Apple Mail slow or crashes or says: This message has no content Print

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Problem Description

This issue presents itself in various forms with Apple Mail:

  • The app crashes immediately or soon after launch
  • When viewing some messages, it says "This message has no content" but restarting Apple Mail usually fixes the issue
  • Loading the inbox or another mailbox can take 20-30s or longer

Problem Resolution

This most often occurs when you have let your inbox (or other mailbox) become too large. Typically a mailbox, like the inbox, greater than 5GB might cause issues like this. To resolve this, we recommend using both a server-side and offline Archive folder. Here's how:

Server-side Archiving

Select one or more messages in the mailbox, then use the "Archive" button in the Apple Mail toolbar or in Webmail (the Archive button is available in both). This will simply move messages into a server-side folder called "Archive". Do this until your inbox has less than 100-200 messages in it and all older ones have been archived. You will then find all your older messages in the folder called Archive rather than in the inbox. This does mean that loading the Archive folder will take some time, but it also means that when you first load your mail app or webmail, it won't take nearly as long to initially load.

Client-side Archiving (on your computer)

When your server-side Archive folder has more than 5000-10000 messages, it's best to then archive the older emails on your computer, rather than leave them server-side. This has two major benefits: 1) it will make loading the server-side Archive folder much faster, and 2) it will free up space on the server, ensuring you can use your mail account without interruption for longer as you won't be likely to reach your mail quotas as quickly, or at all.

Users have reported that when they keep their inbox clean (and the rest of their server-side folder sizes in check) issues like the above occur far less frequently or not at all.

Notes:

  • A Client-side archive will not have a copy of the messages on the server, so it's imperative that you use a backup solution on your computer.
  • If you prefer to keep larger mailboxes server-side, please consider utilizing our Exchange mail hosting solution. It's designed to handle much larger mail folders as it's specifically geared towards business-class email.

 


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