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Email Folders gone after Mavericks update.

My email folders are gone after updating to OS X Mavericks. Anyone know how I can get the folders back?

Posted on Oct 24, 2013 3:28 AM

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43 replies

Oct 25, 2013 11:07 AM in response to MMSwan

I had the extact same traouble with mac os x mavericks!!


*** happened?


I have real important information in my mailboxes, but most of them were gone with mavericks.


I found some mailboxes inside the user/library/mail/v2/mailboxes named with a "-2", while the same one withou the "-2" is the one appearing now when i open mail app.

Oct 27, 2013 10:43 AM in response to MMSwan

HI I installed mavericks on my macbook pro (upgraged from Snow Leopard).


After completing install there was a message box asking to repair libraries.


After that when everything was done I clicked on Mail and it was asking me to set up account information.


But I had mail from Gmail and Yahoo already there. It looks like all the emails have disappeared.


Appreciate if anyone has a solution to get my email back.


Thanks.

Oct 27, 2013 1:49 PM in response to dominic23

Thanks dominic23.


Just to clarify, i need to open Mail and then select Rebuild under Mailbox?


However, when i open Mail it shows me the box of different accounts that i could set up, so I choose Cancel and Mail also closes.


If I don't cancel and move the cursor to menubar under Mailbox - Rebuild is grayed out so cannot be done this way.


Also will Rebuild bring back all the old emails and setup Mail as before or is this just a first step?


Thanks.


Message was edited by: imac2

Oct 27, 2013 2:20 PM in response to MMSwan

Hi everyone, I have it sorted mine out. Hopefully this will work for you as well.


Open your email.


On the "Mailboxes" section where all the Inbox, Sent and Junk folders are. Have a look at the bottom of all the folders, there should be Smart Mailboxes and below that On My Mac folders, should look something like this below.


Next to "On My Mac" should be "Show". It will only appear if you hover over it with your cursor, click on it. Hopefully all your folders will be back.


User uploaded file

User uploaded file

User uploaded file

Oct 27, 2013 2:56 PM in response to MMSwan

Nope absolutely nothing. It is prompting me to set up my accounts. Which if I do would duplicate everything and download everything again from the mail servers.


The data files are I believe in the library. But I also got the message that it needed to repair library and I said go ahead. But everytime I open Mail its the screen shot I posted earlier is what I see.

Oct 27, 2013 3:04 PM in response to imac2

Wow that is so strange.


All I can think of right now.


After the new update to Mavericks my users name changed as well, Go to "System Preferences" go to users and see if you can change it to you old user name.


On the top Toolbar, select "Mailbox" scroll down to "Rebuild" (someont did suggested it)


Goodluck


I let you know as soon as I find something else....

Oct 27, 2013 6:40 PM in response to MMSwan

Hi I have made some progress.


I opened System Preferences and then clicked on Internet Accounts. For both my email accounts the Mail box was unchecked.


User uploaded file


As shown above I checked the box for both Gmail and Yahoo and then started Mail.


This time Mail recognized my accounts. However, the folders were empty and then it started populating them. It is still populating them. Its taking a while but at least I can see my emails now. Have not tried to Send anything out as yet. Will wait until it has finished.


Also, after clicking on the Show command as mentioned in one of the above posts in this thread displayed the other folders on my Mac.


Will update progress when it is done. I have continued to see this prompt and have run it at least 3 times. So I don't know if this is connected to the problem I was having. Even after Mail recognized my email accounts it has shown up.


User uploaded file


Finally, after Mail recognized my email accounts it told me it had found a folder called Outbox and it would rename it Delivered because an Outbox folder already existed in Mail (or something to this effect).


Hope this info helps some of you. Thanks for your input.

Nov 1, 2013 9:47 AM in response to Freelander-man

I have just solved my own problem! I went into Library>Mail>V2>Mailboxes and found that, for some strange reason, Inbox.mbox and Sent.mbox (where all my mailboxes & messages were) had been renamed Inbox-2.mbox and Sent-2.mbox! The correct Inbox.mbox and Sent.mbox were still there but had only a few odd mailboxes in them. Mail looks for these .mbox files when it loads. I simply renamed Inbox.mbox and Sent.mbox to Inbox-3.mbox and Sent-3.mbox (didn't want to delete them just yet!) which allowed me to rename Inbox-2.mbox and Sent-2.mbox back to Inbox.mbox and Sent.mbox. Rebooted Mail and hooray - everything back to normal! Hope this helps others with the same problem. God know why Mail did this!

Email Folders gone after Mavericks update.

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