Missing emails in Mail - Lion deleting them?

Emails being put into the All Mail folder has nothing to do with Mail (or Outlook or Thunderbird if were using), but would be because Gmail duplicates every message in the Inbox and the All Mail folder.

The issue you cite is almost certain to be having the Gmail account on more than one device, where either one device has it set up as POP and is removing the message when downloaded, or from one of the devices having a Rule to automatically delete or move to another folder not onl the device you are now looking at.

If on a device where set up as IMAP (the default most times when adding a Gmail account) it would be normal to briefly see a message once downloaded to that machine, but since deleted by action on another machine. The local cache copy is seen for an instant, and then the Inbox is synced to that on the IMAP server to reflect actions taken on another device. An IMAP Inbox only exists with durability on the server.

Lack of user understanding, plain and simple.

Ernie

So, I know everyone thinks this is a case of user incompetence, but let me explain what happened today. I've had a few emails that seemed to go missing over the past few months, but today -- baffling.

1. I received an email while at lunch and I remember what it said pretty much word for word. It contained an attachment that was around 6MB and the wifi I was so slow, I gave up on trying to download it at the time.

2. When I got home, the email was gone. It isn't in any folders. Not my inbox, not the trash or spam -- not even on the web mail server. It is simply gone. I KNOW this was a glitch, and not just my dumb fault. It's happened a few times before, but this was the first time I could convince myself bc it happened so suddenly.

Explain this please.

If it is not on the web server 2 things come to mind.

1. It never happened

2. You or some other user deleted it

1 is the most likely

What device did you first see this on, and please confirm whether it is an IMAP or POP account?

Ernie

There's no question that missing iCloud emails are a problem for me in the OS X "Mail" app.

I have at least one (inbound) email from yesterday in my iPhone Inbox (iCloud/IMAP) that does not apear on the Mac. There is no operator error involved here- I'm looking at the same account and seeing different things on different devices.

Also- I just sent an email from my Mac (got the swooshing confirmation sound) that doesn't appear in my "Sent" mailbox, either on the Mac or the iPhone.

My wifi is a bit dodgy at the moment- network performance is poor. I'm going to make a wild guess and wonder if there are timeout settings in the client apps that result in certain emails becoming invisible, even though they've been sent or received at some point, on some device.

In any case- this is very disturbing. Valid emails are missing, and it makes me wonder what I've missed that didn't appear anywhere.

try this easy out.

https://support.google.com/mail/answer/47948

The same issues as described by Coates 21 and I've been feeling like I'm going crazy with this problem. I swapped our emails over from POP accounts to IMAP accounts with a new provider.

I have had the following issues:

I see a notification come up whilst I'm working and then go to look at email a few moments later and it has vanished without being read, it is not in deleted, it is not on the webmail.

1. Look at an email at home on my iPhone and leave it as unread as I know I will deal with this when I get into the office. But it has vanished when I get there, again it is not anywhere to be found on the work computer, iPhone, iPad or webmail

2. Large chunks of 'conversation' or complete threads have randomly gone missing from all devices

3. Sent messages are vanishing some days after they were sent.

4. Emails very slow to arrive

I contacted my email provider (Macace) and sent information about specific emails but was told it was not their problem as the log said it had been delivered to me. When I asked where it might have gone and why it wasn't in the deleted folder I was told I must have deleted it (I didn't)

I use a number of sub folders for certain clients and have rules diverting incoming email into those folders, the emails that vanish are often ones that do not have rules though. Of course I can't run 'rules' on the iPhone or iPad.

I was using Spamsieve but turned this off, I also removed any rules I'd created to try and handle spam (i.e. containing key words such as casino, etc)

I did rebuild all the mailboxes and also the subfolders (using the webmail interface) as recommended by my supplier, this seemed to improve things for a while

I have a suspicion it is some sort of time and synching issue with different information on different devices, I'd really like to resolve it as it's very challenging to someone who has a busy design business.

Folders used in conjunction with IMAP accounts must be created (and reside) on the IMAP account server, and NOT On My Mac. Otherwise a Move to a folder will remove the email from both the Inbox and the server.

On all your devices, do these folder show in the account in the Accounts portion of Mail on an iOS device, and at the bottom of the sidebar in Mail on your Macs, below the sub header for each account?

Also, on your Mac, control click (or right-click) on the account, and choose Get Account Info -- are all the expected folders there?

Ernie

Yes, I created all the accounts using the webmail as I was instructed, this means they reside on the server.

These then appear under the account name on my main Mac. However I have to scroll to the main business Account page on the iPhone or iPad to view these (they do not appear in All mailboxes or in the upper section listing different mailboxes).

If my work computer is shut down at night and I download on my iPhone then the email from "Client A" will show in the All mailboxes on my phone. If the work computer is switched on and it downloads the email first then it will be in the "Client A" folder. I will then sometimes move it into the client folder once I get to work.

All the mailboxes appear in the Get Info as expected.

Has anyone had this issue when using Spamsieve? I found it very good normally and would like to start re-using it.

The issue may be with how the folders were created. Across time, with all versions of Mail, when folders are created as subfolders of the Inbox (appearing below said Inbox) they have been problematic with IMAP accounts. While they may work reliably with webmail interface, with Mail and/or other email clients they are not universally "good". My experience in that regard predates any of my experiences on iOS devices, btw, so could be even more problematic.

It would likely have been best to have created the folder within Mail, where you can carefully specify them to be at the top level of the IMAP account, but which will not result in their being sub folders to the INBOX. With what I know so far, that is all can think of. You could probably still create them over again in Mail, and it you have copied the messages that you have either back to the Inbox, or into an On My Mac mailbox system, you could then transfer them back to newly created folders. I also don't what options you may have when creating them in the webmail interface.

Ernie

Thanks Ernie

I also wondered that but the issue first arose when creating them on my Mac from within Mail. The web interface showed all the boxes I had created hover I created new ones and transferred the emails across using the web interface (as instructed). After a few initial panics when boxes vanished all together it all settled down and everything on the webmail appears on my Mac, laptop, iPhone and iPad now.

However recently I've had a few emails not delivered (my clients had told me they sent them, and another when I went to reset a password on a bank account, which camera through the second time). There seems to be very little logic to it which is what is so disturbing!