Missing emails in Mail - Lion deleting them?

ethnoguy,

Is your account IMAP? Who is your account provider? Did the problem begin as soon as you upgraded to Lion? Care to share any other specifics?

it is my university's webmail service but do not wish to name it here. It is not gmail or some other free service if that's what you're wondering. I am using a new macbook air with Lion preinstalled. I've been using Mail for about two weeks and only noticed the problem today. I played with the viewer settings a little and rebuilt the inbox which seems to have temporarily fixed the problem. I am doing the same for the sent mailbox now. However I remain cynical given the popularity of this discussion here. My only guess is that it might have something to do with the different views (classic, etc) offered by Mail. For instance the email count was identical with the number of emails on the webserver (+1500) but clearly they were not showing up in the inbox or the search function.

ethnoguy wrote:

it is my university's webmail service but do not wish to name it here.

Don't name it but tell us whether it is a POP, iMap or Exchange system.

"Meanwhile, everything is as it should be on my imap webmail server"

Thanks, missed that.

You have checked that mailbox mapping from the University server to your copy of mail is accurate I assume?

Remove the account completely and then replace it, verify that the Server mailboxes map to the correct folders on the Client

ethnoguy wrote:

"Meanwhile, everything is as it should be on my imap webmail server"

Actually now I look again that is not right. Webmail (as in viewing on the web rather than in Mail) does not use iMap, clients use iMap, so verify that your account is set up in Mail as an iMap account.

Grrrr.... the fallout from this 'bug' keeps showing it's ugly head. It's so frustrating that I don't know which emails were deleted. The latest mail that's gone missing for me is the booking confirmation for two cars on the Eurotunnel. I remember the mails coming in when I first placed the booking and the quidco tracking email is still there but the actual booking emails are not. It's not even in my Time Machine backup so was likely removed before the next backup took place. Why won't Apple acknowledge this problem?? I've never had problems with my emails on Yahoo before and even before Lion came out I was using an IMAP handler program so that Mail.app could access Yahoo's IMAP services. This is purely a Lion mail.app bug.

I've lost several important emails now, this latest one is going to cause me a load of hassle as I try to retrieve my booking details.

Thank you. Yes, I can try deleting/adding the account again... but at same time this is not a sustainable sollution if the problem persists. My hope is that there is a fix in the loop. (I also wish there was a way to view cc names without having to display the jumble of techno garble under 'details' - a very 'non-mac' feature in my view.)

Again, what is very curious is that the email count is the same for the web account and the cooresponding Mail IMAP boxes (both inbox and send). This makes me think that it is not a mapping issue.

ethnoguy wrote:

Thank you. Yes, I can try deleting/adding the account again... but at same time this is not a sustainable sollution if the problem persists. My hope is that there is a fix in the loop. (I also wish there was a way to view cc names without having to display the jumble of techno garble under 'details' - a very 'non-mac' feature in my view.)

Again, what is very curious is that the email count is the same for the IMAP web account and the cooresponding Mail IMAP boxes (both inbox and send). This makes me think that it is not a mapping issue.

If the overall quantities match but the individual mailboxes do not match that does suggest a mapping error to me, your client appears to have all the mail, just not in all the right places.

then where the heck is it? Mail sent box 3117 = Webmail sent box 3117

By the way, after rebuilding my sent box in Mail a small white circle appeared by the account tab (or pie chart) that I guess indicates how much time is left before it is fully synced... however the circle has remained after rebuilding is finished. Has something timing out?

Everything you are posting points to a mapping error with your sent mailbox, if you look on the webmail does the sent mail appear there, and if so in which mailbox.

Please list all mailboxes that DO NOT match between client and web.

none

Webmail has five

inbox (1520)

drafts (0)

sent (3117)

junk (0)

trash (0)

archives (0)

Mail has five

inbox (1520)

drafts (0)

sent (3117)

junk (0)

trash (0)

archives (0)

i will go ahead a delete/add the account... and then assign the mailboxes. There is some initial mailbox missmatch and I am using Mail for two other gmail accounts.

Right click on the Inbox of this account's Inbox and choose Get Account Info. Now observe the number of messages in each folder listed in the resulting report. How many separate folders are named?

Ernie

on re-install of the account the order listed under 'quota limits' are

Sent 3117

Inbox 1520

Archives 0

Junk 0

Junk 0

Drafts 0

Trash 0

Trash 0

Drafts 0

Sent 0

I don't know why there are duplicates of some folders - perhaps a mapping error as suggested - however no extra messages appear in these .

reminder… on the webmail on the follow boxes appear

inbox (1520)

drafts (0)

sent (3117)

junk (0)

trash (0)

archives (0)

Further update:

The deleting email problem seems to have stablized for me, though I have noticed if they disappear they usually reappear the next day.

On a related note, I sent myself an email with two attachments. When I picked it up in Mac Mail only one was there. Checking on webmail, both attachments appeared. I only noticed it because I had sent myself the email and knew exactly how many attachments there were.