Mail App d/l hundreds of old emails

I am using my backup Mac while upgrading to Catalina on my new Mac. So, I decided to activate my email program on the older Mac to get emails temporarily. Now it's d/ling hundreds of older email and it's taking more than a few minutes to d/l each one. It's saying it's d/ling 563 emails of 565 emails. But it stays on that number 563 (it was 561) for several minutes. This could take all day. I don't want them to d/l, I just want them gone. Does this mean that Apple saves all of these? What the heck? How can I stop this except by turning off my mail program for now? I delete emails everyday. I don't save all of them. Thx.

You're apparently deleting your emails only on your MBP, NOT your server.

I guess you could quit Mail and go to your server and delete them there to stop the d/l.

It finally quit saying it was downloading all those files and just became normal. They are always deleted off of my server after I read them on Mac mail. I've tried to go back to the server in the past after I'd deleted something, but it was always gone.

Originally Posted by artie505

You're apparently deleting your emails only on your MBP, NOT your server.

I guess you could quit Mail and go to your server and delete them there to stop the d/l.

Did it actually d/l those emails or just threaten to?

If it d/l'ed them, they had to have come from your server.

It just threatened to.

It actually d/l'd a handful from sept. 2019. LOL! I can't figure it out

Originally Posted by artie505

Did it actually d/l those emails or just threaten to?

If it d/l'ed them, they had to have come from your server.

Is your email account set up as IMAP or POP? (To check open Mail > Preferences > Accounts > Server Settings and see if the INCOMING Mail Server is IMAP or POP.)

It's an imap account. You may have seen my subsequent post saying it stopped doing it and is acting normal now. I am concerned that when I get back to my newer Mac after d/ling Catalina, my email there will be doing the same thing only not quite so many emails because it's only been a day or two since I've used that account not that Mac. On the older Mac, I quit Mail a long time ago because I don't use it there, and then it caught up with me for some reason, even though the server doesn't keep them after I read them on my Mac mail program. Who knows?

Originally Posted by joemikeb

Is your email account set up as IMAP or POP? (To check open Mail > Preferences > Accounts > Server Settings and see if the INCOMING Mail Server is IMAP or POP.)

Originally Posted by plantsower

I am using my backup Mac while upgrading to Catalina on my new Mac. So, I decided to activate my email program on the older Mac to get emails temporarily. Now it's d/ling hundreds of older email and it's taking more than a few minutes to d/l each one. It's saying it's d/ling 563 emails of 565 emails. But it stays on that number 563 (it was 561) for several minutes. This could take all day. I don't want them to d/l, I just want them gone. Does this mean that Apple saves all of these? What the heck? How can I stop this except by turning off my mail program for now? I delete emails everyday. I don't save all of them. Thx.

I had a similar issue that cropped up unexpectedly. A restart cured it.

Thank you. It took care of itself somehow, but I will remember that for the next time!

Originally Posted by jchuzi

Originally Posted by plantsower

I am using my backup Mac while upgrading to Catalina on my new Mac. So, I decided to activate my email program on the older Mac to get emails temporarily. Now it's d/ling hundreds of older email and it's taking more than a few minutes to d/l each one. It's saying it's d/ling 563 emails of 565 emails. But it stays on that number 563 (it was 561) for several minutes. This could take all day. I don't want them to d/l, I just want them gone. Does this mean that Apple saves all of these? What the heck? How can I stop this except by turning off my mail program for now? I delete emails everyday. I don't save all of them. Thx.

I had a similar issue that cropped up unexpectedly. A restart cured it.