Entourage Inbox is too full to open

[Dan_McCarter]

Version: 2008
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard)
Processor: Power PC

when I click to receive my mail it comes into an inbox at the bottom of the files under .mac and then moves it to the main inbox at the top of the files. The inbox at the bottom of the files under .mac has 2850 messages. When I try to open it I get an error that it can't be opened because there isn't enough memory. I have 2 Gigs of Memory.
Is this stored somewhere on my hard drive where I can find and delete the messages. Thanks for the help

 

[Barry Wainwright]

Version: 2008
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard)
Processor: Power PC

when I click to receive my mail it comes into an inbox at the bottom of the
files under .mac and then moves it to the main inbox at the top of the files.
The inbox at the bottom of the files under .mac has 2850 messages. When I try
to open it I get an error that it can't be opened because there isn't enough
memory. I have 2 Gigs of Memory.
Is this stored somewhere on my hard drive where I can find and delete the
messages. Thanks for the help

It sounds like you have several issues going on here.

First, in Entourage 2008 the 'On My Computer' files should only appear
at the top of the list if a POP mail account is set as the default
account. If your .mac account was default, that should appear at the
top. Is this intentional?

Next, the mail being moved - this usually happens because a Mailing List
Manager rule has accidentally been created with the default settings.
this will send all mail addressed to you to the local inbox. Check the
MLM entries (under the Tools menu) to see if there is an entry there you
didn't deliberately create.

Now, having 2,850 messages in the inbox indicates a lack of efficient
organisation and I would advise you to explore the use of mail rules and
sub-folders to better organise your mail, but Entourage is quite capable
of having tens of thousands of messages in a mail folder without any
trouble at all. The error message stating 'lack of memory' is most
likely appearing in error - so far as I know this has not been a real
error since OS 9 days! OS X uses a completely different memory
management structure and such a problem should not occur.

I suspect the real problem may lie with data corruption. Since the issue
appears to be showing up on an IMAP account, right-click (control-click)
on the .mac inbox and select 'repair message list'. This will cause a
complete reconciliation of the messages stored on the server with the
local cache. With several thousand messages this may take a few minutes!
If this doesn't solve the problem, try rebuilding the database by
restarting Entourage while holding down the Option key until the rebuild
screen appears, and follow the instructions.

Hope this helps!

 

[Dan_McCarter]

Thanks for your reply - You are getting to the bottom of My problem but I don't know how to solve it.
To further explain there are two inboxes both of which have to be attended to. With the folders closed here is how it looks:

Folders on My Computer
.Mac Microsoft News Server
Mail Views

When I click the send and receive button new mail comes into the inbox under .mac Then Entourage automatically moves each of them to the inbox under Folders on My Computer. So I have been managing the inbox under folders on my computer very well with lots of subfolders as you suggest while the in box under .Mac continues to fill up.
How do I configure things so that I have only one inbox?
Thanks again
Dan

 

[Barry Wainwright]

Thanks for your reply - You are getting to the bottom of My problem but I
don't know how to solve it.
To further explain there are two inboxes both of which have to be attended
to. With the folders closed here is how it looks:

that's normal, when you have a POP account and a .mac account set up
(with the POP acount set as default).

When I click the send and receive button new mail comes into the inbox under
.mac Then Entourage automatically moves each of them to the inbox under
Folders on My Computer.

that sounds like a mail rule or Mailing List Manager entry is moving
messages - it doesn't happen on its own.

So I have been managing the inbox under folders on my
computer very well with lots of subfolders as you suggest while the in box
under .Mac continues to fill up.
How do I configure things so that I have only one inbox?

you can't - the inbox under 'on my computer' is a local inbox and can't
be deleted. the one under dot mac actually resides on Apples server and
what you have listed in Entourage is simply a mirror of that one (and
that one can't be deleted on dot mac either - an IMAP account is
required to have an inbox)

What you can do is to stop the mail being copied over - look in th
emailing list manager or the mail rules (make sure you select the 'IMAP
pane).

Thanks again
Dan

you're welcome