Rebuilding the Apple Mail Envelope Index
Some time ago, I had set up my Gmail account in Apple Mail in order to copy over messages that were missing in my online jimmitchell.org IMAP account. I’m one of those guys who likes to have everything all in one place at my finger tips when I want it.
After copying over the messages I wanted, I completely removed the Gmail IMAP account from Mail and went about my business. Soon after, when I went searching for a specific email, I experienced the phenomenon of ghost emails in the search results (see image below). These are messages that Mail once knew about, but no longer knows where they exist. The ghost emails were all from the since removed Gmail account.
If you’re experiencing the same problem, here’s a very simple fix for it. First, quit Apple Mail if it’s running, then navigate your way to “~/Library/Mail/” (where “~” is your home folder) in the Finder. Once you’re in the Mail folder, you’ll see a file named “Envelope Index” which keeps track of where all messages are located. Rename “Envelope Index” to “Envelope Index Backup” (We don’t want to trash the file just yet).
Then, relaunch Apple Mail. You’ll be presented with a daunting “Message Import” dialog that looks like your email account was wiped out and you’re starting all over. Fear not. You’re simply rebuilding the Envelope Index at this point.
Click “Continue” to rebuild the index. Once it’s done, all those pesky phantom messages will be gone the next time you perform a search in Mail (Yay!). You can then go back to the “~/Library/Mail/” folder in the Finder and move the file you renamed to “Envelope Index Backup” to the Trash.
And there you have it. A very simple solution to a problem that has baffled some of the best Mac users.
Resetting iTunes Authorization
So you just got a new iMac for Christmas, and now you need to know how to reset which machines are authorized to access your purchased iTunes media. Well, you’re in luck, because here’s the support article you’ve been looking for:
More On Leopard Mail.app Freezes
This is a follow up to the bit I posted last week about Mail.app hanging — usually at login/startup/wake, but then at other times for no reason in particular. My original post blamed the problem on iCal syncing To-Do’s with Mail (which I personally don’t like).
An update to that post later shifted the blame to GrowlMail. I can confirm — without a doubt — that GrowlMail has a problem with IMAP email accounts under Leopard, both on Intel and PPC based machines. While you could simply turn GrowlMail off in Mail preferences, my recommendation is to completely remove the bundle until it can be fully updated for compatibility. Note: a new version of GrowlMail was released a few days ago that supposedly addresses Leopard issues. However, my testing found it to still have lingering problems, so I promptly uninstalled it.
If you have GrowlMail installed, it can be uninstalled by removing the following files from your hard drive:
/Library/Mail/Bundles/GrowlMail.bundle /Library/Receipts/GrowlMail.pkg /Library/Receipts/growlmailPreflight.pkg
Since deleting those files, I’ve had no trouble with my IMAP account in Leopard Mail whatsoever. It should be noted you’ll probably have to authenticate as an administrator to remove the files.
Possible Fix for Leopard Mail Freeze
With the move to my new web host, I finally have the luxury of good, fast IMAP email again (thank you!). I had been doing the Gmail thing for the past few months using the very awesome MailPlane, but even as much as the app rocks, it still wasn’t quite what I was looking for in the way of doing mail.
Though I touted GyazMail as the mail app to have a while back, I’ve secretly harbored a desire to use my first love, Mail.app. There’s something about it that I find gets me where I want to be the quickest. But I digress. This post isn’t about which email reader is better…
Instead, this post is intended to help others who may have run into the same problem I had. Every so often when I’d launch Mail 3.1 in Leopard, or just at other times for no reason, the application would become totally unresponsive. Mail would still arrive, but I couldn’t do much more with it than move the main window around on my screen. I was almost as though the application was frozen, but not quite. Obviously it was doing something very resource intensive to become that unresponsive.
After some rooting around, I think I discovered the problem. By setting the “Add invitations to iCal” option in the General preference of Mail to “Never”, all of my freezes have suddenly disappeared. This may or may not help someone else who’s having the same issue. But for me, it did the trick. Your mileage may vary.
[Update] I’ve also noticed that GrowlMail doesn’t seem to be playing nicey-nice with Mail under Leopard. When I logged out or restarted, logged back in, and launched Mail, it would freeze up as GrowlMail thought about displaying a notification for each message, quite slowly.
If you have GrowlMail installed, and are experiencing freezes in Leopard Mail, try turning it off (Mail > Preferences > GrowlMail). Post a comment if that helps (or doesn’t). So far, it seems to solve the problem for me.
Oh, and I got rid of MS Office completely too. That might have some bearing, or it might not. I’m using iWork ’08 for that kind of stuff now.
Securing Gmail Notifier
Secure Gmail Notifier using hidden preference setting
I was shocked to discover that the Gmail Notifier, as distributed by Google, defaults to sending your Gmail password over the network in clear text every time it checks your inbox for new mail.
Here’s a very handy tip I came across on MacOSXHints.com this morning. I had no idea that my GMail & GCal password was being sent in clear-text. I’m not too happy about it either. Thankfully, it’s really easy to change Google Notifier to an https connection using the poster’s instructions. If you use the app, I recommend you do the same — pronto.
Using Keychains With .Mac; Troubleshooting Issues
Using keychains with .Mac; troubleshooting keychain issues
You can use keychains with .Mac. This article applies to Mac OS X 10.4 or later and contains troubleshooting information that you can use if you encounter keychain issues.
Fresh on the heels of my last post about keychain troubles, Apple was good enough to release a far more detailed article on the topic. This is definitely one of those “Utility”1 bookmarks you want to keep in your browser. The article covers mostly troubles when syncing your keychains via .Mac, but it has some good points for troubleshooting none-the-less.
However, based on my past experiences syncing keychains with .Mac, there’s only one thing I can say about it — just don’t do it!
- I like to keep a folder in by browser favorites named “Utility” where I store handy tidbit such as this. It’s a time saver when something goes wrong. [↩]
Apple KBase Article: Resetting your keychain in OS X
Resetting your keychain in Mac OS X 10.3, 10.4
If Keychain First Aid finds an issue that it cannot repair, or if you do not know your keychain password, you may need to reset your keychain. (Resetting a keychain deletes a keychain reference while preserving the keychain file.)
Here’s a good Apple Knowledge Base article about resetting your login keychain to keep on hand in your browser favorites. The only thing I would add to it, which isn’t made clear; resetting your keychain in this manner will rename your old keychain to “login_renamed#.keychain” (where # is a number), which can be opened manually in Keychain Access again to copy digital certificates and other passwords to the new login.keychain — this is presuming, of course, that your old keychain is not so corrupt that it can’t be opened.
Resolve Startup Issues and Perform Disk Maintenance
Resolve startup issues and perform disk maintenance with Disk Utility and fsck
If your computer won’t start up normally, you may need to use a disk repair utility to fix the issue. Mac OS X includes two utilities for this—Disk Utility and fsck. You can also use these even when your computer starts just fine but you want to check the disk for possible file system issues…
A decent Apple Knowledge Base article which covers repairing your start up disk using either “fsck” or Disk Utility. Tiger users should note that Apple recommends using Disk Utility whenever possible instead of the “fsck” (Unix “file system check”) command for performing repairs and/or maintenance.
Mac 101: Miracle Maintenance
Mac 101: Miracle Maintenance
Following are three key things you can do to keep your Mac in tip-top shape. We also tell you what you can do to get the best performance from your Mac.
This is a decent Apple Knowledgebase article which was posted (or updated) today. It covers what I would consider to be the very minimum a user should do to keep their machine in order. I repeat — this is the VERY LEAST you should do to keep your Mac happy! If you’re not even doing this much, then you’re just asking for trouble.
Another decent kBase article covering Mac Maintenance is 303602. It expands a little bit more on the topics in article 304751, but is still only what I’d call a bare minimum for keeping your Mac in tip-top shape.
Be on the lookout for my version — where I’ll go into just a wee bit1 more detail — sometime after the first of the year…
- Actually, it’ll be way more detailed — but still easy enough to stick to on a regular basis. [↩]
Here's a Great CSS Trick
While I’m handing out tips, I think I’ll share a CSS trick that I picked up somewhere (but can’t remember where) not too long ago. This cool little method will pre-load the images for your site theme without the need for any JavaScript. It’s too simple not to use it!
First, add an id selector to your stylesheet similar to the following:
#preload {
width: 0;
height: 0;
display: inline;
background-image: url(images/background.gif);
background-image: url(images/banner.gif);
background-image: url(images/logo.gif);
background-image: url();
}
The critical thing here is the size (width/height: 0), to display it inline (no box of it’s own) and that the last background image url be empty so nothing shows as a background (even though the width/height is 0).
Then in your page, right after the “<body>” tag, add an empty div element as such;
<div id="preload"></div>
That’s it. As soon as your page loads, the style images are downloaded and stored in the browser cache. No need for a JavaScript function to do it anymore. Slick, huh? Works great for those who prefer to browse with JS disabled too.
Yes, it adds just a little superfluous code to the page, but it’s far less cumbersome than the JS alternative, and far more manageable when you want to add or remove images.
There you have it. Enjoy!
