Deleted emails not appearing in bin - MacOS Big Sur

I've done it slightly wrong - as I couldn't see a way of restricting it to just the deleted items.

The new smart folder now shows everything within mail, but does include the deleted items, at least.

I'd been assuming this was just a glitch in the newly released osx 11.0.1, or the new (14.0) mail application, and that Apple would have some kind of update, to put things back to normal.

But I imagine there would be a deluge of people asking about it, if that was the case - which had me thinking it was just my laptop doing this, and then yours too, after seeing this earlier!

I've not yet stumbled on any way to exclude all other items except the items that should be in the bin!

I'll probably fiddle about a bit more - but tentatively, so that I don't end up losing every e-mail in the process!

If I should come up with anything (however tenuous) that might get things to work in their normal way, I'll definitely stick it up here!

I'll do a back-up first, just incase.

I suspect that'll take some time, in itself!

On the case.......

I'll be back!

No, Mr Doe - I should be thanking you!

The fix above worked - after I made sure to delete the two useless "rules" I'd dreamed up earlier!

The back-up took an age, due to Bitdefender throwing in a spanner or two with this semi-persistent irritation:-

"An unauthorized app attempted to access your backups.

App: /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd.bundle/Contents/Resources/backupd

We blocked the app to prevent it from altering the content of your backups."

That nightmare has now gone & the back-up is done. As if I'd ever want to revert to the same problems as this morning!

I'm truly beginning to wish I'd never "up-graded", as none of this has happened before!

Part of me is thinking that I should now stick with the new, faffy wierd way of deleting, by using the "move to" method, and eventually, when hordes of others users have the same problem - there will suddenly be a magical fix, from Apple.

But the absence of thousands of others experiencing the same thing, had me thinking it must be down to some very specific configuration, or even a minor, but hard to find, change of settings!

I've not abandoned this, as I know it'll niggle me enough to keep me prodding, poking around & changing things.

And if I find anything anything that seems even remotely useful, or better still a full fix - I'll be straight back here, getting it down, before I get a chance to forget how it was done!

I have had this exact same problem and have found a simple solution.

In the side bar, click the Favourites "+" to add a mailbox. In the next window, open the drop down list of mailboxes where you will find "All Bins". When you have added that, expanding the "All Bins" mailbox in Favourites shows the bin for my mail account (where all the messages deleted with the "bin" button have gone) as well as the bin in "On My Mac".

Hope that helps.....

I'm not sure I understand the 'solution' to the problem here. After updating to Big Sur I don't have a Bin for deleted emails from my pop account. IMAP accounts seem OK but not the pop. There's a Bin that should relate to the pop account but if I click on Account info for the relevant folder it describes it as belonging to an IMAP account.

I dont like not being able to see deleted email too. I have sometimes deleted an email by mistake but have always, until now, been able to retrieve it.

I can't see junk mail either. How can I check that Mail has not wrongly identified an email as junk if I can't see what is in the junk box?

Hi WestCorkMac, just wanted to say a big thank you as your suggestion worked. Over the last few days I've contacted Apple Support twice about this issue (without a fix coming forward). The issue started after upgrading to Big Sur. I couldn’t see any emails in the Junk or Bin folders but I knew they were there because I found them when searching. Tried your suggestion and can now see three junk & Bin folders. All my emails are showing under the relevant pop account and not ‘On My Mac’. Thank you. Shame Apple Support go me to reinstall the OS!

I was still hoping there would be a fix, just to get rid of the slew of bins & junk floders that appeared since the software update.

It's good to be able to see the items in question, though - and not just via a search.

I'm having the same problem after updating to Big Sur. I have 2 active email accounts. Now I have the folders 'Trash' (was full but moved emails to a Bin), 'Bin' and 'Bin - On my Mac'. I also made a mistake and deleted a bin , and now shows an unclickable 'Deleted messages (2nd email address)'. Now whatever I delete nothing shows up in one of the Bins.

In Preferences -> Mailbox Behaviour email account 1 is set to 'Bin mailbox: All bins', email account 2 I checked 'Move deleted messages to the Bin mailbox'.

How to get out of this mess? First I would like to recover the 'Deleted messages (2nd email address)' folder. Then I would like to have a bin for for each account OR jus one bin. Help very much appreciated!

So now I have 4 bins. Don't ask me why. 1 called On my Mac and 2 for both email addresses under Favourites -> All bins and one under On my Mac. The last one seems to copy the emails in bin 2 under All bins. The bin called On my Mac holds different emails than the Bin under On my Mac. This is insane.

Hi there, All,

I don't know if this is likely to, or has happend to anyone else, (yet?!) but In between e-mails (both to the same recipient) this morning, I lost my "Sent" folder, too!

It's similar to all of this "Bin" business in so far as I can find them using the search, and then move them to another "Sent Items" folder, but it's quite time-consuming, and just as irritating as the "Bin" thing.

I'm assuming they're not all just going to vanish - one by one!

It makes me want to tie myself a noose & look for a handy joist to secure it to!

Anyway - just a heads-up, kind of post really!

All the Best,

"Lucky" Bag (very ironic user-name!)

Hi Luckybag

See if you can get the "All Sent" folder back by following by my previous post. As to why your folder disappeared I have no clue. Maybe if you get the folder back quit mail immediately and reopen. Just a thought. Regards Tony.

Somehow I had also managed to delete the "All Trash" bin from the sidebar. Your suggestion worked perfectly.

Everything is back to normal and all the trash is in the bin for both my accounts.

Although I don't seem to have an All Junk - can't find this in the dropdown list when I click on the + besides Favourites

Thanks so much!! I just replaced my desk top iMac and the mail has been messed up. I cleared up a few things, but could not figure out what was going on with the deletion button! Such a simple solution!! It is working as it should. One always needs to check deleted mail for some mistakenly trashed item. I was a little confused with the use of the word " All Bins". On my computer that box is called "All Trash". Thanks Much!

Yes, I have the same issue with everything getting deleted directly without going via the bin. I find it most unhelpful because it means that if you delete anything by mistake you can't retrieve it. Definitely a retrograde step.

Also, even mail from my own Apple mail account is being diverted to Junk. What is going on?

Mazza