Lost flagged emails

Hey tamingdoom,

It appears that you're unable to find your flagged emails in the Mail app of your MacBook Air, even after trying filters. Let us know if the information below, from the following article, helps find the flagged emails: Flag emails in Mail on Mac - Apple Support

"Show flagged emails

1. In the Mail app  on your Mac, click the arrow next to Flagged in the Mail sidebar or the Favorites bar, then choose a flag.
2. Only messages marked with that flag are shown in the message list.
3. To show all messages in the Inbox again, click Inbox in the Mail sidebar or the Favorites bar.

You can search for flagged messages. Type a flag name in the search field, then select the suggestion in the Flags category. Or type “flag,” then choose the suggestion in the Status category."

Best wishes.

Quit Mail if it’s open.

• In ~/Library/Mail/V7/MailData, delete any file that begins with “Envelope Index,” such as Envelope Index or Envelope Index-shm.

• Your home Library folder is hidden by default. To display it, choose Finder > “Go to Folder” and then enter “~/Library”

• Open Mail.

• Mail creates new Envelope Index files. This process may take a few minutes, depending on how many messages Mail is reindexing.

• It will fix your issue.

The V7 is above may be correct or may need to be changed to V8

Find where it says ‘Favourites’ on the left of the screen…..If you cannot see it, go to the view menu and select show sidebar.

Hover the mouse over the word, and then click the plus which should appear on the right hand side next to favourites.

You should see flagged is available. Click on it and you will see your flagged folder back again :-)

I've had this issue ever since the Monterey update. EVERY DAY my "Flagged" mail folder completely disappears. EVERY DAY. I finally figured out at least temporarily fix it for that day. In the Mail sidebar choose the account you want to rebuild, the from the Menu bar choose "Mailbox/Rebuild" and all the folders under "Flagged" return complete with all the colored flags and messages of those colors. Understand that these emails are showing up and never disappear from the list of emails, but the Flagged Colored Folders DO disappear completely from the Mail sidebar. I gave up on finding a permanent fix for it. I just rebuild the mailbox EVERY DAY.

I had the same problem. With the help of Apple tech support I found the mailbox with flagged items under the heading of "Favorites". They are all there and I can list them by color of the flag. I am not sure whether you can move this mail box to its former place by deleting it from "Favorites" and I was not willing to risk losing the flagged items by experimenting. But at one point I discovered a list of possible mailboxes under the usual heading but it was grayed out and you could not select. I suspect that if I had deleted it from Favorites it would no longer be grayed out and I would be able to select it to appear where it used to be. If anyone tries to do this I would be happy to hear if it worked.

tamingdoom,

Got it. To see if those might've been deleted, you could check for the emails in webmail or on another device. You could see if this same issue happens in safe mode and a temporary test user. Both of these steps can help isolate the issue further. The two articles below show how to do those steps:

• Set up users, guests, and groups on Mac
• How to use safe mode on your Mac

Let us know how those steps go.

Cheers.

tamingdoom,

Thank you for that helpful screenshot and information. To confirm, are you seeing the no message selected while a filter is enabled? If the emails were all read, that could be why you're seeing that message on the right hand side of the Mail app.

If the issue continues, does quitting the Mail app and restarting your MacBook Air help? It can seem like a simple step, but can sometimes help resolve issues.

Take care.

Yes that would be correct if Monterey macOS 12 was installed.

Though, the original question is posted in Sierra macOS 10.12

Even thought the profile connect to Original question is showing Big Sur macOS 11 and not Sierra 10.12

This worked for me though I was at V9! The second bullet describes how to locate the correct folder in which you can delete the Envelope Index files.

I have read every question and every response and tried all. Nothing works for me. All flagged mail is still missing. "Mailbox/Rebuild" sadly did nothing as well. This is devastating as virtually all of these emails are work related. So what now Apple?

You know what? I'm a person who will try anything to fix a situation like this, and, by doing so, I found my fix. It may not be a permanent one, but at least it temporarily fixes my issue until a permanent one comes along. I understand your frustration, but maybe if you weren't so condescending, other people might want to help you more. Give it a try.

Oh my goodness P. Phillips! Thank you so very much! I was much like tamingdoom and KathrynG above ~ near frantic mode. I have been googling all day, my first day back on my computer, looking for my flagged emails. I was near the breaking point when I finally found this thread and did as you suggested above. Mine was V8 instead of V7 but it worked! I now have all of my flagged emails back and visible! YAY! I have to say I was nervous as heck to delete the files, but I was desperate! Regardless, ~ it worked! 🤩Thank you for your help and Happy New Year to you! 🎆

jp