KazzaInOz

Q: mail emails missing, TimeMachine recovery unsuccessful

Here's my story,  with 4 specific questions at the end.

 

My mail setup is a little complex, but, until today, has worked pretty well.

 

Currently my 2 gmail accounts collect all the mail from my various addresses.

 

Mac Mail then uses IMAP to connect (as do my iphone and ipad).

 

I also have MailTags running.

 

My normal processing is that once I've read an email, and I want to keep it, I move it to a folder called Done which is on the Mac.

I then used Mail Search capabilities to find what I needed.

 

I alos used flags and Mailags keywords or projects to make some messages easier to find.

 

Done should have thousands of emails.

 

But I noticed yesterday that it had no emails after 22 June this year.

And when I tried searching for emails that I know existed from earlier this year, but Mail couldn't find them.  Spotlight found some of them.

 

I tried recovering from TimeMachine a version from a few days ago when I thought it was all OK.

First I tried recovering juts the 'Done' folder. That didnt work.  So then I recovered the complete Mail directory.

(Each time I did this at the file level by copying the folder I wanted  from the TimeMachine disk over to the harddisk).


Each time Mail then reindexed. And MailTags rebuilt itself too.  So its a slow operation

But to no avail.


Mail is still missing lots of messages. (However, they are still on copies of the files I made before I did any restores. So Spotlight finds them. But they are not in Mail.


Almost none of my flagged emails are there (in fact 3 flags are missing altogether). Most of the keywords are missing.

And folders like Drafts and Outbox have a bizarre collection of emails going back years - 8 in Drafts and 19 in Outbox.


Right now I forced Spotlight to reindex itself but I suspect it wont change much.

 

1. Is there a way I can force the messages I find back into Mail?

2. Is recovering individual mailboxes realistic, or likely to make matters worse?

3. What does Mail's rebuild option do for mailboxes on the mac ie not Inboxes ?

     There's a possibility I did this on my Done folder, and this is part of the problem. I would need to go back a week ago to get before this time (I'm missing a few days of time machine backups )

4. Flags - where are these stored?  Will these come back when the mails are back ?

MacBook Pro, OS X Yosemite (10.10.3), also have ipad and iphone

Posted on Sep 9, 2015 7:09 AM

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Q: mail emails missing, TimeMachine recovery unsuccessful

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  • by Linc Davis,

    Linc Davis Linc Davis Sep 9, 2015 9:08 AM in response to KazzaInOz
    Level 10 (207,963 points)
    Applications
    Sep 9, 2015 9:08 AM in response to KazzaInOz

    The first step is to remove "Mailtags." If that resolves the problem, refer to the developer for support.

  • by KazzaInOz,

    KazzaInOz KazzaInOz Sep 9, 2015 1:50 PM in response to Linc Davis
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Sep 9, 2015 1:50 PM in response to Linc Davis

    Good point. I've done that now. Makes no immediate difference but will make subsequent steps easier.

    K

  • by Linc Davis,

    Linc Davis Linc Davis Sep 9, 2015 1:59 PM in response to KazzaInOz
    Level 10 (207,963 points)
    Applications
    Sep 9, 2015 1:59 PM in response to KazzaInOz

    Bring the Mail browser window forward, then enter Time Machine. You'll see a series of Mail windows cascading back in time, each representing a snapshot of the Mail database.

    Scroll back to the most recent snapshot containing the messages you want to restore. Select the messages, then click Restore. The messages will be restored to a new mailbox named "com.apple.Mail.backup" in the On My Mac group. From there you can move them wherever you like.

    Depending on how many mailboxes you have, you may have to scroll the mailbox list up or down to see the new entry. According to some reports, you might have to relaunch Mail, or perhaps wait a while for the database to be reindexed, before it shows up. I can't confirm those reports.

  • by KazzaInOz,

    KazzaInOz KazzaInOz Sep 10, 2015 4:18 AM in response to Linc Davis
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Sep 10, 2015 4:18 AM in response to Linc Davis

    Thanks for your further suggestions, but it didnt work.

    I tried several times.  I did as you said, and selected the folder. It took ages to tell me that it had 20101 messages (yeah, I know, probably too many!). It told me it was restoring. Then the message disappeared. I waited, waited, waited but nothing.  This time I selected the messages. Same again - told me it was restoring, but nothing. The TimeMachine drive was not whirring. I rebooted. I tried a third time, this time selected only 90 or so. Again, nothing restored.

     

    So I decided to copy the folder directly from the TimeMachine to my harddisk, and then did an Import (The copy was needed as from within the Import file selection the Library folder was not displayed).

     

    This time it worked for over an hour, and just as it was completing Mail crashed. But I restarted mail and I now have 18934 emails recovered.  YOO HOO ! Even if a few are missing I can cope.

     

    After rebooting and restarting again even the flag counts are correct.

     

    After the current backup finishes I'll try restarting MailTags. I notice that Spotlight is reindexing at the moment. From experience, that will take the rest of today.

     

    So I'm pretty much back in business.

    I'm going to move or archive some emails so I dont have so many in one folder.

     

    Last question: Is there any way to regularly run any sort of Integrity check on Mail?  Is periodic reindexing a good idea?

     

    Thanks for your help.

    K

  • by Linc Davis,

    Linc Davis Linc Davis Sep 10, 2015 5:06 AM in response to KazzaInOz
    Level 10 (207,963 points)
    Applications
    Sep 10, 2015 5:06 AM in response to KazzaInOz

    Is periodic reindexing a good idea?

    No. Not modifying Mail with third-party software is the best way to avoid the kind of problems you've been having.