Mail problems with Ventura

Hello maura161,

Thank you for reaching out in Apple Support Communities. Our recommendation is to ensure that the status of your email accounts are set to online and not offline. This will help ensure that the Mail app downloads the latest incoming emails for your mail accounts. To verify that, please open the Mail app, then go to the menu bar by selecting "Mailbox" > "Take All Accounts Online."

If that doesn't help, let's go ahead and rebuild the mailboxes. This step can help resolve unexpected behavior. Here's how:

1. In the Mail app  on your Mac, select a mailbox in the sidebar.

2. Choose Mailbox > Rebuild.

This information is outlined in this helpful article in case you need to reference the steps: Rebuild mailboxes in Mail on Mac

Please let us know if that helps.

Kind regards.

Thanks for your post icayhwm. It looks like there are many of us experiencing this problem. After I posted my post above, I contacted Apple support. I was advised to go through a process of re-installing my operating system: Ventura 13.0.1. I followed instructions and re-installed Ventura. That did not resolve the problem. Apple Mail is no longer working on my MacBook Air, so I have to use my iPhone and iPad for my email.

I’m going to try Apple support one more time, before switching to a Gmail client. I’ll post the results on this thread.

Thanks to everyone for contributing.

By the way, the instructions for reinstalling macOS are here: How to reinstall macOS - Apple Support

Since updating my MacBook Air (Retina, 13 inch, 2019) to Ventura (13.0.1), I've been having problems with Apple Mail. It often gets stuck with an error message: "Copying messages." See attached image, lower left corner. Then I can't quit the Mail app, and have to Force Quit. Sometimes that fixes it, sometimes not. Sometimes restarting the Mac will fix it, sometimes not.

How do I fix this problem? Thanks.

I’ve had consistent problems as well with Apple Mail since upgrading, with the activity bar showing “copying messages,” and also having to force quit the app. I have tried many things, and it continues to happen.

Additionally, a seemingly random number of emails I have sent have disappeared. I disappeared, I mean, they never arrived to the thunder, and also don’t appear in my sent mail, despite receiving no message at the moment, I had send. This has happened across three different email gmail accounts.

From the user perspective, it looked completely like the email has been sent, and it wasn’t until people alerted me that they had not heard from me that I was able to identify the fact that the email now, appears to have never existed.

I have checked in the Gmail Web platform. There is also no record of the scent of emails there.

Am I alone in this?

I’ve had to stop using Apple mail, and work with a Gmail web interface. Perhaps in an evitable switch, but very frustrating.

Since updating, my Smart Mailboxes routinely show 0 messages. Occasionally the messages will seem to be loading into the Smart Mailboxes (i.e. Today (162)), but when I click on the mailbox it shows it as empty with 0 messages and the unread message count disappears. I am also unable to search my mailbox. I will try to search for the name of a sender so I can delete all of their emails at once, and it shows there are no messages.

Update: I have done a reinstall of Ventura, and Mail appears more stable. It's been 24 hours, and I have not seen "copying email" in the activity window. I have been able to launch and quit Mail without issues (no force quits), and have been sending test emails to see if any "disappear" – none yet.

But for now, I am still working in web-based Gmail, out of concern of losing more work. Have doubts about relying on Mail, after these upgrade issues.

If issues return, I'll post here.

icayhwm thanks for the update. Here's mine:

I contacted Apple support online to receive a phone call. I showed the tech support person the issue with Apple Mail, which we ran through a couple of times did a force quit. He suggested a safe application, which involves starting the application while pressing down the shift key. That didn't change anything

I also showed him the issue with Contacts about how it freezes up.

He put me on hold and did some research. It turns out that the Mail application is a known issue to Apple, and they are working on a fix. He thinks that the Contacts issue may be connected, but he didn't know for sure

I showed him my activity monitor screen. I showed him how contactsd and mds-stores are taking up a huge amount of cpu capacity (over 150%). He said that contactsd is used to run Contacts. He didn’t know what mds-stores is.

He said that Apple will send a software update when the fix is available. He could not estimate when that will be. He had no recommendation for a Gmail client for my MacBook Air.

I have downloaded a Gmail client from the App Store for my MacBook Air, called Mail for Gmail, and started using it. It's been a learning curve. so far I'd rate it about 7.5 out of 10. It does download and send out my emails, with an interface similar to Gmail on the web. And it does sort the incoming mail into the Gmail categories: Primary, Promotions, Social, Forums, etc. On the downside, the interface isn't as smooth and simple as Apple Mail. And there are certain things that are tricky and not intuitively obvious. Also an issue: I now have to deal with two interfaces for managing my emails, this one on my MacBook Air, and Apple Mail on my iPone and iPad. Bottom line: I'll continue using this one for the time being, and look forward to the Apple Mail fix from Apple.

I do appreciate everyone's contributions on this thread. Let's continue to keep each other updated!

until apple fixes Apple Mail,

you should/may obtain+use Thunderbird email-client, its free & open-source app,

it actually can perform as many other service client app, not only email service client-app.

setup your aol, gmail, icloud email-address inside it.

I'm having problems as well, but different.

Some sent message suddenly appear in my in box. They are no long in the sent folder. So far, it appears that they all were actually sent, but ...

I am having the same problem and no solution.