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Suicidal messages... why are they jumping into my Junk Folder???

Some would criticize me for being an email hoarder but that's the way I prefer to be. I keep everything unless it's spam. I have about 10 accounts in Mail, which I use regularly. None of them have conditions for deleting messages from my computer ever. They should only disappear if I delete them manually.

Over the last few months, however, messages have been jumping into my Junk Folder at random times and with nothing in common. Sometimes it's a few, sometimes several hundred, sometimes 3000-4000. Each time I have to select them all and drag them back into my inbox... not knowing when it'll happen again.

Fortunately, I check my Junk folder often, because I've had Junk set to empty on shutting down the application. I guess I should change that before I lose 3000+ messages.

What could possibly be causing this??? The suicidal messages come from assorted email accounts... some new, some old, some in between. I can't see any common pattern.

Thoughts?

...Charles

G5 iMac, Mac OS X (10.6.5)

Posted on Jan 5, 2011 9:44 AM

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4 replies

Jan 11, 2011 11:16 AM in response to cp_whaley

The only explanation I could think of is that the Junk filter is getting updated periodically causing the messages to be reclassified as junk.

Are all the accounts from the same service provider (e.g. your ISP) or are they from multiple service providers (hotmail, gmail, etc.)?

Are your accounts set up to maintain the messages on the mail server? If so you may need to contact the service provider for assistance.

You may want to turn off what ever spam/junk mail filter is being used. Another solution might be to copy the mail you want to keep to a folder on your hard drive.

Jan 11, 2011 12:19 PM in response to Martin Pace

Thanks for the prompt reply.

I can't think of anything that would update the Junk filter. I haven't made any adjustments since well before this problem began.

I use multiple ISPs and all accounts are affected... Gmail, and accounts on two different ISPs.

Turning off the junk filter defeats it's purpose.

I have backups via Time Machine, so there's not much point in saving messages to external files, either.

I appreciate your suggestions though. I've at least turned off "Empty Junk on Quit", so I won't accidentally lose the messages being converted to Junk automatically. I'll keep exploring, and report any success if I have any.

Jan 16, 2011 12:11 PM in response to cp_whaley

Minor update...

The problem hasn't gone away, but it now appears that the messages that are automatically and randomly jumping into my junk folder are being COPIED there, not moved there.

Consequently, each time I've been dragging all those messages out of Junk and back into my Inbox, I've been adding to the problem. Next time around there are more and more messages that get randomly moved to Junk because the extra copies I dragged back are coming along too. The number of problem messages goes up exponentially.

I've got the Remove Duplicates AppleScript running now to confirm this. Judging by progress so far, this may take 8-10 hours.

Suicidal messages... why are they jumping into my Junk Folder???

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