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lost e-mails

Mail went haywire and now has no emails in it. The emails themselves can be found at user/mail/pop (myaccountname)/inbox.mbox/messages. But mail can't seem to find them. It can only find my .Mac messages.

2 GHz Intel core duo iMac, Mac OS X (10.4.6)

Posted on Sep 23, 2006 8:25 AM

Reply
14 replies

Sep 23, 2006 9:43 AM in response to storkdoc

For some reason that remains a mystery to me, Mail sometimes "thinks" it must discard the current ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.mail.plist preferences file and create a new one. As a side effect, all your non-Mac account settings (but not the messages themselves), which are stored in that file, are lost.

What's the capacity and space available on your startup disk? Take a look at the comments about disk space in the following article, in case they apply to you:

Problems from insufficient RAM and free hard disk space

Verify/repair your disk first (not just permissions), as described here:

The Repair functions of Disk Utility: what's it all about?

Now, quit Mail if it's running and make a backup copy of the ~/Library/Mail folder, e.g. by dragging it to the Desktop while holding the Option (Alt) key down, just in case something else goes wrong while trying to solve the problem. This is where all your mail is stored.

After having fixed all filesystem issues, if any, and backed up your mail, you have three options:

1. Restore com.apple.mail.plist from a backup if you have one. Mail shouldn't be running while you do this.

2. Set up your non-Mac accounts in Mail again. If given the option to import existing mailboxes or something like that, don't. Just enter the account information and Mail will automagically rediscover the data in ~/Library/Mail/ when done. You'll also have to re-configure most of your settings in Mail > Preferences. For spam-related security reasons, the first thing you should do is go to Preferences > Viewing and disable Display remote images in HTML messages if it's enabled.

3. Mail may have renamed the old preferences file to com.apple.mail.plist.saved. If that's the case, you may try moving the new com.apple.mail.plist out of ~/Library/Preferences/ (e.g. to the Desktop) and rename the old com.apple.mail.plist.saved back to com.apple.mail.plist. Again, be sure Mail isn't running while doing this. Since Mail decided to discard it, I would expect this file to be corrupt (I don't understand why would Mail discard it and create a new one otherwise), but apparently that often is not the case and the settings can indeed be restored by just renaming the file.

Note: For those not familiarized with the ~/ notation, it refers to the user's home folder, i.e. ~/Library is the Library folder within the user's home folder.

Sep 23, 2006 11:35 AM in response to storkdoc

I ran and fixed permissions


I didn't suggest you to repair permissions. Actually, I explicitly said to not look at permissions only. Even if permissions had a bearing on this, Disk Utility wouldn't be able to fix such issues within your home folder.

used option number 2. Still doesn't find the old mail.


In the Finder, go to ~/Library/Mail/. With that folder open, do Edit > Select All (⌘A), then Edit > Copy (⌘C), and paste it in your reply to this post, to let me see the names of the files and folders present at the root level of the Mail folder.

Before actually posting that information, you may edit it so that the file/folder names do not reveal any details you wish to keep private, e.g. you may replace any real username with "username" to hide your real email address if you wish; similarly, you may disguise any domain names you don't want to be revealed. Try to be consistent in how you disguise those details, though, as we may need to refer to them in subsequent posts.

Note: For those not familiarized with the ~/ notation, it refers to the user's home folder, i.e. ~/Library is the Library folder within the user's home folder.

Sep 23, 2006 11:55 AM in response to David Gimeno Gost

David,

Thanks for helping me. I actually did ran both verify disk permission and verify disk. Verify disk told me that "volume passed verification."

Here's what you asked for ( I think)

DefaultCounts
Envelope Index
LSMMap2
Mac-user
Mailboxes
MessageRules.plist
MessageRules.plist.backup
MessageSorting.plist
MessageSorting.plist.backup
OpenedAttachments.plist
POP-user@gmail.com@pop.gmail.com
POP-user@mail.newwavecomm.net
POP-user@pop.charter.net
Signatures
SmartMailboxes.plist

Thanks again for trying to help this old obstetrician.

Sep 23, 2006 12:02 PM in response to storkdoc

You're welcome.

OK. Try this now:

1. Quit Mail if it's running.

2. In the Finder, go to ~/Library/Mail/. I assume you still have the backup of this folder I told you to do in my first post.

3. Locate Envelope Index and move it to the Trash. If you see an Envelope Index-journal file there, delete it as well.

4. Open Mail. It will tell you that your mail needs to be "imported". Click Continue and Mail will proceed to re-create Envelope Index -- Mail says it's "importing", but it just re-creates the index if the mailboxes are already in Mail 2.x format.

Note: For those not familiarized with the ~/ notation, it refers to the user's home folder, i.e. ~/Library is the Library folder within the user's home folder.

Sep 23, 2006 12:55 PM in response to David Gimeno Gost

Well, to be sure that I quit mail. I have taken the envelope index out of the trash and put it back in the ~/library/mail/. I opened mail and noted no change. I quit maila and sent the file back to trash and re-opened mail, no change.

Here is the mail folder from finder:

DefaultCounts
LSMMap2
Mac-user
Mailboxes
MessageRules.plist
MessageRules.plist.backup
MessageSorting.plist
MessageSorting.plist.backup
OpenedAttachments.plist
POP-user@gmail.com@pop.gmail.com
POP-user@mail.newwavecomm.net
POP-user@pop.charter.net
Signatures
SmartMailboxes.plist

here is the backup mail folder that is on my desktop:

DefaultCounts
Envelope Index
Local-(null)@(null)
LSMMap2
Mac-user
Mailboxes
MessageRules.plist
MessageRules.plist.backup
POP-user@gmail.com@pop.gmail.com
POP-user@mail.newwavecomm.net
POP-user@newwavecomm.net@mail.newwavecomm.net
POP-user@pop.charter.net
Signatures
SmartMailboxes.plist

They are different and the envelope index file is still in the mail copy folder on the desktop.
Sorry it's not working.

Sep 23, 2006 1:57 PM in response to storkdoc

This makes even less sense now than before. The MessageSorting.plist files, for example, were used by Mail 1.x in Mac OS X 10.3 and earlier, and remain within the Mail folder after the conversion to Mail 2.x in Mac OS X 10.4, but under no circumstances would Mail 2.x create such files on its own. It cannot be that these files are present in the current ~/Library/Mail/ folder but not in the backup copy of that folder.

Also, it looks you've set up your newwavecomm.net account differently at different points in time, i.e. you specified "user" as the username at some point and "user@newwavecomm.net" as the username at a different point in time. And it cannot be either that these two "POP-" account folders are in the backup, but only one of them is present in the current ~/Library/Mail/ folder (unless you've deleted the account in Mail).

Either you moved the Mail folder out of ~/Library/ instead of copying it, and Mail has created a new empty Mail folder, or you're reporting incorrectly which folder is which, or something like that...

Sep 23, 2006 4:12 PM in response to storkdoc

I'm starting to wonder now... Could it be that you have an old version of Mail 1.x from a previous version of Mac OS X lying around and wreaking havoc? I don't know whether it's even possible for Mail 1.x to run on Mac OS X 10.4, but if it is, that would explain everything.

In Mail, do Mail > About Mail. What's the reported version? Now, do Apple Menu > About This Mac. What's the reported version of Mac OS X?

Sep 23, 2006 4:46 PM in response to David Gimeno Gost

David and everyone please call me stupid. When I got home from the hospital I went to my old iMac and looked at everything. When I got back to my new machine I realized that somehow I had copied ~/library/mail to just ~/mail and I was making all the modifications to the ~/mail folder, which of course didn't fo anything.

So when I did what David said to ~/library/mail folder I now have all my emails back. Thank you all for your patience with my stupidity.

lost e-mails

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