Verified for macOS Tahoe 26.2

Fix Guide: Tahoe Mail Indexing Loops

Symptom: The Mail app on Tahoe shows a "Downloading Messages" or "Indexing" progress bar that never completes, often consuming 100% of a CPU core.


Why this happens

The Tahoe Mail database schema update can fail if there are orphaned attachments or corrupted V11/V12 folder structures.

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Fix 1: Force Reindex of Envelope Index

  1. Quit Mail.
  2. In Finder, go to ~/Library/Mail/V11/MailData/ (or V12 in Tahoe).
  3. Delete any files starting with "Envelope Index".

rm ~/Library/Mail/V12/MailData/Envelope\ Index*

  1. Re-open Mail and wait for the reindex to complete.

Fix 2: Clean the Mail Cache

  1. Open Terminal.
  2. Run:

rm -rf ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.mail/Data/Library/Caches/*

  1. Restart Mail.