OS X Lion Mail App - Wipe And Restart An Exchange Account


For the most part my Mac's have been trouble free. As a matter of fact I cannot remember the last time I actually had to spend time troubleshooting OS X issues other then problems I have created myself. After upgrading to OS X Lion my attitude towards Apple has changed and not for the better. It seems that quality control is going down hill and the number of bugs experienced is increasing. It also appears that the operating system is being dumbed down towards the audience Apple wishes to sell product. It seems like Apple is no longer interested in catering to the power user's that kept the company afloat during the hard times at Apple.

The newest bug I've encountered deals with Microsoft Exchange accounts and the built in Mail App. The symptoms I experience deal with Exchange folders randomly disappearing and email's having no content. Very frustrating especially when there's work to be done. Restarting Mail or OS X itself doesn't resolve the issue. Going into the account preferences and actually deleting the account then re-adding it will restore the folders until the bug hits again. When that happens the folders are once again missing and email has no content. Extra measures need to be taken to ensure that this is once and for all finally fixed. For those of you wondering my install is an upgrade from Snow Leopard. Friends with Lion from the factory do not experience this issue.

Warning don't try this at home. Just because it worked for me doesn't mean it will work for you. If you decide to ignore my warnings then make sure you have backups as I will not be responsible for any data loss. Proceed at your own risk!!!

First delete the Exchange account from your Mail App. Open up a command line and do the following.



cd /Users/your username here/Library/Mail/V2
ls



You'll see a directory named with an EWS-username@exchange.com convention. Delete it!



sudo rm -r EWS-username@exchange.com



Now go back to the Mail App and add your Exchange account back into the program. You should be good to go.

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