I just tried to re-name a mailbox and suddenly there was a duplicate one (only white, not blue), including sub-folders, but neither of them contain the emails I had filed in the one I tried to re-name. Are my emails gone for good? What happened to them? What is this white folder icon? HELP!
Judy
iMac G5 20" 1.8 GHz,
Mac OS X (10.4.11),
Mail 2.1.3
I'm getting confused. No, I had not made another mailbox; I already had extras I didn't understand so did not want to add to that. Can I make another right in the finder window, move all the .emlx things into it? Or do i have to make it with Mail open? If I can do it in the finder window columns, that would be easy for me to understand what I am doing; what I am putting where...
There is another way, but you may get duplicates of the ones you can see already, that is to double click on that Mail.Zip folder thereby expanding it to another Mail folder, (in a Different location of course), then use Mail>File>Import Mailboxes>Mail for OSX..., & choose the top Mail Folder in that other location.
Well, kind of confusing, but that's me, not you!
Ok, I made a new one, with general name so it can hold all the relevant emails. It's showing in the column view of the window with all the stuff showing (when I go to the applicable level).
So, can I just: move (drag and drop) all the emails (the .emlx files from the assorted confusing folders) into that one and sort them later? if I move them all into that one, then can I delete all the confusing folders?
Well, the drag and drop thing doesn't work, I tried with a duplicate file. I'm nervous about trying that Import thing, as I don't want to have a whole raft of duplicates to deal with. I'll just wait and see if you have time later to advise me further. Thanks.
I sure wish I knew what went wrong in the first place. This makes me SO nervous about when it'll happen again that I think I'm just re-naming something and suddenly I lose a lot of stuff...
Well I just discovered that if I open them from the column in the window, I can then move them where I want them (into the new folder) from inside Mail, via the "message" menu. I think I'll try a few that way and see what happens. There are not large numbers involved, and I can easily locate them in the column view.
Stuff like this is so hard for me, when I don't understand the "higher order" layer of what is happening. It is very kind of you to help. I'll let you know how this little experiment goes...
Well, I got them where I want them, tediously. Further experiments seem to indicate this: you cannot re-name a folder with other folders in it, BUT (and this seems IMPOSSIBLY INSANE, especially for a mac), if you try (by selecting and then clicking on "rename"), you get a menu box that tells you you cannot rename, with only ONE button available (ok or some such), and when you click it to get rid of the box, then EVERYTHING in the un-renamed folder is gone. ***. No "never mind, then" option of any kind. CRAZY CRAZY. Infuriating, in fact. Any insights into this?? I mean, I don't think they should give you the ability, with one ignorant click, to make such a HUGE mess by trying to do something that seems pretty reasonable to me, like re-naming a folder. Good grief. So I guess if you want to do that, ever, then first you HAD BETTER remember NOT to try it, and second, make a new one and move ALL the stuff into it, as opposed to just renaming it. I must repeat, ***???
Hey, thank you for all your help. I SURE wish I understood this insane little issue! But thanks for helping me find those emails, if I do it again, maybe I won't panic...and I like that EasyFind app. Can you recommend an app. (preferably free) for managing mail? I find I am no longer interested in using this one! Grrrrr.
Hmm. Was excited to try this, but now not sure. I downloaded and opened. It didn't give me the option of importing mailboxes, prefs, etc. from Apple Mail. Then when it opened it started downloading what looked like EVERYTHING from the server...I don't do anything on there except check the spam folder once in awhile, so there are zillions of emails on there. Couldn't figure out how to stop it so just shut it down.
Went to support and none of the easily found questions about importing from Apple Mail have even been answered! I'm scared to open the app again if I don't know how to a) stop it downloading thousands of old emails, and b) just get it to import everything as it is on my computer in the Mail app.
If you can help with that, I'm sure I can work out the details. If it's above and beyond, no problem, I can just delete the Thunderbird app. You've helped a lot already, thanks!
Thank you, I will try these. (But not tonight!) Just to be sure, if I archive the folder users/my name/library/mail, that will save everything, right???
