OS X Mail: POP Suddenly Quits Working

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From the computer of: davak (390 recipes)
Created: Jan 07, 2008

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A bug exists in OS X Mail where receiving email from the server through the POP protocol stops without warning. The problem is often easy to identify and fix. Here are the steps...

OS X occasionally chokes on a malformed email message when trying to retrieve it using POP. The messages will be left on the server (and can be verified using a webmail service) but Mail just will not grab them.

In my experience this is usually an email message that is 0 bytes long.

Removing the malformed email message will allow Mail to start working correctly again.

1. Open OS X Mail
2. ctrl-click (right-click)on your inbox
3. Select Get Account Info



4. A list of messages on the server will be created. Blue dots will show the unread messages on the server. If a malformed email is causing the problem, it is likely it is the first unread message listed before you read messages. As shown in the example below, it will often have a size of 0 as well. Select the message and click Remove From Server.



5. Confirm removing the message on the server.