Apple Event: May 7th at 7 am PT

Looks like no one’s replied in a while. To start the conversation again, simply ask a new question.

deeply confused

why? first know the following: I have only 9 GIGS free out of my so called 60 Gig Hard Drive. I am a Logic Pro user and need to score a friend's short film early this week. I copied the film onto the computer - and it starts and stops... I think my email may be the problem...

I have 4 GIGS of email that I want to archive and get off my laptop... because I need to free up the space, and a local mac guru suggested my computer may be acting funny (which it is) because of it.

I've been trying to solve this problem for about a month. First I was missing emails since upgrading to Tiger (see below if you got time):

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=373411&tstart=0

Now, I seem to have back the missing emails... thanks to Ernie Stamper. So, now I want to copy them, or archive them first (save as rich text documents) to CD. Then get everything off my laptop.

I'm not sure which archive program to use... one suggested MailSteward, another on this board suggested the Mail Scripts. Either way, I want to save the archived versions, and the original mboxes - or whatever I'd have to save, in case I need to import at a later date... just extra protection from losing email.

Not to mention - it seems CD's only hold about 700 MB... how can I save more over 2 CD's??

I'm deeply confused how to proceed.

Thanks in advance.

1 Ghz PowerBook G4, Mac OS X (10.4.5), 1.5 GB DDR SDRAM. I also have 40 gig iPod.

Posted on Apr 3, 2006 9:58 AM

60 replies

Apr 10, 2006 8:51 AM in response to misterioso270

You wrote: Now, what is interesting - is we never talked about my current 3 email accounts that are being used. Those mailboxes still have the old files from Panther... and are not listed withing Mailboxes in the Finder, but within Mail in the Finder. However - I figured we'd get to those after this consolidation - right?. This is important information, that should not have been left out, and thought I had emphasized that ANY leftover files, in ANY mailboxes, will be PROBLEMATIC to the Envelope Index. My first post about this problem of leftover files, in any topic where I post it, states in bold font, that it applies to account folders, as well as those mailboxes in the Mailboxes folder.

There is one complication to focusing on only one mailbox, or those ONLY in the Mailboxes folder, as you apparently have been doing, and that is Mail 2.0 has a single, universal index file (Envelope Index), and it deals with all mailboxes. Thus, leftover files in ANY mailboxes can be problematic to this index, and in turn the index be problematic to such actions as deleting a certain messages AND/OR transferring them between mailboxes.

This cleanup is a global process, and removal of the Envelope Index nor Rebuild should be attempted until ALL leftover files are removed.

Ernie

Apr 10, 2006 9:14 AM in response to Ernie Stamper

Hi,

OOOPS. Well - see? Deeply confused. Actually my confusion was that I thought the current accounts, were a seperate entity from the Mailboxes/Imports... you formulated that opinion correctly. We haven't really talked about my current accounts, I have been focusing on the imports/mailboxes... A confusing thing to me - though I didn't really bring it up - was one Import mailbox, actually had the names of my current POP accounts and their individual Sent.mbox, Inbox.mbox folders etc...!!! (you can see in the old list - Import 8 - So when you spoke of accounts, I figured that was what you were talking about - them. I just assumed that my current accounts were fine, since I didn't have email missing from them and they were converted, and currently being used.

Anyhow - knowing what I know now... is it possible the following happened because I didn't gotten rid of the other extraneous files from Panther days in my accounts???:

I can't remember exactly what happened... sometimes when I've hit 'rebuild' for a sent mailbox... I've been getting thousands of extra emails - some current - that were never in the original import... is that part of this whole mess... because I didn't get rid of those left over Panther files in my accounts?? (again, I assumed we'd get to those later... I didn't realize about this universal indexing thing - global - however - I do have the original Mail folder backed up)...

What now??? Glad I backed up the Mail folder... can I bandaid this back together? As they say - learn from your mistakes... i've certainly learned more than I ever expected to...

help?

Apr 10, 2006 9:21 AM in response to misterioso270

I am not sure, but that is what the backups are for.

First do the whole remove leftover files for every xxxx.mbox folder, in every account folder -- Get clean if possible, although do not fail to compare the mbox size with the Messages folder, and be sure that each mailbox has only ONE Messages folder, before removing the mbox file. Once clean, do the Envelope Index removal again, and see what a good re-indexing turns up. Then we can deal with messages from the backup, if needed. This all presumes that there are leftover files in the Account folders.

Keep me posted.

Ernie

Apr 10, 2006 9:36 AM in response to Ernie Stamper

Just to remind you... I've already re-imported from a few days ago - the two mbox files that had 'missing email'. Those imports are now consolidated in my new mailboxes in the application Mail: Old Inbox Recovered, and Old Delete Recovered respectively. So, can't I get rid of those mbox files now? Just making sure.

Apr 10, 2006 9:43 AM in response to misterioso270

You can get rid of any mbox file you have backup for, any you think were fully converted. However, you have stated that leftover files remained in the mailboxes, in the account folders in your new Mail folder, and those are the mailboxes where I presumed you still needed to compare the size of the mbox with the Messages folder?

Ernie

Apr 10, 2006 9:54 AM in response to Ernie Stamper

I have checked those sizes... and they have the old mbox files that I have since converted.

Anyhow - I'm pretty sure we're on the same page - and I do have the backup anyways. Finding some files - not sure I can delete:

in each POP-numberxxx@xxx.net: (I have 3 accounts) -

I find the Deleted Messages.mbox, Drafts.mbox folders, etc... but also see 2 files:

MessageUidsAlreadyDownloaded
MessageUidsAlreadyDownloaded2

can I delete those?

Also found in a Deleted Messages.mbox the following file:

data0178.038

I assume I can delete that too?

And what is the bottom line on Info.plist files? Can I delete any Info.plist in a xxxx.mbox folder?

Apr 10, 2006 10:03 AM in response to misterioso270

Only concern yourself with the files and folder you find in each mailbox, such as the INBOX.mbox folder. You did not mention the INBOX.mbox as being found in each account folder, nor the Sent Messages.mbox folder -- are they present?

The two files:
MessageUidsAlreadyDownloaded
MessageUidsAlreadyDownloaded2

are fine -- their function is the prevent the multiple download of the same message from the server, when the messages remain on the POP3 servers.

The file data0178.038 would not appear to be needed.

I don't think there is any need to delete the Info.plist files, but they are not critical.

Ernie

Apr 10, 2006 10:14 AM in response to Ernie Stamper

Ok - all files removed and deleted/trashed/gone.

Now looking back on ALL THE MAILBOXES... the 3 POP xxx.net acounts listed in the Mail folder and the .mbox folders in the Mailboxes folder:

Inside each are only a Messages folder.

On some, a Info.plist file exists... your original Apple link said that I could delete those Info.plist files - which I did.

Am I ready to trash the Envelope file again? Know that there are now 2 Envelope files:

Envelope Index
Envelope Index-1

now what? thanks again for all your time!

Apr 10, 2006 10:16 AM in response to misterioso270

After quitting Mail, delete them both. The Envelope Index-1 one is evidence of an unfinished re-indexing at some time, or the other.

Ernie

Apr 10, 2006 11:09 AM in response to Ernie Stamper

Hello Ernie,

All done... unfortunately, still missing a huge amount of the Sent emails I was trying to consolidate. Got rid of the Envelope files, and re-imported into Mail.

Said it was indexing 38,000 emails - a ton no doubt... however, it said close to 51,000 a few days ago.

So - every mailbox has either a messages folder, or in addition, with a Info.plist file. That's it! Totally cleaned up - accounts, mailboxes.

Should I run disk utility you think?

And now - should I just re-import sent mbox files from the ext. hd? follow up questions will be on how to properly consolidate... I'll go through extra steps to make sure everything is accounted for. Then, at your suggestion - I'm going to have to get rid of duplicates in my new 'recovered mailboxes' before archiving and getting off my laptop - is that right?

Many thanks...

Apr 10, 2006 11:12 AM in response to misterioso270

If you now import each one, separately, then each should appear in the Sidebar as Import 1, Import 2, etc.

If the backup is a Panther mailbox, import as Type Other, but if a Tiger mailbox, then Type OSX.

I think it would be best to eliminate duplicates, before archiving.

Ernie

Apr 10, 2006 11:27 AM in response to Ernie Stamper

I believe last questions for awhile:

after importing old sent panther mbox's...

I'll have import mailboxes on the side - inside Mail application.

Should I consolidate those as a new "Recovered Old Sent 2" Mailbox - and if so - what is the best way to consolidate? "select all" and drag? or is there another command?

Now, each of my new "Recovered Old Inbox... Sent, etc... (the consolidations)... have email coming from all 3 of my email accounts - that I am still currently using. I was thinking to make the consolidation simpler - to search by each account name - and put all emails from each different account into new 'sub' mailboxes withing the new "recovered" type mailboxes.

For example, right now my new "Recovered Old Inbox" mailbox is just that - with 18,000 emails. I'd like to make sub folders under that like this:

Recovered Old Inbox
- numberone@xxx.net
-numbertwo@xxx.net
-numberthree@xxx.net

(I'll probably drop the '@xxx.net', so I don't confuse that with anything else)...

I admit to getting a little messed up with the subfolders and getting them there in the first place, and taking them out of a sub catagory. Is this very easy to do?

your thoughts... if you can help me with this... then - it's just deleting duplicates from here on... you probably won't hear much more from me for a little bit. Thanks Ernie!

Apr 10, 2006 12:04 PM in response to misterioso270

I think you may be overcomplicating this a bit. Although you can certainly nest mailboxes under a mailbox folder -- see:

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Mail/2.0/en/ml807.html

and

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Mail/2.0/en/ml611.html

To place several mailboxes as sub to another mailbox/folder, create an all new mailbox to become the primary folder, and have no messages directly in that mailbox.

Once organized, you can rename any mailbox.

Ernie

Apr 13, 2006 7:37 AM in response to Ernie Stamper

Hi Ernie,

Currently getting rid of thousands of emails in my new "Recovered Inbox" mailbox. After going through that one, I'll re-import from the mbox's on my Ext. HD. Then go through the ne Recovered Sent inbox... and then archive and get off laptop!

In the meantime:

Should I 'rebuild' my mailbox as I am deleting so many emails - or redo the Envelope Index every so often?

Your thoughts please - and THANK YOU!

Apr 13, 2006 7:49 AM in response to misterioso270

Hi,

I think Rebuild should now be adequate, if everything is now working. However, I would Erase Deleted Messages every so often.

Ernie

deeply confused