Apple Mail, Searching is worse!

there seems to be a syncronisation problem with the IMAP Server. When I erase mails on my E-mail server, they are also gone on my Apple Mail account even with "Keep copies of messages for offline viewing" enabled. I´d like to have back the option of selecting a pop-server instead of the IMAP.

On my machine searching was not good until Spotlight was able to reindex my volume. If that did not happen on your machine, that may be why you are not finding some things. How are you searching the same email DB with two email clients. Are they IMAP?

Saxman2, IMAP is designed to keep your server (and local) copies in sync with each other. So if you delete a message on one, it will get deleted on the other. The "keep copies of messages for offline" viewing just stores a full copy of the messages on your hard drive (rather than only storing the headers, and downloading each message temporarily as needed). The local copies of messages that no longer exist on the server will still get deleted the next time Mail syncs with the server (to keep the server and local mailbox copies in sync).

If you want to keep messages on your hard drive after you've deleted them from your server, yeah, you probably want POP. You can certainly set up Lion's Mail to use a POP server, though other threads suggest that its POP functionality may or may not work with your particular POP server due to some bugs.

thank you Coiske, that helps a little. I definitely want go back to my POP, but can´t find the option to select a POP-Server in Lion´s Mail Programm.

Saxman2, once you've added an account, I don't think you can change its type (IMAP, POP, Exchange, etc...). But when you creat a new account, you should have an option to choose whether it's IMAP or POP. It might be buried under "Advanced settings" or "Manual configuration" or something like that while you're setting it up.

The Previous Recipients list is different. You can clear that out (or delete individual entries) without affecting any of your other data. Apple Mail doesn't initialize the Previous Recipients list from your message data. I think that would be a useful enhancment for people coming from other operating systems and importing mail. I suggest you send Feedback to Apple about this.

In addition to the Previous Recipients list, e-mail addresses will be auto-completed from entries or directories in your Address Book. I expect that would take care of the lack of initial data for most people.

The Previous Recipients data is actually part of AddressBook. If you copy your old ~/Library/Application Support/AddressBook folder to your new machine, you should get them all back. The actual file is MailRecents-v4.abcdmr.

thank you again Coiske, my problem still is not solved. The trigger must be buried very deep. But I´m afraid, we´re opening a new strain here. At least you are encouraging me and I will continue digging tomorrow. There must be something....

In another thread I described my own problem with searching Mail after installing Lion. Here, with Apple's help, is how my problem was (at least for now) solved:

Just off the phone after a long stint with Apple support about this.

Spotlight could find the message files. Files that were cached on the POP server (for a month) were searchble, but those stored on the Mac were not.

The tenacioius (A+) Apple support tech traced the problem to the file User > Library > Mail > V2 > MailData > Envelope Index. He had me close Mail, drag Envelope Index to the desktop, and restart Mail, which acted as though it were being opened for the first time. I clicked Continue (I think it said) and Mail restored all of the messages and settings (whew!). When it was done I closed Mail and reopened. Again I had to click through as if it were the first time, and then the messages appeared. It took several minutes for Mail to reindex the messages, which it does independently from Spotlight. It now appears to search properly.

The great big disclaimer is that while Apple helped my problem with this (at least for now), it may not work for you. It might even wreck your Mail system. So, please don't hold me responsible if you try it.

I presume that you have some sort of filter in Spotlight that prevents you from finding a file in your Library, so you have to follow the path I provided. Start at your User Home and follow the trail to Envelope Index. Apple didn't have me delete it, but drag it to the desktop. It can be replaced (I was told) if the fix goes awry.

Report back if you try it, and good luck.

Follow the last post on this.... you are searching for Envelope Index in Mail when it should be searched in the Finder. Better yet, follow the path from User.....

Spotlight is useless for finding stuff that isn't one of the standard file types that Apple thinks you should be searching for (applications, documents, etc...). And the user's Library folder is hidden by default in Lion's Finder. So, to get to it, you actually have to go to Finder -> Go menu -> Go to folder, and type in /Users/dave/Library (replacing "dave" with your short username, which you can find by browsing the "/Users" folder in Finder if you don't already know it). Otherwise, you won't be able to see your user's Library folder.