I’ve been using Spamsieve for a few years on a Mac G4 iBook without any hassle until recently. Spamsieve is doing odd things. It is now detecting spam messages and storing them in the spam mailbox as normal but also letting them through into my inbox. Not only that, the number of spam messages does not show on the spam mailbox. When I click on the spam mailbox (I know if there are messages in there because they have already appeared in my inbox), the whole system goes sluggish and a little clock icon appears next to the spam mailbox. The messages eventually appear, but when I select them and send them to trash, everything goes slow again.
Any ideas?
This is not something that SpamSieve controls. It only decides whether a message is spam; the mail program stores and moves/copies it. Which mail program are you using? Which versions of Mac OS X and SpamSieve are you using? Is your spam mailbox stored locally or on an IMAP/Exchange/MobileMe server?
Are you referring to the number of unread messages?
It sounds like your mail program’s database needs to be rebuilt.
How do I delete this?
Why is that necessary and how is it done, please?
By the way, I can’t work out how to separate the message quotes in responding to you.
OK, after further research. Spam messages are being sent to the spam mailbox as normal (but are not shown as unread), and are also appearing in my inbox with a Spamsieve colour coding e.g. pale blue. I can delete these messages from my inbox easily enough, but whenever I click on the spam mailbox I get the clock icon next to the mailbox and my system goes slow.
Rebuilding the database makes sure that Mail knows which mailbox each message is in and how many unread messages are in each mailbox.
First, quit Mail, then rename the file:
/Users/<username>/Library/Mail/Envelope Index
to “Envelope Index Old” and re-launch Mail so that it builds a new one.
Please let me know if this still happens after rebuilding the database.
I followed the instructions for rebuilding the database and everything is back to normal.
Thanks for your assistance.
Final questions; Should I delete the old database? Was my problem a common phenomenon? Is it worth rebuilding the mail program database on a regular basis just to keep it working optimally? Thanks again.
Yes.
I haven’t had problems with Mail’s database myself, but each week I encounter a few people who do. I’ve not seen all of the specific symptoms that you mentioned before.
Probably not.