Missing emails in Mail - Lion deleting them?

Missing emails!

I - like many of you - receive a couple of thousand emails every month; most of those (a good 90-95%) are strictly work related. I pretty much send just as many each month, and I used to go back into my SENT folder to remind myself of project status updates, upcoming meetings, billing discussions, etc. ...in short, VERY important info. I don't have time to duplicate those and keep a separate log somewhere; I rely 100% on this method which has been running solid for many years. Further, I also download both INBOX and SENT emails to my Mac and archive them every 4 months. My archive is up-to-date, having everything up to Dec. 2012 safely stored away.

Recently, I had to go back to my SENT emails to read up on a conversation I had back in Jan/Feb with an important client (it was about a project with the automakers in Detroit) about billing schedule, timelines, etc. To my horror, I noticed that ALL SENT emails between Jan. 01/2013 and Mar. 06/2013 were missing! I panicked!! We are talking 3000-4000 emails - GONE. I tried everything, looked online in the browser-based webmail, checked the hosting c-panel hoping that somehow, the host created automatic backup folders, ...anything! But to no avail. I checked in every folder on my system... no luck. Those emails are gone. I was able to find some correspondence in emails my clients responded to but those were just a few here and there.

How could this have happened? This is a major problem and if this happened to us (our firm) I'm sure others experienced the same problem. Here comes some wishful thinking: Does anyone have any idea on how to retrieve those emails by any chance? I know this is a long shot but I'm hoping someone has the golden answer.

What caused this? Anyone? The affected account is an IMAP account, set up in MacMail (v5.3); my Mac is running OSX 10.7.5. Are there any other details one needs to know to determine a possible problem (perhaps there is a pattern of OSX 10.7.5 and MacMail 5.3 causing such issues!?).

I'm not very technically inclined and am more a 'user' than anything (speaking computer terms!!). Any help would me greatly appreciated. Thanks!

How many different computers and other devices access this account? With each of them is the setting present to keep sent messages on the server? And is the box for when to delete Sent messages set to Never on each of them?

Ernie

UNBELIEVABLE!!!!

I just did a search in MAIL for an email address I sendt to client one month ago regarding a new job (Im in TV production) and there is NO TRACE OF ANY CORRESPONDANCE AT ALL!!!!

I searched the email address, and fulll name of the recepient, in all folders, and singular folders (Inbox, Trash, Sent), and NOTHING CAME UP.

If I deleted the email from my inbox, is should still be in trash and sent email folders. Right? RIGHT!?!??

And yes, I did just check that my email accounts (I have 4) are all set to NEVER delete. I use Mail only on this laptop and my iPhone.

I am sad to have to look at PC's now becuase I love my Mac, but I started noticing this behaviour six months ago, but it was for some personal mails that I managed without. But now it has seriously affected my work and certains links that contained information on what files where shared to whom is now missing.

It was a nice run on Apple for 4 years, but this just proved Mac's are fun, overpriced toys that can't be relied upon for professional use.

Is it possible to get a response from anyone at Apple to ensure us this is being looked into?

Can I hold out a little on transfering to MS Office, or are all these posts just going to deaf ears and I might as well start making my transition.

Use Spotlight to search for the email, if you deleted it from the inbox it wasn't sent.

If you would prefer to use Office on Windows you can, it is your choice.

Not enough info for anyone to look into, whether Apple or not. Is this an IMAP account? If so, who is the provider. Mailboxes and folders are kept on the server with IMAP accounts. Certain actions, on the server, can remove messages that will not find their way to any location on your computer, and thus not seeable by Spotlight.

If a POP account, then messages and movement of message would most likely track through, Trash, etc.

Ernie

So here's the solution that worked for me and is mentioned earlier in this post. It may not work for you, but if nothing else keeps those emails from randomly and totally disappearing, try this:

Open the offending account in Mail Preferences, select "Accounts" then "Advanced."

Next de-select "Use IDLE command if the server supports it."

Not sure why, but I did this on all of my accounts and so far, so good.

And for all of you who helpfully pointed out we should check the Trash and Junk and Rules and all the other elementary stuff only a newb wouldn't know, thanks, I appreciate the help, but when we said the emails appeared in Notifications then vanished off the face of the Earth, that's what we meant. No rhyme or reason, other than the IDLE command, apparently.

Good luck!

Open the offending account in Mail Preferences, select "Accounts" then "Advanced."

Next de-select "Use IDLE command if the server supports it."

Not sure why, but I did this on all of my accounts and so far, so good.

Unchecking that command turns Push off, mail is collected via a schedule instead

Although what you say is very logical, and ought to be the whole story, the IDLE command use with a GoDaddy IMAP can interfere with any good-order communication with the server. Thus it cannot be ruled out that it could impact a Sent message, as to whether it is ever written to the folder on the server, or other matters.

GoDaddy is the only one I have documented, but there might be others.

Ernie

I was not suggesting that it would not be involved, merely stating what it is supposed to do, I have not suffered from a missing mail problem so have no experience of Idle command side effects.

Nor have I personnally, but I found lots of evidence that GoDaddy had a bad implimentation, and it could cause problems. I have even confronted GoDaddy reps who posted on the ASC, and they had to back down, and could not dispute.

Ernie

I had the same problem and found in my setting you need to lick " leave a copy on the server"

I'm not necessarily loosing email that are coming in, but I've lost all mailboxes that I had created to save important my emails! It's critical that I get these back.

Has anyone had this problem? Or a solution provided? Thanks

For sometime now i have been missing emails in apple mail client both on the iphone and mac lion. those missing emails may be seen in gmail's webmail. i have tried a couple of solutions i found online including deleting the account and adding it back. They seem to work ok until you discover that important messages have been sent to you and did not receive them in apple mail.

Aslo noticed that emails can disappear after seeing them (still unread). When you get back to them theyre not there. I tried using Inky but the same thing happens. What seems to work very well is the mailbox app in IOS. Never missed one and emails arrive faster than apples own client.

After futher investigation i found some missing emails (gmails) in my ALL MAIL folder. I wonder why the emails were moved there from the inbox?

Im a fan of apple but these persistent issues should be addressed. If they cant be resolved they should just say so!

By the way, this is only a gmail problem for me. Private server emails, yahoo and hotmail accounts work quite well.

johnedlt wrote:

For sometime now i have been missing emails in apple mail client both on the iphone and mac lion. those missing emails may be seen in gmail's webmail. i have tried a couple of solutions i found online including deleting the account and adding it back. They seem to work ok until you discover that important messages have been sent to you and did not receive them in apple mail.

Aslo noticed that emails can disappear after seeing them (still unread). When you get back to them theyre not there. I tried using Inky but the same thing happens. What seems to work very well is the mailbox app in IOS. Never missed one and emails arrive faster than apples own client.

After futher investigation i found some missing emails (gmails) in my ALL MAIL folder. I wonder why the emails were moved there from the inbox?

Im a fan of apple but these persistent issues should be addressed. If they cant be resolved they should just say so!

By the way, this is only a gmail problem for me. Private server emails, yahoo and hotmail accounts work quite well.

Gmail uses a non standard method of handling mail, all email goes to the All Mail folder and 1 other folder (Inbox etc). Look on Gmails website interface and you will see them.

As to why Gmail is not delivering mail to the correct folder (in addition to All Mail) ask Google.