Help! my mail is gone!

Question

Level 1

5 points

Help! my mail is gone!

I just discovered that one of my mail accounts no longer has any email messages older than March 1, just over a month ago!! I'm really mad and can't figure out why -- it's the inbox, not the sent mail or junk etc. and it seems that it should have been keeping it indefinitely, until I deleted it. Please help, someone! I need that email back!

PowerBook G4, Mac OS X (10.3.9)

Posted on Apr 6, 2006 7:00 PM

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Answer 1

Apr 6, 2006 7:06 PM in response to Julie C.

Julie,

Welcome to the Discussions.

What type of account is this -- POP, IMAP or .mac?

Ernie

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Answer 2

Julie C. Author

Level 1

5 points

Apr 6, 2006 8:58 PM in response to Ernie Stamper

POP mail

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Answer 3

Apr 7, 2006 3:48 AM in response to Julie C.

Julie,

Have you ever had the Mail open as New, and need you to set up your account(s) again? How much free disk space do you have?

In the Finder, open Home/Library/Mail and locate the POP account folder for this account. Control-click over the POP account folder, and choose Get Info. What is reported for date created, and for size?

Ernie

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Answer 4

fede_dev

Level 1

40 points

Apr 7, 2006 5:45 AM in response to Julie C.

I hope that you store your msgs in a local mailbox.

If it's your situation, and you don't see the msgs.

Select your mailbox and go to menu mailbox->Rebuild in your mail.app.

If your msgs are still in the mailbox, the posts should appear now in mail.

bye
fede

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Answer 5

Julie C. Author

Level 1

5 points

Apr 7, 2006 6:57 PM in response to Julie C.

I do keep my mail in my mailbox on my computer (local), and I don't think it's ever asked me to set my accounts up as new. It says that pop mailbox was created on July 1, 2004, and that it's 24.4 mb, which doesn't seem possible since there are about 37 messages in there now, and couldn't be that many attachments.

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Answer 6

Apr 7, 2006 9:55 PM in response to Julie C.

Julie,

Go back into the Finder, and open the POP folder. Locate the INBOX.mbox file, and control-click over it, and choose Show Package Contents. Report the exact name and size of each file in the Package.

Ernie

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Answer 7

Julie C. Author

Level 1

5 points

Apr 7, 2006 11:07 PM in response to Julie C.

table ofcontents 56K
mbox 11.5 MB
Info.plist 4 K
content_index 3.1 MB

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Answer 8

fede_dev

Level 1

40 points

Apr 8, 2006 2:12 AM in response to Julie C.

table ofcontents 56K
mbox 11.5 MB
Info.plist 4 K
content_index 3.1 MB

Your inbox must have the extension .mbox.
Check that with getinfo in the finder (from file menu) and check also that "hide extension" is not active, if the extension is not present you could add .mbox.
than return to mail and see what happen.

If you couldn't see the mail do that inside the mail.app:

Select your mailbox and go to menu mailbox->Rebuild in your mail.app.

bye
fede

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Answer 9

Apr 8, 2006 3:52 AM in response to Julie C.

Julie,

The suggestion by fede to Rebuild is a good one, even though I believe you have found this Inbox to have the proper extension?

Use TextEdit to read the mbox file, to see if any more message show up from those seen in Mail.

Use Get Info of the mbox file from the package, and check date created.

Ernie

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Answer 10

Julie C. Author

Level 1

5 points

Apr 8, 2006 7:53 AM in response to Julie C.

Yeah, it does have the proper extension, and rebuilding doesn't do me any good at all. I still don't see any more messages. Text edit won't open the inbox file for some reason.

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Answer 11

Apr 8, 2006 9:06 AM in response to Julie C.

Julie,

In trying use TextEdit, did you first Show Package Contents, and then control-click over the file "mbox" and then choose Open WIth, and select TextEdit?

Ernie

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Answer 12

Julie C. Author

Level 1

5 points

Apr 8, 2006 10:10 AM in response to Julie C.

No, I didn't do that, but now I just did, and I don't see anything in there that is older than March 1.

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Answer 13

Apr 8, 2006 10:53 AM in response to Julie C.

Julie,

Did you also check the date the "mbox" file was created?

Ernie

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