Com apple mail container

Question: Q: Delete Mail from Lib. Container

In a resent Mail search I stumbled over a folder that I did not know existed. The folder resides here — Library > Containers . com.apple.mail > Data . Library . Mail Downloads. Upon browsing that folder I discovered that any downloads in Mail reside there, dating back a number of years. As a matter of fact, that folder now contains more that 2 GBs of downloaded files that I have saved to the proper folders on my HDDs.

My question — Would there be any negative effects to deleting all of those downloads, since there is no reason for having them stored in a folder other than backup work folders?

Mac Pro, macOS High Sierra (10.13), 3-1TB HDs, 2-2TB HDs, NEC PA271W

Posted on Feb 12, 2018 5:16 AM

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Avoid deleting them the mail application can get corrupt .

Feb 12, 2018 6:09 AM

Do not alter the contents of that folder. Delete the Mail messages containing those files instead.

Feb 12, 2018 6:43 AM

On one of my Mac Pros I did delete the contents of that folder and Mail seems to be working fine. On my Work Mac Pro I’ve left the folder as is. From the first Mac Pro I saved all of the entries before deleting. Should I perhaps reinstalled those Mail entries?

ALL of the files I checked in the Library folder I referred to were very much out of date and have been deleted from Messages, some a few years ago. Why would they still be in that folder? And, why should I leave them there, just taking up space? As I mentioned, some of those files dated back to 2011 and have been long gone.

Feb 12, 2018 9:02 AM

Rebuild the affected Mailbox, or all Mailboxes, according to the following: Rebuild mailboxes in Mail on Mac — Apple Support.

Feb 12, 2018 10:38 AM

Thanks for that John. I had never had any reason to Rebuild, so hadn’t used it. On the Mac Pro on which I deleted the Mail Downloads in Library, Mail is working fine. All of my Mailboxes contain the emails that I would expect and I have no problem accessing them.

However, your advice is good information to have for any future problems. Would you suggest that I should perhaps copy all of the files back into the «Mail Downloads» folder as they were originally, or just let it build a new set of files to fill that folder. As I mentioned, on my Work Mac Pro I left that folder as is, no deletions. I now have 1,879 files residing there, which equals 2.03 GBs. Seems like a lot of storage space wasted, since all of those files have been allocated to their proper folders long ago.

Feb 12, 2018 12:32 PM

Never go into a hidden directory like the Library folder. All you could accomplish is corrupting some database.

Although I cringe at the idea, you can use Apple Mail to remove attachments. In the Message window, there is a menu option to «Remove attachments». You can select multiple message and apply this command if you want.

But really, those are years worth of attachments for 2 GB? Isn’t that the same as a minor OS update these days? If you are running that short of drive space, 2 GB is not going to help. You need a bigger hard drive. Maybe use Omni Disk Sweeper (https://www.omnigroup.com/more) to see where all your drive space is really being used.

Feb 12, 2018 1:06 PM

It’s kind of difficult for me to visualize or understand what’s going on with your Mail attachments that you perceive are redundant or occupying needless space, but if you have reason to believe deleting the Mail messages containing those attachments is not removing them from Mail’s Library as it should, then the absolute minimum I recommend is creating a backup (Time Machine or the equivalent) before messing around attempting to remove them.

I really, really don’t recommend using the Finder to delete anything from Mail’s Library. It is almost certain to corrupt it and cause your messages to become irretrievably lost. As long as you have a backup strategy though, you are free to experiment.

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[OS X] Экономим дисковое пространство при работе с Mail

Всё ещё «воюете» за место на диске? Вполне может оказаться, что заполучить несколько «трофейных» гигабайт получится одним залпом, и поможет нам в этой битве замечательное приложение Mail.

Как ни крути, а встроенный в OS X почтовый клиент — отличная бесплатная программа, которой с удовольствием пользуется как ваш покорный слуга, так и многие другие владельцы Mac. Да вот незадача: с развитием технологий объёмы пересылаемых данных возросли на порядок, а стоимость твердотельных накопителей всё ещё недостаточно пропорциональна их ёмкости. Проще говоря, современная электронная почта является серьёзным потребителем дискового пространства, и виной тому не только многочисленные вложения, но и специфические настройки клиентов.

В случае с Mail, как и любой другой почтовой программой, обычно происходит следующее: пользователь открывает письмо, содержащее вложения, после чего переходит к другим сообщениям. Здесь-то и начинается самое интересное — файлы копируются в специальную папку, расположенную по адресу

/Library/containers/com.apple.mail/data/library/Mail Downloads, где хранятся неограниченно долго.

Надеемся, этот простой совет поможет освободить ваш Mac от ненужных файлов, ведь за длительное время работы с компьютером объём «почтовой» папки может существенно разрастись. Не забудьте и о других интересных особенностях Mail, например, о настройке жестов или о том, как управляться с письмами посредством вкладок. Компактной вам переписки!

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Question: Q: mail logs filling up disk space: why? ok to delete?

Computer spec’s: 2GHz Mac Mini with 4GB of RAM and a 250GB flash storage. I am running OS 10.9.5 and Mail 7.3.

Problem: My storage has been mysteriously filling up, with about 200 GB in “other” in “about this Mac.” I would delete files and then it would fill up again. Using WhatSize, I determined that Mail logs took up 107GB, with two files accounting for most of this (details below).

Questions: Is it safe to delete Mail logs? Why are some so big? Why are dates so random? Can I prevent large mail logs in the future?

In Library/Containers/com.apple.mail/Data/Library/Logs, here are the dates and size of the largest files named in format: [long stream of numbers and letters]=imap.gmail.com.txt

Then there are six files between 312GB and 867.2 GB and many others named in the above format and multiple files named in this format: [date]_GmailDelete.log dating back to May 21.

Thank you for your help.

Posted on Oct 4, 2014 6:58 PM

Thank you for the reply. I deleted the logs and got the space back. I appreciate understanding more about what happened.

Posted on Oct 6, 2014 6:32 PM

Helpful answers

Gmail is having trouble with the mac Mail client for quite some time. You know. Gmail = Google.

The Mail logs keep a record of the connection process, they’re useful to to diagnose problems, but not so friendly for regular users like Mail Activity window or Connection Doctor.

It’s safe to delete those logs. If you have a Time Machine backup, delete them from your user Library so you can check them later just in case to find what’s causing the issue (the huge size which is not usual). If you don’t have a TM backup, copy them to your desktop, erase all logs from your user Library and reopen Mail app. If it’s everything OK, keep at least the most recent and smaller one to later review what’s going on.

Oct 4, 2014 8:03 PM

Deleting the logs will help.

Something happens and causes the logs to grow.

Mail then periodically tries to zip the logs.

If the logs get too big that zipping will bring the machine to its knees.

There are two issues here as far as I can tell, 1: that the logs grow to a ridiculous size, that is bad and should be prevented. 2: that mail tries to zip them in memory which is just stupid, it should not try to do something that will kill the machine.

Please go to http://bugreport.apple.com/ and file a bug. It will be closed as a duplicate. Creating a duplicate bug report is like voting for a bug to be fixed, the more duplicates there are the higher it should get on the priority list for a fix. We can only hope.

Feb 9, 2016 9:10 PM

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Gmail is having trouble with the mac Mail client for quite some time. You know. Gmail = Google.

The Mail logs keep a record of the connection process, they’re useful to to diagnose problems, but not so friendly for regular users like Mail Activity window or Connection Doctor.

It’s safe to delete those logs. If you have a Time Machine backup, delete them from your user Library so you can check them later just in case to find what’s causing the issue (the huge size which is not usual). If you don’t have a TM backup, copy them to your desktop, erase all logs from your user Library and reopen Mail app. If it’s everything OK, keep at least the most recent and smaller one to later review what’s going on.

Oct 4, 2014 8:03 PM

Thank you for the reply. I deleted the logs and got the space back. I appreciate understanding more about what happened.

Oct 6, 2014 6:32 PM

I’m glad it worked. You’re welcome.

Please mark the answer status to green, to see the answer in context.

Oct 6, 2014 6:59 PM

Hi, I’m having a very similar trouble but I do not use Gmail. I have several mail accounts, essentially from 2 mail server providers (hosting and registrar companies), most accounts in IMAP but some still in POP.

I’m on a PowerBook pro, retina 15 mid 2012, 2.7 Ghz Intel Core i7, with 750 Gb SSD disk», running OS X Yosemite 10.10.2

Since one week I experience the same problem, disk space filling up without appearant reasons. In the Data/Library/Logs/Mail I have 541 files (!!), some of them very huge. I have deleted a 75 Gb file and another of 13Gb, but I still have files from more than 9Gb (ten file obver 1Gb).

I have changed passwords in my accounts and even to access my hosting proividers. But no changes.

Deleting the huge files in the Logs doesn’t seem to affect Mails except the fact that I have to enter all POP / IMAP and SMTP passwords 🙁

In the logs, the hugest files are «2015-03-18_IMAPMailboxSyncEngine.log», 2mail.mydomainname-d44f367b-6650-4ddf-9cc6-4fe08822ab6c.txt», «2015-03-21_SocketStreamEvents.log», «137778C8-7690-48F3-877E-48D400322117-mail.mydomainename.txt», and I have plenty like that.

The question is, where the problemn comes from ??

When deleting the log files . the problem is not solved because it continues to filling it with new logs, again ..

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Question: Q: com.apple.mail.plist missing

I need to move my Mail settings & messages to a new macbook pro via a USB drive, but I cannot find the mail.plist file anywhere. I know where it should be (Username/Library/Preferences), but it’s not there. The last Time Machine backup is from July 27, but recovering the file or deleting it doesn’t affect the app. The weirdest part is that Mail seems to work just fine without the file. Any ideas where it can be if it’s not in the Preferences folder?

iMac, OS X Mountain Lion

Posted on Aug 7, 2012 2:09 AM

Search with spotlight. Maybe it is in mails sandbox container.

Posted on Aug 7, 2012 2:13 AM

Helpful answers

Found it! Indeed, it was in Mail’s sandbox container, but it wasn’t showing up in Spotlight results.

For future reference, I found it in username/Library/Containers/com.apple.mail/Data/Library/Preferences

Thanks a lot, Soehn

Aug 7, 2012 2:36 AM

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Search with spotlight. Maybe it is in mails sandbox container.

Aug 7, 2012 2:13 AM

Tried it already. Nothing.

I also tried looking through hidden files.

And there’s a com.apple.mail.plist.lockfile where it should be, but it’s empty (as lockfiles usually are) and deleting it doesn’t change anything.

Aug 7, 2012 2:18 AM

Found it! Indeed, it was in Mail’s sandbox container, but it wasn’t showing up in Spotlight results.

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Question: Q: my containers com.apple.mail folder is missing os x 7

My mail programme started to play up.

The swirly circle of death and could only force quit mail with the re open windows message and submit report to apple option.

I have seen other posts and followed them but nothing worked.

Then …. it just launched whilst the circle was swirling for ages whilst searching for a solution.

But all my folders have gone in mail.

All the solutions I can find require me to find the com.apple.mail folder in containers but its not there.

There does seem to be a record of all the accounts in my mail folder in finder.

I do not (I know I’m a muppet) have time machine up and running.

MacBook Air, Mac OS X (10.7.5)

Posted on Aug 4, 2015 11:33 AM

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Safe Boot, (holding Shift key down at bootup), run Disk Utility in Applications>Utilities, then highlight your drive, click on Repair Permissions, reboot when it completes.

(Safe boot may stay on the gray radian for a long time, let it go, it’s trying to repair the Hard Drive & clear caches.)

Get Find Any File.

Choose Name contains. mail

dd Choice. Is a Folder

Hold Option or alt key when selecting Find to Find All.

What all results do you get?

Aug 4, 2015 1:06 PM

Thanks for the reply.

Done safe boot etc.

Still no mail folders

find any file result.

There are other results but are for different users and help files etc

This seems to be the relevant one.

Aug 5, 2015 2:50 AM

Hmmmm, now try Find any File but with Name. Ends in.

(dot ee em el ex)

Any in your User’s folder?

Aug 5, 2015 9:57 AM

Sorry for the delay, been away for a few days.

Searched with no results.

Aug 9, 2015 7:39 AM

Any chance you renamed your account?

Are there any .emlx files in any user account there?

Aug 9, 2015 10:19 AM

No .emlx files found at all.

Aug 11, 2015 4:38 AM

The only thing still there is a RSS feed that I have.

Aug 11, 2015 4:39 AM

I have tried to re setup some accounts manually.

When I try to it just hangs with the circle.

Can only force quiet (reads Mail not responding) and offers me the option of reporting it to apple.

Sooo frustrating and not remotely funny.

Aug 11, 2015 5:07 AM

What all files are in this folder?

Does this file exist?

Aug 11, 2015 11:34 AM

It does exist in the root path you say to look in.

The folder that I can’t find is the containers com.apple.mail which other threads told me to look for.

I have tried moving /Users/YourUserName/Library/Preferences/com.apple.mail.plist to the trash folder as advised in other threads.

This works for a short time.

It does not get my old accounts back.

It works only in so much as it lets me open mail — click preferences and open that window — if I then click one of the other tabs such as general it goes into the spinning cheese mode again and then again force quit — report to apple.

Its almost as though as mail starts to run it corrupts a file.

Aug 11, 2015 12:11 PM

Yikes, I’m afraid all your Mail is really gone, though you might try recovery software before you use the Mac anymore, you’ll need an external drive to save to.

They have a free demo to see what it could recover.

rccharles on file recovery.

«Stellar Phoenix Macintosh — Mac data recovery software, recovers data from damaged, deleted, or corrupted volumes and even from initialized disks.»

They have a trial version, so I guess you can see if your data can be recovered.

FileSalvage is an extremely powerful Macintosh application for exploring and recovering deleted files from a drive or volume. FileSalvage is designed to restore files that have:

* been accidentally deleted.

* become unreadable due to media faults.

* been stored on a drive before it was re-initialized/formatted.

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