Rescuing Mail

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Level 1

112 points

Rescuing Mail

I'm on Catalina now. I use Mail for all my emails. But my host server has copies on the their online mail setup. With my permission they just purged my online emails (I was going over my limit, and I had copies of everything in my Mail app).

But... I notice that all my archived Mail has disappeared from my iPhone. I probably never set my iPhone to 'save' my emails?, so I'm assuming I was just reading my emails directly from the online setup each time, though using the Mail app.

I'm also worried that maybe my iPhone synced itself with the online server mail ... thus the disappearance of my archived emails.

And now I'm terrified to open my desktop Mail app for fear it too will sync up with the online server emails and twenty years of stored emails will vanish off my computer.

I've done a backup of what I assume are the stored emails on my MacBook Pro (Library/Mail) & (Library/Mail Downloads). But I'm not 100% sure these are even the correct folders to be backing up.

So ... 2 questions:

If I open my MacBook Pro Mail app, is it going to sync with the online server mail setup and are my 20 years worth of emails going to disappear off my MacBook Pro?
If I sync my iPhone with my MacBook Pro is the same thing going to happen? Or is there a way to recover all my now missing emails (on my iPhone) by syncing with my MacBook Pro?

Any suggestions would be most appreciated...

Ben

Posted on Jul 21, 2020 5:27 AM

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Answer 1

Joseph_S.

Community Specialist

Jul 24, 2020 8:16 AM in response to Ben Low

Hello Ben Low,

Thank you for using Apple Support Communities!

We understand from your post that you would like to know if mail accounts sync to your MacBook Pro Mail app. Yes, when you set up your email accounts, the Mail app syncs with their servers to bring your mail to the Mail app on your Mac. Unless you move a copy of an email to a mailbox that is stored on your Mac, all your emails will sync with the email providers server.

This article has information on adding an email account to the Mail app on your Mac along with other features that can be synced:

Add an email account to Mail on your Mac - Apple Support

Best Regards.

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Answer 2

Ben Low Author

Level 1

112 points

Jul 24, 2020 8:32 AM in response to Joseph_S.

Thank you kindly Joseph ...

Do you think it's worth the effort of switching all my email accounts over from IMAP to POP3 to avoid this issue? Or would that be a nightmare of reconfiguring? And maybe the best way is just to get in the habit of saving regularly to the computer?

And. Was everything being stored automatically in the Mac Mail backup ... Library>Mail?

I'm about to do a restore from that folder ... with the hope that I haven't lost ten years of back emails.

Should I be wary of doing that, for some reason? I figure I do a restore(from the Mail folder in my Library), then save everything to Mail folders (On My Mac) ON the computer, then the host server people can purge the online stuff, but I'll still have everything now saved where I can access it. And not worry about the sync, as long as I save emails regularly to the On My Mac folders.

Maybe all my questions are answered in your link. Which I'll go check now.

Your help very much appreciated, all the best ... Ben

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Rescuing Mail

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