Apple Event: May 7th at 7 am PT

Looks like no one’s replied in a while. To start the conversation again, simply ask a new question.

Vanishing sent messages in Apple Mail 4.3

I'm using Mac OS 10.6.4 with Apple Mail 4.3 and I've experienced a bug recently. I noticed that some of my messages, either new ones from scratch or replies to received messages, simply vanished.
If the message was a reply, I can't find it back by clicking on the curly arrow next to the name of the original message. A friend also experienced the same problems and we unfortunately can't replicate or find a logic to this bug. Searching doesn't do the trick, I'm using IMAP and it's also gone on the server but people receive these messages apparently.
Technote: MailTags and Mail Act-On are installed.
Has anyone experience the same problem and manage to isolate the cause of it? Thanks in advance for your help.

MacBookPro, Mac OS X (10.6.4)

Posted on Oct 28, 2010 6:24 AM

21 replies

Feb 19, 2011 9:36 AM in response to Nicolas Robel

I had the same trouble. Apparently sent mail past 1gig can cause issues.

My sent mail was in my library, about 2 gigs of them, I backed my whole mail folder up "Library/Mail" and then deleted my mac.com account in Mail Preferences ➖. Quit the program. Then added it back.

They all came back. Archiving the older ones now.

I hope this works for you!

shwang

Level 1

0 points

Mar 1, 2011 3:40 PM in response to Nicolas Robel

In Mail 4.4... just tried moving from POP to imap in 4.4. Some how, some where, lost all my sent and trash email. How can they just vanish?? Had a huge sent and trash... am guessing that's why it crashed. Not in library... can't find the emails anywhere. I'm hooped. Help??

Mar 4, 2011 3:22 PM in response to shwang

If you removed the POP account without saving the Sent messages to either an On My Mac mailbox, or if you first established the IMAP account, moving them to its Send folder, then they would be lost, and Mail would have issued a strongly worded warning message that that would happen.

Ernie

May 8, 2011 1:51 AM in response to carbon602

carbon602, that worked for me (Sent Mailbox Messages are all back).

Thank you so much.

leomore™

Feb 13, 2012 9:05 AM in response to Ernie Stamper

The Mailbox Behavior for my IMAP sent messages is "Store sent messages on server" and it is checked.

I see folders for "sent", "sent messages", etc. but they never populate with my sent IMAP emails.

Feb 13, 2012 11:21 AM in response to FrankAH

Same problem

I use Mail 5.2 accessing an IMAP account on my own domain. At the beginning of Feb my Sent mail started to misbehave.

Some days none of it will appear, other days some of it will appear. However, email is getting sent, being received by the recipient and the NOT appearing in the Sent mail folder.

This appears to be the case if I try to access the mail using MAIL or if I access it via a webmail system. So I am unsure whether it is a problem with Mail sending the email or Mail not liaising with the mail server correctly to file sent emails or some new exciting thing that is going on with my mailserver independent of MAIL.

Vanishing sent messages in Apple Mail 4.3