours, and then googled (had to do it in the first place!)
THank you very much once again,

Brilliant!

You've just answered my earlier post! Will give it a try tonight and hopefully be back on track

This worked for me also. Thank you so much for the help!

Are all those recovered messages still lurking somewhere on my HD now? I had almost a hundred of them and deleted them from that mailbox, but beyond that have not seen them in the library or anywhere else. It was a big file and that's a lot of copies.

firehat said:

This worked for me also. Thank you so much for the help!

Are all those recovered messages still lurking somewhere on my HD now? I had almost a hundred of them and deleted them from that mailbox, but beyond that have not seen them in the library or anywhere else. It was a big file and that's a lot of copies.

Click to expand...

Nope, if you've deleted them in Mail, they are gone.

bobtomay,

I registered in order to say thanks. I too made the mistake of trying to send an extremely large attachement (a video file) via GMail and Mail was generating quite a quantity of recovered versions of that message.

I also was introduced to Onyx via this thread and that is a cool tool.

Now, my GMail is back up and running!

bobtomay,

1st, new to Mac's and knew little about PC's! I am not certain if our problem as in this thread, but seems close.

My wife & I both got MacBook Pros for Christmas and share the same problem with our gmail accounts with recurring deleted emails. The wife's problem is the worst: she deletes the mail, when she returns later, all the emails are back in the "In box". Checks her gmail account directly and they are gone, but stuck on the MacBook.

So the information in this thread should clear up the problem? Tried looking for the information described, but cannot get into that area (remember new at this).

Thank you for your assistance.