All my mac mail has disappeared!

Question

All my mac mail has disappeared!

I don't know what's going on here: it's never happened before. But the other day I noticed that the inbox for my .mac mail was gradually disappearing. Today, it finally all went....somewhere! I have my Macs on a network: 3 downstairs, ethernet connected, and upstairs an imac and Macbook Pro, on wireless, but all running from the same modem. Today I went downstairs booted up 2 of the Macs and the .mac mail had been wiped from them also. This is very,very alarming; where has it gone? Can I ever retrieve it? Can anyone offer any explanation as to why this might be happening in the first place?! It's bizarre

Mac Pro 3ghz,4 gig,G5 Quad 2.5 8 gig,G5 DP 2.5 4 gig, imac 2.8 core duo,Mac Mini, Mac OS X (10.4.11), MOTU 2408's Mk3x3,24i/o,Hammerfall HDSP 9652x3,Fireface 800,Apogee Big Ben

Posted on Apr 17, 2008 11:51 AM

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Answer 1

Apr 18, 2008 9:16 AM in response to Community User

This just happened to me this morning. Any of you out there know how to fix this? This is totally discouraging...

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Answer 2

Apr 18, 2008 11:49 AM in response to cajun catfish

Thanks for confirming that I am not going totally insane. Are you on a network, too, or otherwise? I have important business emails that seemed to have disappeared into thin air. I think I'll have to use another email programme, like Entourage. I don't trust Mac Mail any more. Upstairs my imac and Macbook Pro are on Leopard, the rest are on Tiger.

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Answer 3

Apr 18, 2008 4:10 PM in response to Community User

I am not on a network. The emails were sent to my blackberry all over again somehow and when I opened mail, they started to disappear. Now there are no emails in Mail, but I have copies of them on the blackberry. Crazy.

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Answer 4

Apr 18, 2008 4:26 PM in response to cajun catfish

I opened up my Mac from a short sleep and all the mail repopulated. I don't know what caused it or what fixed it, but it seems to be working now...

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Answer 5

Apr 18, 2008 4:51 PM in response to cajun catfish

I've just noticed another thread by someone with the same problem....

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Answer 6

cnerfin

Level 1

4 points

Apr 21, 2008 3:17 PM in response to Community User

Same problem... What the $&^% ? How to I make it magically show up again?!

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Answer 7

Mark Jones

Level 4

3,070 points

Apr 23, 2008 12:43 AM in response to Community User

Sounds to me like the Syncing was reset.

Are all the Macs on the Network syncing with .Mac?

If the data was reset and then your Mac is not the Master (The one first linked to .Mac) then it's possible it is simply syncing and merely showing what data is on there, and if there's none then it will update to show that.

Usually Email does not come up in the options in the 'Advanced' tab of .Mac prefences in System Preferences it's other things like Address Book etc. You can select this to show where you like to Sync data from, so if you choose to reset say and you select ".Mac" but you've also setup in Mail to delete messages when they are received, so the .Mac is always emtpy, and your data was reset and selecting to sync computers from information on .Mac you'll end up with nothing.

I would login to .mac via the web and see what's going on there. If there are email messages etc.

In the meantime, restore your messages from a backup.

Hope this made some sort of sense and helps in some way.

Regards

Mark

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Answer 8

Apr 23, 2008 11:09 AM in response to Mark Jones

When this happened to me, I logged in to .Mac and saw mail there. However, when I clicked on it, I got the error message that it had been deleted. I am not sure what caused it or what fixed it. My Mail has worked ever since my last post.. so I don't know. Good luck.

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Answer 9

Apr 23, 2008 11:11 PM in response to Community User

*** - this is happening to me, too. In fact I saw this happen before my very eyes. As I read an email it suddenly disappeared - and is nowhere to be found. This has happened numerous times. Usually when I'm reading mail on my Powerbook. But this particularly imporant email is nowhere to be found - not even when I log into .mac

very distressing.

when I thought I could get rid of all my emails and just go with .mac, this happens. back to gmail for me!

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Answer 10

May 6, 2008 2:11 PM in response to Community User

I seem to have the same problem as of this morning. However, the emails are still in my user folder>Library>Mail>dotmac-[my dot mac email address]>INBOX.imapmbox. How do I get them back into the Mail application so that I can view them in the usual way?

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