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Level 1

21 points

Mac mail automatically deleting emails

Hi everybody,

Has anybody come across this problem before?

Last week, out of the blue, the Mac Mail program automatically started deleting all of the emails in my IMAP inbox older than 8 days. They're not appearing in the Trash folder either. I've gone into the Mail preferences and there aren't any options that I could set under the "Mail Behaviors" tab for the Inbox itself, only for the Drafts, Sent, Junk, and Trash folders, which I don't have problems with.

I've tried replacing the Messages folder for this IMAP account under ~/Library/Mail/IMAP-account/INBOX.imapmbox with a backup containing all of the missing emails, but they're still not showing up in my inbox. I've also tried rebuilding the mailbox and reindexing it, but neither have worked either.

I've also been in touch with my email provider, and he said it wasn't anything on his end.

Does anybody have any suggestions? I'd definitely appreciate it if anybody can offer some insight! Thanks so much in advance!

iMac, Mac OS X (10.4.11)

Posted on Jun 6, 2011 1:54 PM

33 replies

ChitlinsCC

Level 7

20,924 points

Dec 20, 2016 12:01 PM in response to plainly jane

If you are talking about one email account doing this, like Gmail or YahooMail, the setting in Apple Mail may not be "taking" at the server-side.

I would visit the account's WebMail page preferences and see what it is set to there.

Dec 20, 2016 12:21 PM in response to ChitlinsCC

Thanks for your reply.

I am using Telus for mail. I checked the preferences on telus webmail. There were no options regarding what to do with deleted messages. Below is the screenshot of the only thing that mentioned deleted messages. I have not idea what is an "Incoming Deleted Message"

ChitlinsCC

Level 7

20,924 points

Dec 20, 2016 12:35 PM in response to plainly jane

My GUESS at the meaning...

When you get a message on your Mac, read it, decide to delete it - it goes into the AppleMail Trash. When you NEXT connect to your POP server, it does some "housekeeping" - sees what messages are in the Trash on your Mac and can then use the settings you see to move them around on the POP server. What the server does then regarding deleting them completely seems still to be a mystery according to the interface that you show.

If I were you, I would contact Telus and simply ask!

It is possible that you have an IMAP account which acts differently - basically your AppleMail displays exactly what is on the server (unless you make some 'local' folders)

Mac mail automatically deleting emails