[X4U] Multiple Copies of E-Mail Messages ... Help !!

[Stroller]

On 24 Apr 2006, at 19:42, Jim wrote:

> I've been receiving multiple copies of messages for about one month  
> now on my iBook G4. I've had to manually delete over 30,000 (that's  
> thirty thousand !!!) duplicate messages in Mac Mail, on my iBook  
> G4, running OS X 10.4.6.

How many mail accounts do you have set up on in Mail.app, please? Do  
you only have this one account configured? A logical way to have two  
email display names (say "Jim" and "James William Smith the third")  
would be to set up the same account twice with a different "full  
name" for each one, but it will cause the symptoms you describe.

Have you tried going into Mail > Preferences > Accounts and deleting  
the account? Then recreating it with the settings provided by your ISP?

This will cause you to _initially_ download a duplicate of each  
message stored on the server at the time you set up the account, but  
then it will start afresh and perhaps cure the problem, hopefully  
downloading only a single copy of each message received subsequent to  
the new account being configured.

If this doesn't work you should probably next set up a new _user_  
account on your iBook, in System Preferences > Accounts. Log in as  
this user, set up mail to access the same email account & see if this  
exhibits the same symptoms. If it behaves correctly, downloading only  
a single copy of the messages, then this points to the Mail  
preferences for the original user    as the cause - they should all  
be deleted so that Mail.app is restored to a factory-fresh state for  
this user; the Mail preferences can be found in /Users/username/ 
Library/Preferences/

> On my old PowerMac 7300/500, I've never had any duplicate messages.  
> I'm running OS 9.1, and use Outlook Express. Also, never saw this  
> problem with Netscape mail or Eudora mail.

To be honest, this yells out to me as the cause of the problem. As I  
understand it you're accessing the same mailbox with this machine and  
with Mail.app on the laptop?

Outlook Express is quite dated software and it wouldn't surprise me,  
not least because no updates are available for Outlook Express and  
minimal support (ie: sod's law), if it was incorrectly marking  
messages on the server (and causing Mail.app on the laptop to think  
they're new).

Is it possible that Mail.app on the laptop only downloads the second  
copy after the PowerMac has been online & checked for mail?
If you send yourself a test message and download it first with the  
PowerMac, does the iBook still download two copies?

Stroller.