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Level 1

4 points

disappearing emails

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

Posted on Mar 1, 2011 8:20 AM

41 replies

Judith Anne Author

Level 1

4 points

Mar 2, 2011 7:28 AM in response to Judith Anne

Have decided it is just going to be more than I can handle to do the transfer of all those mailboxes; plus have not figured out how to stop the app from downloading all those thousands of emails still on the server...so I'll have to see if anyone can suggest another mail program that might work for me, or else just live with Mail.

However, I did want to say thank you again for all the time you gave me to try to solve this, and in figuring out how to find those emails. I'll know how to do that if it happens again, and have made an adjustment in my habits to try to prevent that (no more right-click-and-menu renaming! if it won't highlight, I won't try to rename it!). It is so amazing to me, every time, that there are those of you out there with expertise you are willing to offer so generously to folks like me who just can't figure stuff out sometimes without it. THANK YOU!

Judy

BDAqua

Level 10

240,197 points

Mar 2, 2011 1:33 PM in response to Judith Anne

plus have not figured out how to stop the app from downloading all those thousands of emails still on the server.

In the Menu bar choose Work Offline.

Judith Anne Author

Level 1

4 points

Mar 2, 2011 2:09 PM in response to BDAqua

Well, I did figure that out...but wouldn't I have to go online eventually to let it download new emails? If so, wouldn't it then download all of the ones still on the server?

BDAqua

Level 10

240,197 points

Mar 2, 2011 5:07 PM in response to Judith Anne

Only new ones if you did te manual copy/move above.

ylen

Level 1

5 points

Mar 8, 2011 5:10 PM in response to Judith Anne

I am so glad to have read this thread! I just encountered the same frustration while trying to perform what should have been a ridiculously easy task. I was only trying to rename a mailbox folder! Really??? Unfortunately, when I saw that I had created a duplicate mailbox, I thought nothing of deleting the duplicate. Big mistake. I followed all of the advice that you were given, but was unable to retrieve any of the contents.

I hope there are some Apple programmers out there listening because this is a major hiccup for Mail. I would like nothing more then to find an alternative mail software.

BDAqua

Level 10

240,197 points

Mar 8, 2011 5:19 PM in response to ylen

Hi ylen, and a warm welcome to the forums! 🙂

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2775441&tstart=0

I hope there are some Apple programmers out there listening because this is a major hiccup for Mail.

If it gets fixed or has been, it won't likely be for 10.4.x ever, maybe 10.5, 10.6, 10.7, 10.8...

While you may get help or a solution here, It's quite acceptable to start a new topic of your own also, certainly feel free to start a new topic to attract more helpers to your particular situation, here's a link if as is often the case, it's hard to find out where to do it...

http://discussions.apple.com/post!default.jspa?forumID=75

ylen

Level 1

5 points

Mar 8, 2011 5:33 PM in response to BDAqua

Hi. I realize that the issue won't be fixed for 10.4 but I am getting ready to install my OS upgrade to 10.6 and hoping that it might be addressed there. We can dream.

Nevertheless, I still have some emails I'd like to try to recover. I understand how to rename mailboxes in the future but is there a way to recover my lost mailbox contents in the interim? FYI: I lost the mailbox subfolders within a top level mailbox and all of the emails within each subfolder.

BDAqua

Level 10

240,197 points

Mar 8, 2011 5:37 PM in response to ylen

I'd get EasyFind...

http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/11076

Here's a direct download link to EasyFind 4.0 which runs in 10.3.9 & up...

http://www.devon-technologies.com/files/legacy/macosx1039/EasyFind.dmg.zip

From this page,

http://www.devon-technologies.com/support/faqs.php?p=default&cat=19

Freeware applications:

* EasyFind 4.0
* PhotoStickies 5.6
* ThumbsUp 4.3
* XMenu 1.8

http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/8707

Use it to search your whole drive for case insensitive & show invisibles...

.emlx

(dot ee em el ex)

If that doesn't find them then possibly...

Data Rescue II...

http://www.prosofteng.com/products/data_rescue.php

This one would require another HD with plenty of space to recover to.

You should use another Boot Disk or other Mac with this one in Target mode to do the recovery.

They have a free demo to see what it could recover.

rccharles on file recovery...

"Stellar Phoenix Macintosh - Mac data recovery software, recovers data from damaged, deleted, or corrupted volumes and even from initialized disks."
They have a trial version, so I guess you can see if your data can be recovered...
http://www.stellarinfo.com/mac-data-recovery.htm

FileSalvage is an extremely powerful Macintosh application for exploring and recovering deleted files from a drive or volume. FileSalvage is designed to restore files that have:
* been accidentally deleted.
* become unreadable due to media faults.
* been stored on a drive before it was re-initialized/formatted.
http://subrosasoft.com/OSXSoftware/index.php?mainpage=product_info&productsid=1

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=11073082#11073082

Apr 26, 2011 8:22 AM in response to BDAqua

Hi ... Interresting thread ... much time and patience ! Generous indeed ! But I am not sure that I get the real point. I see the way to retrieve the lost data, but what is the mistake to avoid ?

Is it possible to make a resume of what we cannot do and what we should do when we want to rename or move mailboxes/folders in Mail' sidebar ?

Since I have been using IMAP accounts, I have been witnessing emails disappearing in the cloud ! Is there a link were I can have a global picture of what we can do or cannot do with theses mailboxes ?

Regards.

Robert Lespérance

BDAqua

Level 10

240,197 points

Apr 26, 2011 10:31 AM in response to Robert Lesperance

Hi Robert, might be best to start a new topic, dunno for sure.

While not quite as important with IMAP as POP, I'd say the first thing anyone Should do especially before any changes is...

On Mail...

First Quit Mail, then I'd backup these two Mail folders, by right clicking on them in the Finder, then choose Archive/Compress.

Users/YourUserName/Library/Mail

Users/YourUserName/Library/Mail Downloads

(Could be a different folder here if you chose such in Mail Prefs)

Right click on that Mail folder, choose archive, you'll get everything in the folder, and the folder itself in a file called Mail.zip, move it to a safe place, same for the Mail Downloads folder... only the plist is separate.

/Users/YourUserName/Library/Preferences/com.apple.mail.plist

For Address Book, quit AB...

Files...

/Users/YourUserName/Library/Preferences/com.apple.AddressBook.plist

/Users/YourUserName/Library/Preferences/com.apple.AddressBook.abd.plist

Folders...

/Users/YourUserName/Library/Application Support/AddressBook/

/Users/YourUserName/Library/Caches/com.apple.AddressBook/

>Since I have been using IMAP accounts, I have been witnessing emails disappearing in the cloud !

Are these ones you've read or just should be there but never show up?

Apr 26, 2011 2:29 PM in response to BDAqua

Hi BD Aqua,

Thanks for helping. I opened another thread anyway (see here).

I have been doing a continous backup of my Library for months with CrashPlan. That should help me with all previous version of these files.

Before restoring them, I would like to understand what is causing this problem 😢😢😢 !!

Do you have any idea why my emails are vanishing ?

Regards.

Robert

disappearing emails