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Deleted Mail

My problem started with the purchase yesterday, 8/10/09, of a new Touch. Upon activating I was prompted to link my new Touch with a MobileMe account. I followed the instructions as dictated by iTunes. There was also an option to allow for communication between my MacBook Pro (2,2) and MobileMe. To date I only had my laptop import mail. This new sync lifestyle seemed exciting.

Here's what happened once syncing was set up:

-Touch downloads .Mac mail from MobileMe. As I already possess copies of .Mac mail at MobileMe and a partial list on my laptop, I moved all mail in Touch from the Inbox, Draft, and Sent folder to the trash. I was about to empty the trash when a bout of paranoia took hold. It didn't seem like it would be possible, but I wanted to make sure that I had not rearranged mail in Mail on my laptop, or at the server level by my actions in Touch.

-Over at MobileMe, I found all of my mail was......in the trash!

-Did all of the mail in my laptop application get moved too? Yes. Thank goodness I didn't empty the trash on my Touch. Here is the fun part, though. And by fun I mean didn't sleep much last night. As I am looking at the Mail app on my laptop my trash can is emptying.

-I race to the MobileMe account and all mail has been deleted from the trash there as well. This is 7-8 years of .mac mail.

This is not good. I need these letters. I have downloaded a copy of Data Recovery II on a separate laptop (not mine). Is this the only option for my MacBook Pro?

This won't recover all of my letters, however, as my laptop is newer than my .Mac (MobileMe) account. How can I rescue letters at www.me.com/mail ?

In an already lengthy letter the reader can stop here. What follows are my Preferences at each level which highlight my confusion and may provide added information to help others who want to avoid my situation. Thank you for your help.

iPod Touch: Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars > Fetch New Data > Push > On. "New data will be pushed to your iPod from the Server." I've got a bad feeling this isn't wholly accurate.

.Mac (me.com/mail): Settings > Preferences > Mailboxes. "Move deleted messages to: Trash." "Messages will be deleted from the trash folder after 30 days." What am I missing here?

Mail on MacBook Pro: Mail > Preferences > Accounts > Mailbox Behaviors > Trash. "Move deleted messages to a separate folder" is checked. "Erase deleted messages when: One month old." Is this one month in the Trash folder, or mail with a date that is older than one month? My guess is the latter.

In the end my theory is that MobileMe allowed the robots to conspire here. Touch had mail in the trash. Mobile followed suit and directed the MacBook Pro to do the same. MacBook Pro Mail emptied the trash and back the other way we went. How in the world is this possible with my Preferences as they are and a world where I can't rid of anything without a window asking me to consider the ramifications?

mcb

MacBook Pro (2,2), Mac OS X (10.5.8)

Posted on Aug 11, 2009 8:09 PM

Reply
2 replies

Sep 2, 2009 12:35 PM in response to markbret

Hi, I am having a similar problem. My .mac, now called .me email account in apple Mail sends deleted messages to the trash folder. I set it to permanently erase those messages upon quitting Mail. But it won't erase them. They are not spam or anything, they are messages that are old, and were sent from my other email address that's all. I've tried changing settings, including changing the Mailbox behavior to not send deleted messages to trash, but nothing will work? Is there an apple script or something that will make trash erase it's messages upon quitting Mail? This is really annoying.

Deleted Mail

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