I did a pram reset and then all my mail in the Mail program is gone. I was able to recuperate two accounts but not my primary account. under ˜/library/mail there are only folders for the two I recovered and not my mail folder. Why is this? It has actually never been there...
Someone please help me to recuperate my email. Why does this happen?
Thanks
PowerBook, iOS 4.3.2
Why did you reset the PRAM? Doing that would not cause mail to disappear, so something else is going on that you're not saying. What's the size of your hard drive, and how much free space do you have on it?
You have three Library folders, which one are you looking in, how many Mail accounts did you have setup, and which specific version of Mac OS X 10.6 are you running?
I reset PRAM for another issue completely. But thereafter is when all my mail went away.
My hard drive is 300 Go and I have 126 Go remaining.
I am in the library account and of my three acounts only one shows up. My primary mail folder is not htere.
I am running 10.6.8
Any help you could lent me would be greatly appreciated. I am freaking out!
You mean Home/Library/Mail isn't there? That's not possible. Or, do you mean that the account folder inside of Home/Library/Mail isn't there?
If you mean the latter, there's still no way that a PRAM reseet would make that disappear. Did you check the Trash; did you try searching your hard drive for that folder, or a folder that starts with whatever type of account you have (POP or IMAP) to find them all?
Do you have a backup of your system from before this happened?
Of my three accounts, two are there in the /mail folder andone is not there. in fact, it has never been there. the two there are POP- followed by the name... my main folder is not there...
no I have no backup. which folder should i search in the hard drive. I have been through the mail folder? I try looking for .emlx files but this does not work with the finder. how can i look for these files?
nothing is in the trash.
thanks
Of my three accounts, two are there in the /mail folder andone is not there. in fact, it has never been there.
If the third one has never been there, then where has it been? You could not have had an account folder located outside of Home/Library/Mail and have it work; Mail does not permit that. If it was a new account you setup, then it wasn't setup correctly, which would explain why it's not there.
If this mystery third account folder is a POP account, then you'd need to search your entire hard drive for anything that begins with or contains 'POP-'.
I have done that but finder will not do this. It does not work..no POP accounts come up... the folders are hidden remember.
And yes, i had three accounts and never was there a fodler named POP for my major account. It did work and I think having read for twelve hours today about this problem, it is not that uncommon.
But how to get my mail back?
thanks
If there was no POP forlder for your main account, that means it was an IMAP account, so then you'd need to search for any folder beginning with IMAP-.
Since that directory is hidden by default, you can still search it by downloading and using EasyFind. Just type in what you're looking for, click the options on the left to search 'Only Files', the Operator is 'Phrase', leave Comparison unchecked, and Include should be 'Invisible Files & Folders'.
I think it is impossible to search through finder. I see my two pop folders and they don't even come up in a search. is there a special search tool I can download to see that info in hidden folders.
the logical thing is to look for all mail files..they too do not come up. this is part of the problem.
Thanks
Please help! I cannot find the third mailbox--even now it is working althout my emails are missng, I have new emails in that inbox and I cannot find it in the ˜/library/mail folder.
Where would this be kept?
How can I search for .emlx files?
Thanks
Email accounts are always in Home/Library/Mail; that's where Mail creates them and expects them to be when it checks for mail. Without it being there, it can't check for Mail.
Do you have an external drive connected to your Mac? If so, the only other possibility is that you could have moved your mail to an external drive, but you'd have to move the entire folder and then perform some other steps to let Mail know to put your mail there. I doubt you did that.
You can search for .emlx files with EasyFind; just remember that these files aren't hidden, so you should adjust your search criteria accordingly and search all connected hard drives for anything that contains that file extension.
Thanks so much kurt!
I tried to upload a window shot so people could see that I have two folders int he /mail folder but my main account is not there. The account is active with all the newer emails in it since yesterday so I am confused.
Here are the files in the /mail folder:
attachments (folder)
availablefeeds
backuptod.plist
bundles (folder)
bundles (disabled) (also a folder)
defaultcounts
evelope index
lsmmap2
mailboxes (folder...and i checked that and this is not my third box which is missing)
messagerules.plist
messagerules.plist.backup
messageuidsalreadydownloaded3
metadata(folder)
openedattachments.plist
pop folder for account #2
pop folder for account #3
RSS (folder)
searchhistory.plist
signatures (folder)
smartmailboxes.plist
smartmailboxes.plist.backup
versionedsmartmailboxes.plist
versionedsmartmailboxes.plist.backup
I am downloading EasyFind now and hope this helps. Could the new inbox have overwritten the old?
Thanks again.
At this point, I have no idea what's going on. Mail has to put the messages where the account folder was created; it cannot put them anywhere else. Since folders don't magically disappear by themselves, and I doubt you know how to make one invisible, I'm stumped.
Could the new inbox have overwritten the old?
Yes, but only if the email address is identical to the one that was there before. If that were the case, then all your previous messages might have been wiped out, too. So if that's what you did, that's a no-no.
I have downloaded and searched with EasyFind (thanks for letting me know about that!) and I searched for "Pop-" and got only my two folders. I then searched for "imap" in case ... and that did not come up. Now I am totally confused... I also searched for the emlx files and it came up only those for those two folders.
Yet, I do have a third account and it is running on Apple Mail.
Could there be a problem since two accounts are from the same domain name? The one that is lost/hidden is from the same domain as one of the visible accounts... I am so confused and never had such a problem so I am at a loss as to what to do. I read yesterday everywhere online and came up with no answers...
Any ideas? Thanks again!
Dear Kurt
I did not remake a new account yet, but I did try things that were suggested online such as remove the envelope index.
Yet my "missing" folder email is still working even now. I am nervous to use Mail if I will constantly lose email (this is the third time in a year I have lost all my email!)...
I am racking my brains...and am very saddened to have lost so many emails--especially my business emails.
Thanks for your ideas!
mac mail disappears
