Lion ate ALL my Mail

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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

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Answer 1

Best reply

RodneyW

Level 4

3,035 points

Jul 20, 2011 4:52 PM in response to cp_whaley

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!

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Answer 2

cp_whaley Author

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Jul 20, 2011 5:03 PM in response to RodneyW

I'll definitely reply with either the overnight results or the solution you suggested.

I assume that would mean a re-install of Lion from scratch? Otherwise how would I get the new Mail app (which isn't working right now) to re-convert my old files?

And, for that matter, this is the first time I've downloaded an OS X version. Can I re-download it without being charged for a second copy?

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Answer 3

Jul 20, 2011 5:16 PM in response to cp_whaley

I receive the following message when I launch Mail and try to upgrade/import:

The import failed.

An error occurred during the import. Make sure you have available space in your home folder and try again.

I looked in Console.app (in Applications/Utilities) and found the following error:

Mail: Copy from /Users/myuser/Library/Mail/V2/MailData/Envelope Index to /Users/myuser/Library/Mail/V2/MailData/Envelope Index-4 failed with 14: not an error

It continues to increment each time I attempt to run the import. The file permissions on "Envelope Index" seem kind of interesting:

myuser (Me) Read & Write

myuser (Me) Read only

everyone Read Only

Compared to the permissions of the copies its made:

myuser (Me) Read & Write

staff Read Only

everyone Read Only

Does this mean anything to anyone?

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Answer 4

deivy

Level 4

2,365 points

Jul 20, 2011 5:21 PM in response to cp_whaley

help mail is your friend:

Mail uses files called “Envelope Index files” to keep track of messages in your local mailboxes. If there are problems with information in your mailboxes, you might see an alert message saying that Mail needs to repair your mailboxes by reindexing your messages for you.

At other times, you may want to reindex messages yourself—for example, when searching mailboxes using Subject, To, or From doesn’t return the correct results.

Quit Mail if it’s open.
In ~/Library/Mail/V2/MailData, delete any file that begins with “Envelope Index,” such as Envelope Index or Envelope Index-shm.Your home Library folder is hidden by default. To display it, choose Finder > “Go to Folder” and then enter “~/Library.”
Open Mail.Mail creates new Envelope Index files. This process may take a few minutes, depending on how many messages Mail is reindexing.

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Answer 5

deivy

Level 4

2,365 points

Jul 20, 2011 5:23 PM in response to timothy adam

Timothy,

Try to repair your permission.

If you have an ACL found but not expected, let me know.

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Answer 6

RodneyW

Level 4

3,035 points

Jul 20, 2011 5:27 PM in response to cp_whaley

G'day Charles,

You can download Lion again, but it should not be necessary for this problem.

To restore your email from Time Machine, I would enter Time Machine from Finder, and browse backwards in time to the last backup under Snow Leopard. Then select the /Users/yourusername/Library/Mail folder, and restore it.

This will replace your corrupted email store on Lion, and give you the chance to do it again.

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Answer 7

cp_whaley Author

Level 1

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Jul 20, 2011 7:23 PM in response to cp_whaley

Just a quick update to anyone who may still be following this tonight.

Timothy, I really think that your problem is totally different from mine, so if deivy's suggestion for your issue doesn't work for you, you might get more responses by opening a new topic.

deivy... yes I know there is Help documentation if I could access it. The new Mail is dead to me, including Help. Thanks for copying over the relevant sections. I tried that without success.

I wish there was something... anything... displayed when I launch the new mail. All I get is the standard bar of menus at the top.. none of which will open. And no windows at all. You'd think that if it couldn't find mail, it would act like it was starting from scratch... waiting for me to set everything up.

Unless there are any further suggestions tonight, here's my plan...

1. Quit being impatient. At midnight, I'll shut down all apps, do a restart, and only launch the new Mail. I'll repeat deivy's instructions again if necessary to eliminate those files. Then I'll wait to see if it has done anything by morning.

2. Failing that, I'll try Rodney's suggestion on the Time Machine restore, but if the new Mail is totally unresponsive now, I'm sceptical about it reactivating and attempting the conversion again. We'll see.

3. Download and install Lion again. Since I haven't done an OS install from a download before, I assume that the installer isn't still sitting on my Mac somewhere? I'll have to do it from the Mac store again?

More to report tomorrow.

...Charles

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Answer 8

deivy

Level 4

2,365 points

Jul 20, 2011 8:35 PM in response to cp_whaley

Charles,

sorry to hear it is so bad.

I don't know if you tried trashing(*) mail preferences file.

(*)Trash in this case is quit Mail and rename com.apple.Mail to com.apple.Nail (for instance).

Now launch Mail. If the probelm persists then you know is not the preferences file and you can rename it to "Mail" s as not to have to do all the selections again

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Answer 9

Jul 20, 2011 8:57 PM in response to deivy

Trashing the envelope files did the trick. Although, I did try repairing my permissions that did not inevietably solve the issue. Thanks deivy. Didn't mean to hijack your thread.

The new Mail is cool. 🙂

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Answer 10

JasonGA

Level 1

5 points

Jul 20, 2011 10:19 PM in response to cp_whaley

I was having the same problem: Upgrade to Lion, run Mail, at various points while "upgrading" my previous emails, Mail.app would just quit.

I did the following, though I don't know if both were necessary:

1. Downloaded SpeedMail.app and ran it. (in short, runss sqlite3 command in terminal)

2. Removed "Envelope Index" from ~/Library/Mail

Opened Mail.app, and now it is importing 102,000+ emails. Thanks!

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Answer 11

Jul 20, 2011 10:39 PM in response to deivy

I deleted all of my Envelope Index files in ~/Library/Mail and reopened Mail. IT WORKED!!!

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Answer 12

DwhiteGP

Level 1

0 points

Jul 20, 2011 10:40 PM in response to deivy

deivy, Thank you!! Although I wasn't able to find my Library in the way you described, I did eventually find it. Your solution worked perfectly. Thank you soooo much.

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Answer 13

Aintree9

Level 1

4 points

Jul 20, 2011 11:35 PM in response to cp_whaley

Hi

Can you help someone totally out of their depth!

When I click on the Mail icon a message box appears:

Restore Windows

The application "Mail" was forced to quit while trying to restore its windows. Do you want to try to restore its windows again?

The options are: "Don't Restore Windows" or "Restore windows"

Which ever option I select I get the spinning beach ball and nothing happens thereafter.

I desperately need to access emails so has anyone get any suggestions pleas - I am not very technical so any help would be appreciated.

Steve

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Answer 14

Jul 21, 2011 4:59 AM in response to Aintree9

Steve,

I had the exact same thing happen to me. What I did was:

1) Quit Mail

2) Right click on the finder icon in the dock

3) Choose go to folder

4) Type in ~/Library

5) Open the Mail folder

6) Delete everything that has the word "Envelope Index" in front of it. (Depending on how far the upgrade process went through you might have to click on the folder "V2" before you do this step)

7) After you have deleted these files, re-open Mail and it should work.

Hope this works for you too.

Mark

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Answer 15

elpelso

Level 1

0 points

Jul 21, 2011 5:10 AM in response to cp_whaley

Big issues with Mail after upgrade to Lion. Tried the solutions mentioned above. After removal of the envelope file, Mail re-imports the messages, but then at the 'optimizing' stage quits without any error or warning... Never gets beyond that point. Very frustrating. Any suggestions ?

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