Michael Graubart

Q: Sent mail does not always show in 'Sent' folder

I use the Apple Mail app. and have three mail accounts: BT Internet (IMAP), gmail (IMAP) and my college (Morley College) account (Exchange). When I send a message from my BT account, it sometimes happens that the progress bar shows that it is being sent, then the 'Whoosh' sound indicates that it has been sent, but when I check in the BT 'Sent' folder it is not there (and is still not there after hours or days). I have now checked with one of my contacts to whom I sent mail that failed to show up in 'Sent', and it actually did arrive, but it is still not confidence-inducing when sent mail does not show in the 'Sent' folder.

 

This does not happen with my gmail and college accounts, which suggests that the problem lies with BT and not with Mail, but I should be very grateful for any information and/or advice about this problem.

Mac mini, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.5)

Posted on Oct 8, 2014 8:30 AM

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Q: Sent mail does not always show in 'Sent' folder

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  • by Michael Graubart,

    Michael Graubart Michael Graubart Oct 9, 2014 4:34 AM in response to Csound1
    Level 2 (275 points)
    Mac OS X
    Oct 9, 2014 4:34 AM in response to Csound1

    And yet again, thank you very much. I had quite forgotten about seeing the messages on my iPhone. What all this has pretty clearly established is that the original problem lies with BT and not the Mail app. I shall revert to server storage and keep an eye on what is going on — and possibly make another attempt to talk to the BT engineers.

     

    Pity that it is not possible to have both server and local storage!

  • by Csound1,

    Csound1 Csound1 Oct 9, 2014 5:01 AM in response to Michael Graubart
    Level 9 (50,202 points)
    Desktops
    Oct 9, 2014 5:01 AM in response to Michael Graubart

    There is at least one client for Macs that offers the option of server storage with a local copy as well. Airmail (not the beta) is the one. In tests I found it very good with IMAP and POP accounts, not so good with Exchange accounts. Vast amount of options, some of which may be useful.

  • by Michael Graubart,

    Michael Graubart Michael Graubart Oct 9, 2014 6:26 AM in response to Csound1
    Level 2 (275 points)
    Mac OS X
    Oct 9, 2014 6:26 AM in response to Csound1

    Thanks for this interesting and attractive-sounding suggestion. I have looked at a few reviews, and in a CNET Download one I came across this:

     

    'Some bugs: During testing, we did encounter some difficulty with messages that would disappear for no discernible reason. We could still find them by logging into the Web-based mail program they were sent to, but that was an extra hassle that makes Airmail much less reliable.'


    If this can be confirmed, it suggests that Airmail may reintroduce locally the very problem that caused me to start this correspondence in the first place and which, with your help, seems to have been localized in BT's court rather than Mail's.

  • by Michael Graubart,

    Michael Graubart Michael Graubart Oct 9, 2014 6:36 AM in response to Michael Graubart
    Level 2 (275 points)
    Mac OS X
    Oct 9, 2014 6:36 AM in response to Michael Graubart

    PS: Various reviews say that Airmail is not good with Exchange accounts. It was the fact that my college staff e-mail system uses Exchange which first, a few months ago, prompted me to change from my previous mail client (which does not handle Exchange at all) to Mail; so Airmail may in the end not be what I want. Nonetheless I am grateful for the suggestion and may try it in due course.

  • by Csound1,

    Csound1 Csound1 Oct 9, 2014 6:57 AM in response to Michael Graubart
    Level 9 (50,202 points)
    Desktops
    Oct 9, 2014 6:57 AM in response to Michael Graubart

    Michael Graubart wrote:

     

    PS: Various reviews say that Airmail is not good with Exchange accounts. It was the fact that my college staff e-mail system uses Exchange which first, a few months ago, prompted me to change from my previous mail client (which does not handle Exchange at all) to Mail; so Airmail may in the end not be what I want. Nonetheless I am grateful for the suggestion and may try it in due course.

    That was my experience also (with Exchange accounts), I had no issues at all with IMAP accounts (even the silly non-standard ones, like Gmail)

     

    I think the BT issues are partly to do with Yahoo's mail system and partly due to BT's almost total inability to explain or fix anything, certainly BT mail issues feature prominently on many forums recently. But I decided long ago that tying my ISP and my Mail provider was likely not to be a good idea.

  • by Csound1,

    Csound1 Csound1 Oct 9, 2014 7:03 AM in response to Michael Graubart
    Level 9 (50,202 points)
    Desktops
    Oct 9, 2014 7:03 AM in response to Michael Graubart

    Michael Graubart wrote:

     

    Thanks for this interesting and attractive-sounding suggestion. I have looked at a few reviews, and in a CNET Download one I came across this:

     

    'Some bugs: During testing, we did encounter some difficulty with messages that would disappear for no discernible reason. We could still find them by logging into the Web-based mail program they were sent to, but that was an extra hassle that makes Airmail much less reliable.'


    If this can be confirmed, it suggests that Airmail may reintroduce locally the very problem that caused me to start this correspondence in the first place and which, with your help, seems to have been localized in BT's court rather than Mail's.

    Except that your problem involves loss of emails from the server, which is then correctly mirrored to the client. A very different issue.

     

    My tests of Airmail did not reveal any 'loss of messages' (provided that the folders were correctly mapped), just unreliable connections to Exchange Servers (which is claimed to be fixed in the current Beta)

  • by Michael Graubart,

    Michael Graubart Michael Graubart Oct 9, 2014 7:46 AM in response to Csound1
    Level 2 (275 points)
    Mac OS X
    Oct 9, 2014 7:46 AM in response to Csound1

    If it were not that my BT Internet mail is part of my, and my family's, domestic telephone contract; that my BT e-mail address is registered with a hundred-and-one online suppliers, campaign groups, charities, banks and local governmental and other official bodies; and that it would take months (if not years) before all my friends and relatives get round to changing my e-address in their address books, I would have abandoned BT years ago. BT seems unable even to fix its own large-scale strategies. It announced many months — I think well over a year — ago that they were imminently going to detach their mail system from Yahoo! and all users should be prepared to change their settings, etc. Not a squeak about this from BT since.

     

    I am stuck with BT at present (with gmail as a backup, and with my Exchange account for college affairs), and I doubt whether the Airmail beta would help, because I am not about to upgrade from Mountain Lion, as that would mean replacing a lot of expensive photography, music-notation and other software. Stuck once more!

  • by Csound1,

    Csound1 Csound1 Oct 9, 2014 7:54 AM in response to Michael Graubart
    Level 9 (50,202 points)
    Desktops
    Oct 9, 2014 7:54 AM in response to Michael Graubart

    And that is exactly why I decided not to let my ISP ('s) handle my email, apart from their generally antiquated tech and minimal support I don't feel like changing my email address whenever I decide to get a different ISP. But I understand your plight.

     

    I question the choice of Gmail as a backup however, another poorly written faux IMAP system that is more trouble than it is worth. (And if anyone is going to sell my information I would prefer it to be me)

  • by Michael Graubart,

    Michael Graubart Michael Graubart Oct 15, 2014 6:55 AM in response to Csound1
    Level 2 (275 points)
    Mac OS X
    Oct 15, 2014 6:55 AM in response to Csound1

    I want to return — with a new mystery — to the matter of sent messages (sent via BT Internet) appearing on my iPhone. Since posting my previous cries of woe, I have written by surface mail to BT yet again, with no reply so far. But (with one brief blip) I have had no more serious trouble with receiving or sending mail by BT.

     

    What has occurred is that at least one sent e-mail duly appeared in my 'Sent' folder on my computer (and, since I have 'Store sent messages on the server' checked in Mail preferences, I presume this means that this message was and is stored on the BT server and not on my computer), but it does not appear in the BT Internet 'Sent' folder on my iPhone. I searched on the iPhone and (via the phone's 'Continue searching on server' facility) on the server, with no success.

     

    Can you (or anyone else) explain this? And is there anything to be done about preventing future recurrences (other than changing my e-mail provider)?

  • by Csound1,

    Csound1 Csound1 Oct 15, 2014 7:47 AM in response to Michael Graubart
    Level 9 (50,202 points)
    Desktops
    Oct 15, 2014 7:47 AM in response to Michael Graubart

    The cause is usually a mapping error, you and BT are using different folders but as the sent mail does not appear on the BT website I have no idea where it goes or who actually is sending it.

     

    Send an email from the BT website, does it show up on the phone, and if yes, where?

  • by Michael Graubart,

    Michael Graubart Michael Graubart Oct 15, 2014 8:52 AM in response to Csound1
    Level 2 (275 points)
    Mac OS X
    Oct 15, 2014 8:52 AM in response to Csound1

    Events have overtaken your reply and any attempt to experiment with this: two hours after I posted my question (and 13 hours after I sent the missing e-mail) it has turned up on my iPhone.

     

    What is very confusing is that on my BT Webmail page (on computer) and on my phone there is in each case a folder called 'Sent' and another called 'Sent messages' (not named by me; this is how they spontaneously appeared). In Mail. there are two, both called 'Sent', but they can be identified with those on webmail and phone by the way they are located and grouped with other folders. In all three systems, one folder at the moment contains old mail plus one sent at 8:40 am British time and the other contains recent mail (including the 'missing' one, sent at 1:43 am today, but not including the 8:40 am one); but in Mail, the contents of the two 'sent' folders (identified by location and grouping) are the other way round from webmail and phone.

     

    This is so confusing that I now look in both folders in whichever of the three systems I am working in. The only wild guess I can make about why the 8:40 am message should be in a different folder than others of today's messages is that it might have something to do with different (US and UK?) time-zones. But I don't think I can make that stick consistently. Is all this, then, quite random?

  • by Csound1,

    Csound1 Csound1 Oct 15, 2014 8:58 AM in response to Michael Graubart
    Level 9 (50,202 points)
    Desktops
    Oct 15, 2014 8:58 AM in response to Michael Graubart

    I know the situation but here is what you need to know,

     

    The folder (on the website) whatever it is called is the actual sent folder. If your Mac is using a different sent folder for the same sent email then you must remap the Mac (as you can't remap the website, also known as the server) to do so you would select the mailbox on our Mac that contains the sent mail, then you go to the Mailbox Menu and near the bottom select Use This Mailbox As>Sent. This will cause your sent mail to appear in the Sent mailbox at the top of the sidebar.

  • by Michael Graubart,

    Michael Graubart Michael Graubart Oct 15, 2014 10:47 AM in response to Csound1
    Level 2 (275 points)
    Mac OS X
    Oct 15, 2014 10:47 AM in response to Csound1

    I am afraid I am now in a complete muddle. This is the situation in Apple Mail:

     

    With all the upper folders (including 'Sent'), the options under 'Use this mailbox for' are greyed out. The BT 'Sent' one contains one old message and one that I sent a few minutes ago as a test. 'Rebuild' does not change anything.

     

    The lower BT 'Sent' now contains today's 8:40 am message and a lot of old ones.

     

    All other messages sent today (apart from the 8:40 one and the test one sent a few minutes ago) are not shown anywhere (despite rebuilding).

     

    In webmail, the missing ones from earlier today are shown, so they must still be on the server..

     

    On my phone, the upper 'Sent' BT folder shows what the lower one in Mail shows, and the lower one is empty altogether.

     

    I have tried everything I could think of to get back to square one, including rebuilding PRAM, with no success. What can I do now?

  • by Michael Graubart,

    Michael Graubart Michael Graubart Oct 15, 2014 11:13 AM in response to Michael Graubart
    Level 2 (275 points)
    Mac OS X
    Oct 15, 2014 11:13 AM in response to Michael Graubart

    PS: In webmail, those missing recent messages (but not the 8:40 one) have now disappeared from both 'Sent' folders.

  • by Csound1,

    Csound1 Csound1 Oct 15, 2014 11:21 AM in response to Michael Graubart
    Level 9 (50,202 points)
    Desktops
    Oct 15, 2014 11:21 AM in response to Michael Graubart

    Michael Graubart wrote:

     

    I am afraid I am now in a complete muddle. This is the situation in Apple Mail:

     

    With all the upper folders (including 'Sent'), the options under 'Use this mailbox for' are greyed out. The BT 'Sent' one contains one old message and one that I sent a few minutes ago as a test. 'Rebuild' does not change anything.

    You must read my posts more carefully, twice if need be. The 'upper' folders are the destination, not the source. These misunderstandings can and will cause you to have issues.

     

    Start by disabling all accounts other than BT, (that will clear up the sidebar). Then locate the sent folder that actually contains the sent mail and select it.  (The folder, not the mail) Go to the mailbox menu and set it as the Sent folder.

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