How to Rebuild the Apple Mail Index

Using the Apple Mail application over a prolonged period of time and heaving a significant amount of stored emails could result in annoying issues such as Mail search not functioning properly, providing wrong results, or being unable to find files that Spotlight discovers easily. A possible solution to this problem is to rebuild the Apple Mail index. All message data stored locally on your computer will be removed and then re-downloaded from the remote mail server. There are two methods to rebuild the Apple Mail index.

Start by opening the Mail application. Once inside, go to the MenuBar, open 'Mailbox,' and choose 'Rebuild.' This will start the rebuilding process with a progress bar being displayed in the Mail window. Keep in mind, that the same process will have to be repeated for each mailbox account used in the Mail application.

Users who wish to rebuild the Mail index manually can start by first closing the Mail application down. Go to Finder and press the Command+Shift+G keys on your keyboard simultaneously. In the new window, type the ~/Library/Mail/V2/MailData/ location and click on 'Go' The next step is to locate and remove all files that begin with 'Envelope Index.' Just to be on the safe side, it is recommended to make a copy of the selected files before deleting them. Opening the Mail application now will result in it starting to rebuild its index.