Clean up Mail 10.3 on OS Mac Sierra 10.12.6

[Maxwideman]

Is it possible to delete and reinstall Mail to give a fresh start, but without losing all messages? If so, where would I find Mail 10.3 to reinstall?

 

[Cory Cooper]

Hello,

There isn't a way to install just the Mail app. What kind of issues are you having that would cause you to want to reinstall?

C

 

[Maxwideman]

Mail app is not working as it should do IMHO e.g.

1. Attachments to incoming mail never show in the paper clip column
2. The search field rarely produces useful results
3. If you delete a message in the Inbox, often the message just turns grey and you have to quit Mail and reopen to get rid of it
4. When I use Message>Remove attachments I feel sure that the list of messages in that screen used to disappear to indicate that the attachments have been removed. This is no longer the case.
5. When I use Mailbox>Rebuild nothing seems to happen as shown in the Activity Window.

However, I do have my MacOS running on a 1TB SSD drive, so maybe some of these things are too fast to see?
(on a macPro mid 2010 MacOS 10.12.6)

Thanks.

 

[Cory Cooper]

OK, thanks for the additional information.

A few additional questions:
-How many email accounts are setup?
-Who are the email providers?
-Which view are you using in Mail > Preferences... > Viewing? I assume Use classic layout is checked?

Answers:

1. Do attachments show in the individual emails anywhere?
2. When searching, are you selecting to search All in the bottom of the toolbar? And, is Mail & Messages selected in  > System Preferences... > Spotlight > Search Results?
3. Does deleting an email do the same thing in all accounts?
4. I haven't used the remove attachments function, so I cannot comment on that...I will do a little research on it though.
5. When rebuilding mailboxes, you won't see anything n the Activity window for those mailboxes on your Mac. You will if you rebuild one that is online, like you Inbox.

Hope that helps...we'll keep working on it.

C

 

[Maxwideman]

Thanks Cory. Here are my responses to your further questions:
Q1 Yes incoming emails show a paper clip opposite the name in the email itself
Q2 That's odd, I don't see that anywhere, either in the Mail Finder field nor the OS X Finder Field.
Q2a (is Mail & Messages selected in  > System Preferences... > Spotlight > Search Results?): Yes
Q3 As far as I can see, I only use the one account, (e-mail address removed)
Q4 Because of the number of Emails I receive daily, about 25 plus 20 to 30 sent directly to my Junk folder, so every 2 weeks I do a thorough clean up (deleting emails no longer required) and back up all my data files including emails to a separate hard drive. In this arrangement, "Removing attachments" and "Rebuilding" recovers quite a bit of disc space.
Q5 Thanks. I'll try that next time.