I just noticed three searches for this error message this morning, and I’ve not blogged it before. Oddly.
If the Mail.app database that indexes your emails becomes corrupt, you may see the following error message when you try to open Mail.app:
“Mail cannot update your mailboxes because your home directory is full. You must free up space in your home folder before using Mail. Delete unneeded documents or move documents to another volume.”
It actually has nothing to do with the amount of space on your harddisk and it’s not hard to fix.
- Quit Mail.
- Navigate to your ~/Library/Mail folder.
- Move the file called “Envelope Index” to your Desktop. It’s an SQLite databse—see “What’s in your Mail folder?” (maybe after you’ve finished).
- Launch Apple Mail. It will prompt you to “import” your mailboxes, although it is really just rebuilding its index. Select OK.
- Mail.app will rebuild and re-index the messages and create a new copy of the Envelope Index file.
- When you are sure that everything is working properly again, you can delete the old Envelope Index file on your Desktop.
Bob’s your uncle.
For me, this works…but only temporarily. I have to continually try to fix this, and it is taking way too much time. This started happening when a license for an antivirus software I had (even for a Mac, just to be safe…) expired & I did not renew. Time to go to the apple stir & have it “professionally” removed, & see if that fixes it. Around the same time, that software started throwing up a ton of messages, & recognition of IPhone got a little funky…I think the timing is a little suspicious here
Hi guys,
My problem started like most of them here. The Mail crashed. When I tried starting it up again, it said the home directory was full and to delete some files. Tried to start Mail few more times, each time the same story…
And then my Mac book, less than 2 years old, started being REALLY slow, I couldn;t turn anything off… plus I started hearing very weird noise coming from within the laptop.
I waited for a while, and then decided to press the power button. However, now the laptop doesn’t start up any more. It goes on, but I just have blank lit screen, and I hear the noise.
The problem is, I’m on holiday, and all my work is in this computer. There is no Mac point on the island either….
Any suggestions? We do have a Mac Book Pro that works… Should I maybe try to start up my Mac Book in a Target mode and try deleting some files? Maybe it came to some sort of error?
I left PCs for good, and was so happy with my Mac.. and then this! WTF… :(
Thanks,
M