Mail filter has deleted all my sent mail...

Question

Level 1

0 points

Mail filter has deleted all my sent mail...

Hi,
I recently set up a new mail filter to move emails from a specific address to another mailbox. I had one of my sent folders open when I executed the command, and it erased four years worth of sent mail. The mail is nowhere to be found, not in the trash, not recoverable using Data Rescue II, and I thought I had backed it up, but my Mail files had not been included in the back up list.

Does anyone have any suggestions? They would be so very much appreciated... I'm desperate.
-ken

G4 Dual 1.25Ghz, Mac OS X (10.4.3)

Posted on May 24, 2006 9:46 AM

Reply

Answer 1

May 24, 2006 10:22 AM in response to sinagx

Ken,

As you have described this, there is nothing to explain why any messages would have been impacted, except to move to the new mailbox. Can you provide further details?

Ernie

Reply

Answer 2

sinagx Author

Level 1

0 points

May 24, 2006 11:02 AM in response to Ernie Stamper

Yes, this is unexplained. The filter should have affected only one email in the folder. Obviously, there is some major flaw that caused all the eMails to disappear (I also searched manually through every folder in: user;library;mail.

The messages are gone.

I am a power user and probably use Mail way past it's capabilities. I manage 8 eMail accounts, I have a mail box structure 30 boxes long, I receive hundreds of emails/day and send probably 20.

I don't know how big my mail folder was before the sent folder items were removed, but it's 700MB right now.

This same problem also happened in another mailbox of received eMails. I should of stop everything when that happened, but they were not important.

😟

Reply

Answer 3

May 24, 2006 12:24 PM in response to sinagx

Ken,

Perhaps you should reproduce the Rule you constructed to filter these messages, and let us review it.

I also have eight email accounts, my Mail folder is over 3 GB, and has over 50 mailboxes -- I have never experienced anything such as you have reported, and the size of your Mail folder should not be a factor.

Was the origin mailbox on your hard drive, or was it an Inbox of an IMAP account on a server?

Have you searched with Spotlight for folders of the same name as the New Mailbox you created?

More info, please.

Ernie

Reply

Answer 4

sinagx Author

Level 1

0 points

May 25, 2006 10:36 AM in response to Ernie Stamper

Hi Ernie,
I do appreciate your help on this.
the rule is quite simple and reads like this:
if ANY of the following:
From contains: specific@emailaddress.com
to contains: specific@emailaddress.com

Perform the folling action:
move message to mailbox: specific mailbox

That's it.

I've used Mail for some time and have not had this problem before, so watch out.

The mailbox is/was located on my local hard drive in the normal location users/me/library/Mail/Mailboxes.

In general I have setting to leave eMail on my mail servers for a week. I manage all of the email on my local hard drive. I still can't believe I forgot to include it in the backup list last time is set up the backup.

I did search for the target folder (but the missing email should not have been moved there), and the originating folder, which is basically one of my sent folders. I could find only the folders that were supposed to exist. None of the missing emails could be found this way.

Stumped.

Ken

Reply

Answer 5

May 25, 2006 11:54 AM in response to sinagx

Ken,

When you set up a new rule in Mail, the following dialog box appears:

Apply rules
Do you want to apply your rules to messages in open mailboxes?

Could it be that you clicked Yes, and Mail dutifully applied all your rules to the Sent mailbox that was open at that moment?

Reply

Answer 6

sinagx Author

Level 1

0 points

May 25, 2006 1:49 PM in response to David Gimeno Gost

Yes, I did click Yes to this dialog box, But I have no rules that would delete mail from that box. Or are you saying that doing that would only allow mail that meets that rule IE. TO or From the designated recipient remain in that mailbox?

I don't think that is the case because there were some emails left that it did not affect, and it did move the one email from the designated receipient from the sent folder to the correct folder.

By the way there are no other rulles set to delete email. Basically my rules move files from the inbox to designed folders based on the sender... except for this one rule that also moves sent email to a specific address to the folder also.

Any other suggestions would be helpful, but I'm starting to feel that I just hit a bug and I did not protect myself well enough, and I've lost data that I will be feeling for some time.

-ken

Reply

Answer 7

May 25, 2006 3:54 PM in response to sinagx

Yes, I did click Yes to this dialog box, But I have
no rules that would delete mail from that box.

A rule doesn't have to target a mailbox specifically in order for a message within the mailbox to be processed as stated by the rule when you apply them. If you have no rules that state a message should be deleted no matter what, then no messages should have been deleted as a result of applying the rules, indeed.

Or are you saying that doing that would
only allow mail that meets that rule

No, I'm just suggesting that the mail in your Sent mailbox was processed by all the rules, including those meant for incoming mail only, and this may have caused unpredictable results.

By the way there are no other rulles set to delete
email. Basically my rules move files from the inbox
to designed folders based on the sender...

If you have no rules that state that a message should be deleted no matter what, then I wouldn't expect any of those messages to be deleted. I would expect them to be scattered amongst other mailboxes, though... Unless you have a rule that moves messages to a mailbox that, for some reason, doesn't exist anymore. I don't know what would happen in that case...

except for this one rule that also moves sent
email to a specific address to the folder also.

Note that this rule wouldn't even have a chance to be evaluated if another rule moved the message out of the mailbox first.

I'm starting to feel that I just hit a bug and I did
not protect myself well enough, and I've lost data
that I will be feeling for some time.

Maybe. Without being in front of your machine it's difficult for me to know what happened. I'm just throwing out ideas here. I must say I'd be surprised if that was the case, though.

Reply