Schlomo72
Level 1 (0 points)

Q: Mail:El Capitan: Emails not shown

Like many others i have a problem with Mails under El Capitan. All my Inboxes show up but my main account just shows the mails from the last 7 days.  I tried a few workarounds like using Time Machine and importing directly in Mail but nothing really helped. I can see all the old mails in the library. But they don't show up in Mail. It's a POP-Email Account. I don't know if it's  important but i heard something about a change in this area.

 

Can anyone help me?

 

All my flagged Mails also disappeared. It's really a mess for me. So any help would be highly appreciated, even directly from Apple...

 

Greets

Daniel

Posted on Oct 1, 2015 11:08 AM

by Arweharis,Solvedanswer
Arweharis Arweharis
Level 1 (10 points)
A:

Hi, I had the same problem. This is how I sorted it out.

 

1. Your mailboxes must be in users/library/V3/mailboxes

2. Backup the folder mailboxes

3. In mail, create a new mailbox "on my mac" (e.g SOS)

4. Close mail

5. Go back to users/library/V3. You will see a new folder with a random number and inside of it the new mailbox you just created (SOS)

6. Delete SOS and move all your old mailboxes to that folder.

7. Go to users/library/V3/maildata

8. Delete all the files starting with "envelope"

9. Open mail again.

 

I took me some hours to figure this out. I hope it helps. Apple should pay my hours for all the time wasted......

Posted on Oct 5, 2015 6:39 AM

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Schlomo72

Q: Mail:El Capitan: Emails not shown

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  • Helpful answers

  • by Onion6270,

    Onion6270 Onion6270 Oct 1, 2015 11:37 AM in response to Schlomo72
    Level 1 (10 points)
    Oct 1, 2015 11:37 AM in response to Schlomo72

    Had exact same problem earlier today. Tried various things to get Mail to recognise / rebuild the mail accounts but nothing worked. It was a sorry mess. Was at the point of looking at how to back out EC to Yosemite but decided to bite the bullet and manually recovered every Inbox and Sent Mail for each account individually from my Time Machine backup.

     

    Probably an easier method, but here's what I did :

     

    1. set up a new Email Account for each missing account. Make sure it connects with server etc.

    2. Go back to TM and restore the Inbox for that account (Pre-EC). TM will dump the emails into On MY Mac under Time Machine (Inbox).

    3. Move all the emails from TM Inbox.

    4. Do this for for each account.

    5. Send test email from each account. This checks operation and creates a Sent Mailbox for each account.

    6. Restore each Sent mailbox and copy all emails to the aprop Sent mailbox. Delete all empty temp mailboxes under Time Machine (On MY Mac).

     

    Laborious but worked for me. Hope that helps.

  • by Schlomo72,

    Schlomo72 Schlomo72 Oct 1, 2015 12:14 PM in response to Onion6270
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Oct 1, 2015 12:14 PM in response to Onion6270

    Hey  Onion6270,

     

    thanks for your answer but I'm not sure if you understood me right (or if i do understand you...).

     

    There's no account missing, the account is there as well as the emails are in the library. I just can't see them in Mail.

    I guess i did what you described: i restored the Mail Folder from the TM to my Mac. When i started Mail again it said it has to transfer the old Version into the new Mail Account. That was the point when i thought i solved the problem... but after Mail started, i still couldn't see them. So, they are there, they're on my machine, but Mail ignores them... 

  • by Onion6270,

    Onion6270 Onion6270 Oct 1, 2015 12:44 PM in response to Schlomo72
    Level 1 (10 points)
    Oct 1, 2015 12:44 PM in response to Schlomo72

    Ok, not quite the same then. My accounts didn't show at all, so had no option but to set them up again from scratch.

     

    If there's nothing in your mail accounts (other than last 7 days - presumably on the server), you could consider deleting the main account, use TM to restore the Inbox/Sents to My Mac, set up new main account and then copy/move them across ?

  • by Schlomo72,

    Schlomo72 Schlomo72 Oct 1, 2015 12:45 PM in response to Schlomo72
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Oct 1, 2015 12:45 PM in response to Schlomo72

    I tried to import the old .mbox files/folders now. But this isn't working too. Mail shows a dialog that says that these files are invalid. Guess there's the problem, but i still don't know why...

  • by Arweharis,Solvedanswer

    Arweharis Arweharis Oct 5, 2015 6:39 AM in response to Schlomo72
    Level 1 (10 points)
    Oct 5, 2015 6:39 AM in response to Schlomo72

    Hi, I had the same problem. This is how I sorted it out.

     

    1. Your mailboxes must be in users/library/V3/mailboxes

    2. Backup the folder mailboxes

    3. In mail, create a new mailbox "on my mac" (e.g SOS)

    4. Close mail

    5. Go back to users/library/V3. You will see a new folder with a random number and inside of it the new mailbox you just created (SOS)

    6. Delete SOS and move all your old mailboxes to that folder.

    7. Go to users/library/V3/maildata

    8. Delete all the files starting with "envelope"

    9. Open mail again.

     

    I took me some hours to figure this out. I hope it helps. Apple should pay my hours for all the time wasted......

  • by RDavPSP,

    RDavPSP RDavPSP Oct 5, 2015 6:11 AM in response to Schlomo72
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Oct 5, 2015 6:11 AM in response to Schlomo72

    I have the problem. I hope the next update of Mail will résolve it

  • by Warashina,

    Warashina Warashina Oct 5, 2015 6:32 AM in response to Schlomo72
    Level 1 (18 points)
    Oct 5, 2015 6:32 AM in response to Schlomo72

    Try this:

    1) Quit Mail

    2) Go to users/Library/Mail/V3/MailData

    3) Move all the files that named Envelope Index to the trash

    4) Restart Mail

     

    This will rebuild your entire mail index, you should be able to see all of your mail again.

  • by Schlomo72,

    Schlomo72 Schlomo72 Oct 5, 2015 6:45 AM in response to Arweharis
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Oct 5, 2015 6:45 AM in response to Arweharis

    GREAT! Thanks for that. Now all my old emails are back! But the one's from the last 5 days are missing...hm. But i guess i can re-import them.

     

    Do you know if there's a possibility to rebuilt the flagged emails as well? There were a few but i don't remember which...

     

    NOW they're back! wonderful!

     

    and another question: now, with all my mails back in my inbox, can i remove the SOS Folder?

  • by Warashina,

    Warashina Warashina Oct 5, 2015 7:32 AM in response to Schlomo72
    Level 1 (18 points)
    Oct 5, 2015 7:32 AM in response to Schlomo72

    Quit Mail

    From the same folder, move the FlagMailboxes.plist file to the trash

    Restart Mail

    Flag a message in your Inbox

    This should create a Flagged mailbox with all previously flagged messages reindexed

     

    You may need to Quit/Restart Mail one more time to get flags reindexed completely

  • by RDavPSP,

    RDavPSP RDavPSP Oct 5, 2015 8:11 AM in response to Warashina
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Oct 5, 2015 8:11 AM in response to Warashina

    A good solution, all is correct now. Tank you

  • by Michael M Jackson,

    Michael M Jackson Michael M Jackson Oct 28, 2015 9:26 AM in response to Schlomo72
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Oct 28, 2015 9:26 AM in response to Schlomo72

    Schlomo,

     

    I have no "users/library/V3/mailboxes", or I am too dumb to find it.  Can you help?  Under "applications" if I select mail, the most recent date is May 28, 2015.  That date has no significance to me.

     

    Thanks,

     

    Michael

  • by farrago,

    farrago farrago Oct 29, 2015 1:22 PM in response to Michael M Jackson
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Wireless
    Oct 29, 2015 1:22 PM in response to Michael M Jackson

    In the finder, click "go -->go to folder" and enter ~/Library

     

    -Tom

  • by James Knight,

    James Knight James Knight Nov 3, 2015 8:10 PM in response to Schlomo72
    Level 1 (44 points)
    Nov 3, 2015 8:10 PM in response to Schlomo72

    After doing the steps that solved your issue including the envelope files remove (I had also swapped in my Inbox from V2 and put it in the same POP directory in the V3 folder after making a backup of the V3 Inbox for good measure), all the flagged emails were there in the Inbox, but not showing up in the Flagged Smart Mailbox folder. What I did to fix this was to click on the Inbox, sort by flagged, and then press the down arrow through them all and they added to the Flagged smart mailbox as they were read. Don't do it too quickly!

  • by Michael M Jackson,

    Michael M Jackson Michael M Jackson Nov 4, 2015 4:55 AM in response to Schlomo72
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 4, 2015 4:55 AM in response to Schlomo72

    I have no idea how this happened.  I was at my computer when a big flash occurred, and stuff changed.  I guess all was well.  It still worked.  In the past I had tried to name mailboxes with their prior names, all of which were not visible now available, and the dialog box said "that name is taken" and would not allow the move.  A couple days later I tried to name a new mailbox, and with a blast all of my old mailboxes returned along with their contents.

     

    Go figure!

     

    Michael