email pop stops working

O

ovk

Registered
My os 10.3 mail 1.3.11 recently stopped downloading mail from my gmail and earthlink accounts. Any suggestions for a fix?

1. I only have 3.5 of 37.5gigs reamining free on my hard drive
2. I leave gmail messages on the gmail server (and do not delete them (yet). I have used 511megs of 2740megs [typo corrected 7/2/06] available on the gmail server so far.
3. The "mail" folder is currently 1.14 gigs with MANY saved emails (10's of thousands).

Thanks in advance!
 
Certainly, you need to offload some of your files. You should maintain about 10% of your hard drive capacity as free space. This allows your MacOS X virtual memory system to work to its best effect.

As for your email "problem," my advice is to chill. The Internet is not perfect. The most likely problem is that you are experiencing a network connection problem between your computer and the servers. Check back to see if it clears up.

If it does not clear up on its own, then report back with some real information that will help us troubleshoot your problem.
 
Well the problem has existed since june 19th, so I don't expect my problem to go away anytime soon =(

As for "real information": what more should I include?

- I receive no error messages
- the activity viewer shows that my computer is connecting to the servers and sending password (gmail) and authenticating user (earthlink), but that's it.
- I cannot pop email from work or home.
- mail DID seem to download fewer and fewer emails at a time in the weeks before I stopped receiving them altogether
- I CAN view the emails when I log into Gmail with my web browser(s).
 
If you have the problem at both work and home, then you can rest assured that the problem is not local to either machine.

For security reasons, email providers sometimes change their POP3 settings. They have been known to do this without notice. The required settings should be available on the technical support web page. Check to ensure that you are using the most current settings.
 
Clarification: the problem exists at work and at home when I use the same laptop at both locations (one ibook, not two different computers).

yep...double checked the suggested pop settings with both email providers and compared with my local machine: all seems in order.

could the problem have anything to do with
a. corrupted permissions?
b. too many email messages and/or attachments in my mail folder
c. too much memory used by mail messages and attachments?
d. too many messages and attachments left on the gmail server?

Thanks for taking the time to try to help =)
 
You have to be methodical here.

Create a new user account on your laptop. Setup the new account with your Earthlink and Gmail settings. Do you experience the same problem?

It may be that the number of messages are a greater problem than the capacity they occupy. As it is, two systems--the Gmail server and MacOS X Mail--have to keep track of all of your messages. I am not aware of a limit on the number of messages, but such limits are not unheard of.

You have saved far more messages on the server than you can possibly read in weeks. Whether this is the cause of your problem or not, I strongly recommend that you archive your messages to CD or DVD. Delete older messages from categories that you rarely need.

Your Gmail capacity is 2739 MB, not 2739 GB. Certainly you are using a substantial fraction of your available space. Based on the data in your OP, I estimate that you are using 1648 MB of your capacity with 1092 MB remaining. The good news here is that a DVD can hold 100% of your email capacity with substantial space left over.
 
Yes, you caught my typo: I have now used 511megs (19%) of 2740megs available in my gmail (I just edited my original post)

If I can't find another fix soon, I'll take your advice and archive/save and delete messages in both gmail and mail and see what happens.

Thanks again.
 
FYI - I "solved" my problem by deleting some of the oldest email on the gmail server; now I can download email to my local machine with no problem.

Too bad I cannot use pop AND keep ALL my old mail on the Gmail server.
 
ovk said:
FYI - I "solved" my problem by deleting some of the oldest email on the gmail server; now I can download email to my local machine with no problem.

Too bad I cannot use pop AND keep ALL my old mail on the Gmail server.
Click to expand...

Then learn the difference between pop email and imap email.
 
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