Skip to main content

Apple testing Mail update for OS X Mavericks to fix Gmail, stability, and smart mailbox issues

Screen Shot 2013-10-31 at 7.49.56 PM

Since the launch of OS X Mavericks last week, many users have been reporting widespread, various, consistent issues within Apple’s bundled Mail application.

Many of the issues have mainly affected users of Google’s Gmail email service, and some of the issues have to do with receiving messages, sorting messages into folders, and deleting messages.

Apple is aware of the issue and is testing a fix for the problem…

An updated Mail application has been seeded to both Apple employees internally and testers within Apple’s customer AppleSeed program.

The updated Mail app is Version 7.0 and is labeled as build 1822. The OS X Mavericks 10.9.0 Mail app, for comparison, is Version 7.0 with build number 1816.

Apple tells testers that the update fixes issues with Gmail, smart mailboxes, and overall stability. Apple also asks these  users to test for the following:

– Use Mail with your usual Mail accounts, including iCloud, Gmail, Exchange, etc.
– Send Mail messages
– Receive and check for new Mail messages at the intervals you expect it
– Read and move Mail messages to folders on your mail server, folders on your Mac, smart folders.
– Delete Mail messages as appropriate
– Undo move or delete actions with your Mail messages
– Mark messages read/unread in both your mail provider’s webpage and Mail and verify they stay in sync.

The updated Mail application is available as a patch download, not as a full update to OS X Mavericks. Sources say that OS X Mavericks 10.9.1 is already well into development, but it is unclear if these Mail fixes will be available as a standalone update or rolled into that upcoming OS X Mavericks 10.9.1 release. Apple asks testers to provide feedback through a dedicated communication channel, and the company refers to this update as “important.”

Update: Seeded to AppleCare employees:

Screen Shot 2013-11-04 at 11.12.28 AM

FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.

You’re reading 9to5Mac — experts who break news about Apple and its surrounding ecosystem, day after day. Be sure to check out our homepage for all the latest news, and follow 9to5Mac on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn to stay in the loop. Don’t know where to start? Check out our exclusive stories, reviews, how-tos, and subscribe to our YouTube channel

Comments

  1. laq (@laq997) - 10 years ago

    they could fix the wi-fi issues and slow browsing too… i feel like i went back to windows… so NOT happy

  2. OK, ok… but where Apple hide Tags in Mail. Hy?

  3. Good to hear about OSX 10.9.1. Any word on the development of iOS 7.1?

  4. emulajavi - 10 years ago

    Why not also include Outlook.com IMAP (recently supported by outlook.com) easy configuration like in the iphone??

  5. Nathan Woods (@4wdphoto) - 10 years ago

    What I want is the ability to edit my SMTP settings again! And ports!

    • Raido Orumets - 10 years ago

      You can do it right now also. Don’t click “Mail” -> “Accounts…”, click “Mail” -> “Preferences” -> “Accounts” (there you can set everything you want).

  6. Bernard Maltais - 10 years ago

    I had reported this bug to Apple weeks ago while testing 10.9 betas. I am surprised it has taken so long to fix.

  7. Frank Lowney - 10 years ago

    Apple Mail 7.0 has dropped the option to save sent mail locally. If you don’t save sent mail and drafts on iCloud, it disappears. Storing email on iCloud should be an option, not a requirement.

  8. Forcing me to save sent mail in the cloud (Apple or GMail) rather than locally is a reason to change mail client! – The cloud is quite a bit worse than my HD …

    • until your HD dies, that is

      • Keith Mears - 9 years ago

        ohh… so the existence of the cloud makes backups impossible? Time machine and a backup protocol make using the cloud a ridiculous waste of time, at least for email records. The lack of general cloud security is also a great reason to avoid allowing business, legal or personal email information to be stored there. At any moment, Apple can decide to ‘break in” to put a U2 album in my cloud space. Obviously, the space is NOT secure.
        As has been found countless times, anything left on an email account (cloud, gmail, whatever) for 6 months or more is considered legally searchable without any sort of judicial review, so it is a fool who uses the cloud to ‘store’ email of any import. Scenario: assume you have nothing in your email account but your legal business correspondence. Your account can be subject to search simply because your user name is similar to that of some completely unrelated user reported to be in contact with a ‘person of interest’ in an investigation. Your account is searched, all data copied and archived. At this point, it is available to every legal entity related to the government, as well as low level employees of government contractors, including many of the same contractors famous for sifting through the records at their disposal for potential money scams, ‘interesting’ pictures, possible girlfriends, and other data that might be useable as future blackmail (to shut you up if you take a political stance against some policy or other).
        This would all sound like conspiracy theory, of course, except that every single one of these examples has happened, again and again, and not just to reporters, whistleblowers and political activists (although those are the cases that get the most press), but also to ordinary folks who happened to share part of an address, a user name, or whose email happened to share the same system as the completely unrelated person who was being watched.
        There is a a growing push to make all electronic communication open to search and filter, and the increasing dependence on “cloud” technology is part of it. The cloud is great for accessing music files, or even non-secure work files. It can allow one to work on a paper, book, or program from many different places without carrying around a hard drive. But it is a proven choice for email storage, or the storage of anything containing personal, financial, private, legal or sensitive information. And it is absolutely not a replacement for hard data backup (e.g. time machine).

  9. Pierre Calixte - 10 years ago

    iOS 7 mail has been a real disappointment. takes forever to get my email from gmail now. it used to be instant with push notification.

  10. nienczewski - 10 years ago

    I use Gmail in my Mail. Last weekend I upgrated my Macbook Air (Mid’s 2011) to Mavericks. Since them, when I open Mail, the internet stops to work. When I don’t use Mail, the internet goes fast!
    And now? Any idea?

  11. Pablo Ambram - 10 years ago

    how does one get this patch?

  12. Scott Stowell - 10 years ago

    I just migrated from a 2008 MBP to a brand new MBPr running Mavericks, and Mail won’t even open. The first time, it gave me a welcome box like I had never used Mail before. I restarted and now it’s always “Application Not Responding.” Will this fix fix this?

    • Don Reddin - 10 years ago

      my mail application opens.. i can receive mail.. but no window to view it opens… I can change account settings, but no others settings come up. If i search for mail in spotlight, I can see a preview of new mail, but when I click on it, it won’t open in mail.. very frustrating!

    • JM Palacios (@jmpalacios) - 10 years ago

      I seem to recall this happening when I upgraded from Snow Leopard to Mountain Lion with a clean install. Just click through the welcome messages and you should see your messages afterwards. Try traditional methods to get past the application quitting (delete preference files for Mail, restart your computer, etc.)

  13. Daniel Coppersmith - 10 years ago

    Maybe they could put in a fix to the mark as read delay that actually works. Or how about fixing the font size change when emails are read in Outlook? Or give me the ability to include the original header in my reply. Or just stop breaking true preview with every release.

  14. Jasper Fioole - 10 years ago

    I still hope that they build in an option to separate attachments from de message body.

  15. Gee Are Pabst - 10 years ago

    Here’s a step-by-step work around to fix it for Gmail accounts until the update is released:
    http://miapple.me/2013/11/02/fixing-gmail-bug-on-mac-os-x-10-9-mavericks-mail-app/

  16. LiLeen (@EllaNoTuitea) - 10 years ago

    Either this or just move to a different email client like Airmail which I’m impressed! it works really good and have a nice UI with advanced settings available too. You should check it out!

  17. Patrick McMaster - 10 years ago

    Poor quality”upgrade”. My immediate issue is that I can’t scroll down my MacBook’s email ‘inboxes’, so any inboxes below the line are inaccessible…Amy suggestions??

  18. I’m testing this fix (MAIL Version 7.0 (1822)) and messages moved from GMAIL INBOX to either a local folder or a GMAIL IMAP folder does get removed from the INBOX as it did prior to Mavericks.

  19. Peter Gray - 10 years ago

    Mail sorts messages into my mailboxes just fine and tell me how many messages I have to view in each BUT only the mailboxes higher up the list actually count down as I read the messages. From about the middle of the list the number of messages stays the same even when I’ve read them all. I have to close Mail and reopen it to remove the ‘unread messages’ indicator. I am so fed up with this I have moved to Thunderbird which is clunky by comparison but nevertheless works perfectly and has some great additional features. It’s taken me an age to set up my mailboxes again and so if the ‘new’ Mail isn’t a vast improvement on the one I’ve been using for the past few years I may not bother moving back.

  20. Ron Simonson - 10 years ago

    Is there any way to just go back to using Google, a client which I have use for maybe 10 years and have been completely happy with it. I really resent being forced into using program which is no good, inferior. Plle is getting too autocratic, and needs to be taken down a peg or two.

  21. Shropshire Lad - 10 years ago

    I downloaded Mavericks X10.9 about 7 days ago. I have been using Gmail without any issues over two separate accounts. In fact, the Mavericks OS has been more reliable than my original Lion OS concerning Gmail.

  22. Henk Modderman - 10 years ago

    Since the last update to 10.9.1 Mail is not working with Gmail at all

  23. Jim Babka - 10 years ago

    I have Google Apps managing my personal domain (so it’s essentially Gmail). When I bring my MBP out of suspend, the only ways I can convince Mail to show messages that arrived since I was last online is to either (a) move or delete an existing message, or (b) close down and reopen Mail. I have the latest Mavericks update.

  24. Isaac Humphrie - 10 years ago

    any word on when the update is coming. Super annoying, because my work email is through gmail. Needless to say, it’s not efficient to have missed emails, or emails that come in days later. Come on Apple. I’m your biggest fan, but this is not cool. I need for you and google to play nice. LOL!!!!