How do I save my Mail app without having to rebuild it?

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Level 1

14 points

How do I save my Mail app without having to rebuild it?

I'm hoping someone can assist with an ongoing infuriating issue....

MacOS Ventura 13.3.1

Mac Mail : 16.0

I'm getting constant errors in the mail app. A grey triangle appears in the Mail App. Clicking this has a message "Connection to the server 'p-18-imap.mail.me.com' on the default port timed out". The account this is on is an icloud account hosting a custom domain.

Exactly the same account, configured in exactly the same way, works fine on my iPhone.

Another email account on the same domain on another mac configured in the same way works fine.

When clicking the triangle you have the option to cancel or try again. Both options cause the Mac to start to run really hot with the mail.app hitting 200%+ CPU and the fans going bonkers.

Clicking connection doctor gives no errors and the connection test comes back all positive!

Clicking Mail->Settings->Accounts show a green 'online' status against this mail account

However despite everything in Mail.app telling me the account is ok, no mail is retrieved. The only solution is to CMD-Q mail and reopen it.

I've deleted the entire mail account, and recreated it.
i've deleted the ~/library/mail folder and let mail rebuild the account
I've deleted the wifi service and re-added it

I can only imagine that something at the kernel level is messed up, and my last resort is rebuild the whole machine from the ground up but this is going to take a while to complete, and make sure everything that was on the Mac is back on.

Anyone got any ideas to save me a massive rebuild?

[Re-Titled by Moderator]

MacBook Pro (2017 – 2020)

Posted on Apr 29, 2023 07:36 PM

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Answer 1

Old Toad

Level 10

214,314 points

Apr 3, 2024 11:46 AM in response to Cah7236

First, there is no reason to ever install or run any 3rd party "cleaning", "optimizing", "speed-up", anti-virus, VPN or security apps on your Mac. This documents describe what you need to know and do in order to protect your Mac: Effective defenses against malware and other threats - Apple Community and Recognize and avoid phishing messages, phony support calls, and other scams - Apple Support.

There are no known viruses, i.e. self propagating, for Macs. There are, however, adware and malware which require the user to install although unwittingly most of the time thru sneaky links, etc.

Anti Virus developers try to group all types as viruses into their ad campaigns of fear. They do a poor job of the detecting and isolating the adware and malware. Since there are no viruses these apps use up a lot of system resources searching for what is non-existent and adversely affect system and app performance.

There is one app, Malwarebytes, which was developed by a long time contributor to these forums and a highly respected member of the computer security community, that is designed solely to seek out adware and known malware and remove it. The free version is more than adequate for most users.

So I recommend you uninstall the Intego A/V software according to the developer's instructions. You can check to see if you've removed all of the supporting files by downloading and running the shareware app Find Any File to search for any files with the application's or the developer's name in the file name. For the Intego software you'd do the following search(es):

1 - Name contains intego, virusbarrier, netbarrier (or whatever it's called)

Any files that are found can be dragged from the search results window to the Desktop or Trash bin in the Dock for deletion.

FAF can search areas that Spotlight can't like invisible folders, system folders and packages.

If you get warnings that the file can't be deleted because it is in use or used by another app boot into Safe Mode according to How to use safe mode on your Mac and delete from there.

Note: if you have a wireless keyboard with rechargeable batteries connect it with its charging cable before booting into Safe Mode. This makes it act as a wired keyboard as will assure a successful boot into Safe Mode.

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