I have Airmail 5. I recently lost all my custom folders containing years worth of email.
I’m trying to figure out how to recover them. Problem is I’m not sure what I’m looking for. I have Disk Drill, but don’t know what search parameters to use.
I don’t have a back up, the files are not stored anywhere else, and the server clears messages every 30 days automatically.
Any help finding the missing folders would be appreciated.
iMac Line (2012 and Later)
I think your best shot at a solution is to ask the developer for assistance. But that's not to say help won't be coming from here.
How to contact an app developer - Apple Support
..Wailuamike:
Two good internal search applications may be useful.
Easy Find: https://www.devontechnologies.com/apps/freeware
https://download.devontechnologies.com/download/freeware/easyfind/5.0.2/EasyFind.app.zip
Find Any File: (Thomas Tempelmann)
https://apps.tempel.org/FindAnyFile/
Various versions; Try before you Buy. Shareware
This complements 'Spotlight',
These can also be useful to troubleshoot or search for problematic
items; that may have accidentally been downloaded to your Mac.
[Likely up there w/ EtreCheck & Malwarebytes/Mac free versions.]
From what I understand about Airmail 5 is the retail version costs
$10. a Year; &/or $3. a Month to unlock additional features. Seems
if you look into this, an 'automated re-direct' tries to hook you up.
While that may (or not) be good thing. [I've used google services.]
PS: If you chose to make a backup after the fact, some of that evidence
would still be possibly captured by a backup. Could be "Time Machine"
backup on an external USB drive, may have useful details; for that use.
• Back up your Mac with Time Machine - Apple Support
//support.apple.com/en-us/HT201250
An older article has good points, & maybe dated (June 2018) ones.
• How to Setup and Use macOS and OS X Time Machine [Guide] - AppleToolBox
https://appletoolbox.com/how-to-setup-and-use-osx-time-machine-guide/
Larger than internal storage, external drive, for starters, a format HFS+
'journaled' does OK. A newer macOS with APFS format could alter that.
[My basic USB backup drives are 2-TB to 4-TB; these share no capacity.]
Incremental backups are best used through the Time Machine interface.
That also could start and run your Mac; if Apple's DIY details can be used.
..Its always good to have at least one backup; full-system Clones do great..
But do not restore from old backups, until you know what else can happen.
Thanks kuh4x. I've tried Airmail customer support, but they have not been helpful. Just stock answers to my questions that seem like they come from a pre-written list.
As far as I can tell, the format of the Airmail file hierarchy is users>library>group containers ... >airmail>account@domain.com. Within that folder account@domain.com are several folders, some of which contain files ending in .eml which seem to be individual emails.
I do not see any folders in this hierarchy that correspond to folders within my Airmail client (e.g. "personal," "work," etc). If I'm looking for my missing folders in the data retrieval software, what exactly am I looking for?
Will my missing airmail folder "personal" be in the account@domain.com folder with the name "personal?" Or is there some database file that contains all the info about folders and their corresponding contents? I don't really know what to look for in terms of actual folders, vs. some other data compilation format like a .db file, etc.
And I have learned my lesson and have activated time machine... Saving to an external drive.
Aloha,
Mike
Hello again, Mike:
Were you able to use any associated Google mail derivatives & seek missing content across their archives?
AirMail essentially is surrogate to gmail. Anything it may do, Gmail can do; perhaps better once tweaked.
For most anything in Mac's storage; those two-linked applications in my first reply, could be very useful.
Easy Find, free; and Find Any File, a shareware that runs free. ~ Both these I have & use; their usage is
a matter to learning their curve. Expect them 'fair to excellent' & depends on any lessons you learned.
Perhaps a 'boolean search' may be a chance-search operative to explore
while not necessarily helpful in confines of your Mac's storage drives.
(To access your email through Gmail web login can provide more info.)
"Airmail .. plays well with other services, supporting document import
from OneDrive, Google Drive or Dropbox and letting you open links in
many different browsers; it also features “send to” support for apps and
services such as Trello, Evernote, and Pocket" (AirMail ref. similar macOS)
~ from Tom's Guide, best apps Jan. 2021(iOS).
Anyway, hopefully a different scheme of email archive will result.
Adaptive? One both serves immediate, & future use; of course.
Airmail Folders Gone
