Sometimes Apple’s Mail.app doesn’t perform the way you want it to. This can happen for several reasons. Here are two common methods you can use to troubleshoot and fix Mail problems.
Rebuild a mailbox
If Mail becomes slow or you can’t find a message in a specific Mail folder (“mailbox” in Apple parlance) but you know it’s in there, you might need to have the folder rebuilt. To do so, follow these steps.
Choose the mailbox to rebuild from the Mail sidebar.
From the Mailbox menu, choose Rebuild Mailbox. You need to do this process for each mailbox you rebuild.
Once the process is done. evaluate Mail.app’s performance or check again for that message. If you recall any of the text in the message you’re looking for, type it into Spotlight.
Diagnose connections
Sometimes a triangular icon with an exclamation mark appears next to an account. This can mean the connection to a mail server isn’t working properly.
To troubleshoot the problem, go to the Window menu and choose Connection Doctor. If there’s an issue here, you can take several other steps to define the problem:
- Check your Internet connection to see if it’s at fault.
- If it isn’t, sign in to your email account using a web browser.
Do you do anything different to troubleshoot email problems? Share your solutions in the comments below.