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Mail Trash Can Black Hole

Suddenly when I delete messages or even drag them to the Trash can in Mail they just disappear.

My account preferences are set for a POP account,. Mailbox Behaviors has “Moved deleted messages to a separate folder” checked with the Erase deleted messages dropdown set to “Never”. Under Advanced “remove copy from server” is checked with drop down “Right away”. There are no other accounts in Mail.

So far I have tried-
1) rebuilding all mailboxes- nothing
2) Removing the Library/Mail/Envelope Index- it re-imported all of the folders but no change in Trash behavior
3)Removing the Library/Mail/Mailboxes/Deleted Messages.mbox folder (which contained an empty Messages folder by the way)- no change and Mail has yet to recreate it after multiple attempts to delete stuff.
4) My favorite last ditch effort – a full system restart

Anyone have any ideas?

Dual 2.7 Ghz PowerPC G5 Mac OS X (10.4.6)

Posted on May 20, 2006 10:45 AM

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Posted on May 20, 2006 10:53 AM

I suggest targeting the Mail.app preference file next.

Quit the Mail.app first and using the Finder, go to Home > Library > Mail. Copy the Mail folder and place the copy on the Desktop for backup purposes.

Using the Finder, go to Home > Library > Preferences > com.apple.mail.plist. Move the com.apple.mail.plist file to the Desktop.

Note: Moving the com.apple.mail.plist file out of the Preferences folder will require re-entering all email account information when re-launching Mail.

The only exception to this is if you have a .Mac account and/or this POP account was created with the computer setup assistant used when first turning on the computer when new.

Launch Mail and decline the prompt to import mailboxes. After re-entering all email account information, the Mail.app should rediscover the existing account named folder(s) and mailbox files at Home > Library > Mail.

After confirming all mailboxes were successfully rediscovered, you can delete the copy of the Mail folder and old com.apple.mail.plist file from the Desktop.

Test if this resolves the problem.
4 replies
Question marked as Best reply

May 20, 2006 10:53 AM in response to s[p

I suggest targeting the Mail.app preference file next.

Quit the Mail.app first and using the Finder, go to Home > Library > Mail. Copy the Mail folder and place the copy on the Desktop for backup purposes.

Using the Finder, go to Home > Library > Preferences > com.apple.mail.plist. Move the com.apple.mail.plist file to the Desktop.

Note: Moving the com.apple.mail.plist file out of the Preferences folder will require re-entering all email account information when re-launching Mail.

The only exception to this is if you have a .Mac account and/or this POP account was created with the computer setup assistant used when first turning on the computer when new.

Launch Mail and decline the prompt to import mailboxes. After re-entering all email account information, the Mail.app should rediscover the existing account named folder(s) and mailbox files at Home > Library > Mail.

After confirming all mailboxes were successfully rediscovered, you can delete the copy of the Mail folder and old com.apple.mail.plist file from the Desktop.

Test if this resolves the problem.

May 20, 2006 11:41 AM in response to s[p

Note that HOME/Library/Mail/Mailboxes/Deleted Messages.mbox probably has no bearing on this. This is where Mail puts messages you delete from one of the custom "On My Mac" mailboxes -- in Mail it corresponds to the On My Mac mailbox in the Trash group on the mailboxes list.

The relevant Trash mailbox is located within the account folder. It'd be interesting to look at the contents of your account folder in case there's something amiss there -- I'm seeing quite a few of these issues lately.

In the Finder, go to HOME/Library/Mail/ and locate the account folder -- its name begins with the account type (POP), followed by the account username and the incoming mail server. Open the account folder, do Edit > Select All (⌘A), then Edit > Copy (⌘C), and paste it in your reply, to let us know which files are within that folder.

May 20, 2006 1:09 PM in response to David Gimeno Gost

Ok guys I think we have solved this one . . .

Deleted the prefs file and entered all the account info again. Nothing- same behavior. . .

David- I think you hit on the right idea:

Here is the account folder list:

Deleted Messages
Drafts.mbox
INBOX.mbox
Junk.mbox
MessageUidsAlreadyDownloaded2
Sent Messages.mbox

Note the conspicuous absence of a “.mbox” extension on the “Deleted Messages" folder. I added the .mbox extension and now all the trash shows up as expected. How this extension got dropped I have no idea. . .

Thanks guys User uploaded file


Mac OS X (10.4.6)

Mail Trash Can Black Hole

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