Comments on: Apple Mail Inbox Has 4 Billion Messages

By: Ryan

Ryan — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 21:41:49 +0000

This is happening to me on my iPhone 3GS with Gmail. Any help there?

By: Jeremy Lee

Jeremy Lee — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 17:56:15 +0000

@Novice,

I tried your solution (ticking the ‘Move deleted messages to the Trash mailbox’ box under Mail: Preferences: Accounts: Mailbox Behaviors) and it worked! Thank you so much for the help!

By: novice

novice — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 10:01:27 +0000

Jeremy Lee ~
Such an odd issue isn’t it? As long as the phantom messages are not eating up hard drive space – I guess it is ok.

By: novice

novice — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 10:00:10 +0000

Maja ~
Thanks for sharing your solution. I am sure it will help someone else!

By: Maja B.

Maja B. — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 17:44:36 +0000

I have several Gmail accounts and several other e-mail accounts that I check using Mac Mail. I had the 4 billion messages problem when there was no Trash bin for my one primary Gmail account with the 4 billion count. I deleted that account, went into Gmail settings and made sure IMAP was disabled (it keeps going back to enabled mysteriously) and then re-added the primary Gmail account to Mac Mail. I think the problem is fixed.

By: Jeremy Lee

Jeremy Lee — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 06:05:06 +0000

I have the exact same problem with two of my IMAP accounts, but not with the other two. And similar to Novice and Null, the count is always a variable on 4,294,9xx,xxx messages.

By: novice

novice — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 12:46:28 +0000

I think I might have figured it out – if you go into the Mailbox drop down menu and select “erase deleted messages” either in all accounts or in the particular account that has the gazillion messages – the count becomes accurate.

Somehow I think it has something to do with how mailbox behaviors are set up in account preferences which causes a ton of deleted messages to not actually be deleted.

There is not much guidance out there as to how mailbox behaviors should actually be configured for different email services. I finally through in the towel and primarily use the gmail web interface instead of apple mail. I do have one account set up with apple mail so that I can easily send mail to the people in my address book. But I am frustrated to no end. Apple should be easier than this!

By: John Schumacher

John Schumacher — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 14:29:38 +0000

My Mail app is doing the same thing. Rebuilding the mac mail box temporarily solves the problem, but the 4 billion + count will eventually return.

By: Null

Null — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 19:49:26 +0000

I have the exact same problem, and the number of messages is similar: 4,294,959,373.