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.

Level 1

0 points

Lion ate ALL my Mail

This is NOT good. Granted I keep tens of thousands of messages in dozens of folders, but they're all important to me in one way or another.

With the Mail conversion that took place as part of my Lion install (conversion by itself took an hour or two), I was left with a message that said my Mail index was screwed, but that it would be recreated after the next restart. Not so! Or at least there's no evidence that anything is happening. When I launch Mail, no windows or messages appear... just the bar at the top. If I right-click the icon in the dock, it says "application not responding".

I know that "application not responding" doesn't always mean that nothing is happening, so I'll probably wait overnight to see if anything has developed by morning.

Anyway, I neeed to prepare for the worst. How do I back out of this new Mail app altogether, so that I can restore my email from Time Machine?

...Charles

Posted on Jul 20, 2011 4:47 PM

Best reply

RodneyW

Level 4

3,035 points

Posted on Jul 20, 2011 4:52 PM

The only way to revert to the old Mail app is to go back to Snow Leopard.

In terms of the problem you are experiencing, if it does not fix itself by running all night, then I suggest that you simply restore your email data from Time Machine and try again. If it screws up again, we can start troubleshooting from there.

Cheers,

Rodney

p.s. I have migrated 4 IMAP email accounts and 1 Exchange account and thousands of associated emails without a hitch so far - so I am hoping that this is a glitch rather than a systemic problem. Time will tell!

View in context

130 replies

W@ers

Level 1

0 points

Nov 9, 2011 10:57 AM in response to Oki

The old ones, new ones and preferences setup.

Oki

Level 2

228 points

Nov 16, 2011 8:37 AM in response to W@ers

The new ones including those which are not anymore on my email provider server? Thanks for all your help. I want to be sure everything will be ok.

W@ers

Level 1

0 points

Nov 16, 2011 9:18 AM in response to Oki

Seems like I have everything after that exercise and I have both smtp and pop accounts. Good luck ! 😉

BourneCS

Level 1

0 points

Dec 6, 2011 8:46 PM in response to cp_whaley

I don't know how Apple has failed so hard with Lion. I've had nothing but crashes, freezes, inexplicable moments when the screen doesn't turn on, my MBP wakes when I close it sleeps when I open it. And then this mail thing just happened to me the other day. Needless to say I am extremely dissapointed...even with my now 23 second shutdown. Feels like I'm running Windows Vista again. But at least there was a way to fix this mail thing! Yay for people that continually try to fix problems we all have to live with.

Jan 2, 2012 1:08 AM in response to cp_whaley

...make sure Mail has been forced to quit and go into Finder>GoTo>~Library/Mail/...

...and move the Mail folder with everything in it to your desktop.

Restart Mail

I did this and everything opened nicely and all my mail was magically there!!! Thank You cp_whaley!!!

Oki

Level 2

228 points

Jan 2, 2012 11:41 AM in response to tiffanysteinert

Ah...I've been lazy, or I'd rather have this conversation in french... I still did not do anything.

@tiffanysteinert, where did your preferences go ?

And for the more complete version, when you put

~/Library/Mail/

~/Library/Mail Downloads/

~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.mail.plist

~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.mail.searchhistory.plist

on your desktop, how do you get your preferences back?

Sorry I wish I had understood everything I need, but not yet 😐

Jan 11, 2012 4:18 PM in response to Oki

@ OKi, I removed the entire folder and all of it's contents to the desktop! And when I opened mail everything opened up and was there just as it was before.

CVP_1

Level 1

0 points

Jul 28, 2012 4:18 AM in response to markfromlynchburg

Mark's solution seems to have worked - thanks Mark!!

sambeary

Level 1

0 points

Dec 19, 2012 12:56 PM in response to cp_whaley

I asked this same question months ago in another board and never got a response - I just happened upon your solution and it fixed my problem within a few minutes. THANK YOU!!! You saved me a trip to the Apple store at Christmas time!!!

oae__

Level 1

0 points

Aug 7, 2013 1:26 AM in response to cp_whaley

Had the *same* problems. Old mailboxes got imported/transformed, then Mail was started but with no window visible (only the menu bar).

Mail would crash on pressing command-0 or on navigating to 'Mailbox -> Got to favorite Mailbox' menu.

The console logs showed only

8/7/13 9:59:40.116 AM Mail[2827]: *** -[NSSet initWithArray:range:copyItems:]: array argument is not an NSArray

and

8/7/13 9:58:21.606 AM Mail[2827]: An exception occurred during invocation of -[MailboxesController _writeSmartMailboxesToDisk]

Removing the 'Enveloper*' files did not help. The mailboxes just got imported freshly by producing the same situation afterwards.

What finally solved my problem ?

Removing

SmartMailboxes.plist

SmartMailboxes.plist.backup

SmartMailboxesLocalProperties

SyncedSmartMailboxes.plist

Afterwards the window appeard, old mailboxes and messeges did exits!

PS: Not sure if i really had to remove all of this files. Removing only the first 3 did not help alone. Only after deleting the 4th the problem went away.

Lion ate ALL my Mail