Q: Email Folders gone after Mavericks update.

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!

No idea what's happening but I changed the name of a Mail folder (On My Mac, 1 of the very few 10) and it said the name could not be changed, reset to original name-1 and removed all of the hundreds of emails that are forever lost after the past 2 hours of searching.

Checked the Library folder and none of the mbox correspondance shows them.

Just from changing the name of the folder.

Sigh.

Missing Mailboxes:

On the top of the left hand pane you shoud see "ON MY MAC". Hower the mouse over this and "show" comes up. Click on show and all your old mailboxes are revealed.

A

FYI - The problem with mailboxes being renamed with a number suffix seems to be related with them containing mails from misconfigured Microsoft Exchange servers (could be other reasons too).

I have filed a bug report concerning this and hopefully Apple will address this in a coming update.

It´s always a good thing if as many users as possible report the problem so the priority level gets escalated - you can find the form here: http://www.apple.com/feedback/mail.html

Posting this here as it may be of use...

A client of mine had the same problem after migrating from a Mavericks MacBook Pro to a new iMac.

Deleting Envelope Index or turning off Mail accounts in ‘Internet Accounts’ preference had no effect.

I suspected a problem (conflict) between Mail preferences and Internet Accounts.

Steps carried out as follows:

1. Deleted Preferences in ~/Library/Preferences (lock files?) - Unsuccessful!  (Mail app dialogue still shows as in iMac2's post above)
2. Deleted and set up new accounts in ‘Internet Accounts’ - Unable to see these new accounts in Mail (dialogue shows as above)
3. Continued problem with Preferences? Discovered that Mail Preferences are now stored in ~/Library/Containers/
4. Moved ‘com.apple.mail' folder to Trash (from ~/Library/Containers/)
5. Opened Mail.app and messages had returned but Mail.app then crashed and halted logout.
6. After Reboot of iMac all was OK with Mail.app

Hope that helps. Not sure I needed to delete and recreate the accounts.

Thank you so much MMSwan!  This worked and was so simple!! I have copied below in case anyone else needs ti!

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.

I realized my searches did not bring up some mails I knew I had (still have I hope) on my mac. And no, I don't get this "on my mac" text at all!

MMSwan, thank you.  Though I feel like an idiot for not seeing this myself. 

What worked for me with Yahoo in AppleMail and makes sense.  I found "Inbox" was in the "IMAP Path Prefix" box in the Yahoo mail settings, but since Yahoo folders aren't stored under the Inbox (Inbox is not the root folder) the folders aren't displayed. 

So if you go into the mail preferences and select the Yahoo account and Advanced, look for the IMAP Path Prefix box and delete "Inbox" leaving it blank, then as you leave/close be sure and save the change at the prompt.

Then the folders should appear in the left sidebar, may take a while to sync if you have a lot of messages in the folders.

Thank you MMSwan!!! You have saved my sanity.  The mailboxes were there all along but just hidden.

Problem solved but *** do Apple mess with our mailboxes at all?

Thanks MMSwan

That worked. Why Apple had to muck aboout with Mail and how it looked/worked etc.,is yet another timewaster for me. I have just spent 20 hours sorting out the mess the Mverick download made of my iMac befoire having to wipe my hardrive clean, re-install my basic disc and then upgrade to the right lvel and download Maverick again and install.

Brilliant simple answer. Maybe Apple could do that as I had several techies from Apple tell me that my hard drive was beyond repair and that I had to go to a Genius Bar and get it replaced. I managed to sort it all but how many times do I want to waste a whole day and night everytime that there is a problem.

Thanks a lot for your help.

Hi MMSwan

If someone is deaf how would they know that Mail is getting emails as the visual wheel icon has gone and you only get a sound now? What is wrong with apple? Making life harder is their speciality it would appear.:)