Mail headers are transposed

For the past year or so, I have a problem that occurs once a week or so where the headers in the mail app are transposed for two consecutive emails. The body of the email shows the correct sender in the upper left corner, but if I reply to the email it is sent incorrectly to the person that appears in the header. This is very annoying. It has been happening for many months under at least two operating systems (currently Ventura). The only way I've found to correct the problem is to select the appropriate mailbox and the click Mailbox > Rebuild.


Does anyone know how to prevent this transposition in the first place?


iMac (2017 – 2020)

Posted on May 21, 2023 10:50 PM

Reply
3 replies

May 21, 2023 11:01 PM in response to the-design-guy2

Start with this of M1 or M2 Mac...


On your Mac, choose Apple menu  > Shut Down.

Wait for your Mac to shut down completely. A Mac is completely shut down when the screen is black and any lights (including in the Touch Bar) are off.

Press and hold the power button on your Mac until “Loading startup options” appears.

Select a volume.

Press and hold the Shift key, then click Continue in Safe Mode.

The computer restarts automatically. When the login window appears, you should see “Safe Boot” in the menu bar.


Restart normally.


Start with this if IntelMac...


Safe Boot, (holding Shift key down at startup), does the problem occur in Safe Mode? Could take 10 minutes or more.


If you have no POP accounts & they’re all IMAP accounts then in Mail’s Mailbox menu choose Rebuild.

May 23, 2023 09:52 AM in response to BDAqua

Thank you for the reply! Unfortunately, this is a very intermittent problem. It occurs maybe once every two weeks. I'm not sure I want to run in safe mode for two or three weeks to troubleshoot the problem. I'll probably just try to rebuild my mailbox more frequently and pay better attention to emails I am responding to…and hope that an Apple engineer can figure out a solution.

This thread has been closed by the system or the community team. You may vote for any posts you find helpful, or search the Community for additional answers.

Mail headers are transposed

Welcome to Apple Support Community
A forum where Apple customers help each other with their products. Get started with your Apple Account.