So I selected a sent email from my Sent mail folder. It is highlighted in my mailbox contents column on the left of the screen and the email is displayed on the right. I had not opened the email - I was just in the viewer mode. I accidentally bumped the space bar and that email disappeared - from the sent mail folder. I have searched everywhere - Inbox, Drafts, Sent, Junk, Trash, Archive, Important - not a sign of it anywhere! Where did it go?
The default Mail behavior for pressing the space bar with a sent message selected is to scroll to the end of that message, after which it selects the next sent message. So the reason it disappeared is a mystery.
The first thing to try when something like that happens is ⌘ z or Undo. The Undo buffer may be gone by now so it probably will no longer work.
If your email service has a webmail interface, try logging in there and determine if you can find the missing message.
The last suggestion is to select the Sent Mailbox again, and from the Time Machine interface in the Mac's menu bar, select "Enter Time Machine". Give the interface time to populate (a lot of time, depending on the number of email messages it may have saved), and determine if you can restore it. If the messages are not stored locally, "On My Mac" then TM will attempt to download them again from your email service providers — assuming they remain on their servers.
Restore items backed up with Time Machine on Mac - Apple Support
The default Mail behavior for pressing the space bar with a sent message selected is to scroll to the end of that message, after which it selects the next sent message. So the reason it disappeared is a mystery.
The first thing to try when something like that happens is ⌘ z or Undo. The Undo buffer may be gone by now so it probably will no longer work.
If your email service has a webmail interface, try logging in there and determine if you can find the missing message.
The last suggestion is to select the Sent Mailbox again, and from the Time Machine interface in the Mac's menu bar, select "Enter Time Machine". Give the interface time to populate (a lot of time, depending on the number of email messages it may have saved), and determine if you can restore it. If the messages are not stored locally, "On My Mac" then TM will attempt to download them again from your email service providers — assuming they remain on their servers.
Restore items backed up with Time Machine on Mac - Apple Support
It should not have gone anywhere. In the Apple Mail App, if you have the preview panel enabled, the space bar just selects the email immediately above the one that was selected, but does not delete it or move it anywhere.
If you don't have the preview panel enabled, then it opens the selected email.
It should have been moved or deleted.
Did you maybe do something else?
ThingsThatMakeYouGoHmmmm wrote:
So I selected a sent email from my Sent mail folder. It is highlighted in my mailbox contents column on the left of the screen and the email is displayed on the right. I had not opened the email - I was just in the viewer mode. I accidentally bumped the space bar and that email disappeared - from the sent mail folder. I have searched everywhere - Inbox, Drafts, Sent, Junk, Trash, Archive, Important - not a sign of it anywhere! Where did it go?
Quit Mail.app and relaunched it to compare your results...
I agree, it should not have gone anywhere, but poof! It vanished. I was reviewing the email with someone on the phone, so I was multitasking - and not paying real close attention to my UI interaction. All I recall is bumping the spacebar.
Thanks, but that is one of the first things I did after I searched all of the folders. The fellow I sent the email to responded to it, so I have the content. I am mildly bothered by the seeming behavior of the app, but it's probably user error. Not the first time Apple Mail has been wonky though. Thanks for the comments!
Where did it go?
