Apple Mail OS X 10.10.3 : All Accounts have Disappeared

Question

Apple Mail OS X 10.10.3 : All Accounts have Disappeared

Using a mid-2012 Macbook Pro 15" Retina Display with 256GB SSD, 2x8GB DIMM RAM. Updated from Mac OS X 10.10.2, to OS X Yosemite 10.10.3 @ 09 Apr 2015. iCloud account is enabled (converted from an earlier MobileMe account), with two-step verification turned on.

I've a few issues: two minor; one major. Not sure if related.

1) Prior to 10.10.3 update, every time after restarting machine and logging in, I was presented with the iCloud login prompt several times in a row. I believe this may be related to the number of Messages accounts I have stored**, in combination with two-step verification, but as there's no indication what iCloud is trying to access, this is unclear. After the update to 10.10.3, not only did this problem continue, but now after most (or all) of the iCloud-password-entry prompts, I receive a message to add an app-specific password. I already set this up last year, for all accounts. Moreover, if I ignore the request for an app-specific password, this doesn't actually seem to prevent my access to Messages, nor did it to Mail.

**Messages has 8 separate IM accounts registered, one iMessage, three Jabber, one GTalk, and three AIM accounts.

2) Yesterday I was attempting to clean out some space and removed the files stored in ~/Library/Mail\ Downloads/, after confirming that removing these doesn't affect the email itself with this test: I removed one file first, together with its enclosing directory (a.k.a. "folder"), then attempted to access the file from Mail again, which caused a new directory to be created and fetched a new copy of the file. I then removed the larger files using

~$ find /Users/ryder/Library/Containers/com.apple.mail/Data/Library/Mail\ Downloads -size +8192c -exec rm -v {} \;

This appeared to be fine, and I don't suspect this is still causing the issue I'm facing.

3) Today when I restarted Mail, it prompts me to set up a new account. None of my existing accounts are displayed. All I see is this:

It appears that Mail may be missing the Preferences file at launch, but all the data from my mailboxes is still present:

:~$ ls -l Library/Mail/V2

total 0

drwxr-xr-x@ 11 user staff 374 30 Mar 11:33 AosIMAP-user.xxxx

drwxr-xr-x@ 20 user staff 680 10 Apr 18:23 ExchangeIMAP-user.xxxx@xxxxxx.com@webmail.ui.xxxxx.eu

drwxr-xr-x@ 4 user staff 136 27 Jan 14:21 IMAP-largemail@xxxxx.com@mail.xxxxx.com

drwxr-xr-x 3 user staff 102 29 Jul 2011 IMAP-xx.xxxxx@xxxxx.net@imap.gmail.com

drwxr-xr-x@ 5 user staff 170 27 Jan 14:21 IMAP-xx@xxxxx.com@imap.xxxxx.com

drwxr-xr-x@ 12 user staff 408 10 Apr 18:23 IMAP-user.xxxx@xxxxx.es@imap.gmail.com

drwxr-xr-x@ 19 user staff 646 10 Apr 18:23 IMAP-user.xxxx@imap.gmail.com

drwxr-xr-x 3 user staff 102 29 Jul 2011 Mac-user.xxx

drwxr-xr-x 33 user staff 1122 11 Apr 11:19 MailData

drwxr-xr-x 10 user staff 340 10 Apr 18:23 Mailboxes

drwxr-xr-x 4 user staff 136 13 Dec 2012 RSS

On the other hand, the preference files appear to be intact, so I'm not sure why they're not being read correctly:

cortical:~$ ls -l Library/Preferences/*{m,M}ail*

-rw------- 1 user staff 117 13 Dec 2012 Library/Preferences/com.apple.MailMigratorService.plist

-rw------- 1 user staff 225 28 Jan 10:23 Library/Preferences/com.apple.mail-shared.plist

-rw------- 1 user staff 88 9 Apr 15:06 Library/Preferences/com.apple.mail.plist

-rwxr-xr-x 1 user staff 0 23 Jul 2011 Library/Preferences/com.apple.mail.plist.lockfile

-rw------- 1 user staff 104 3 Mar 2011 Library/Preferences/org.gpgmail.plist

-rw------- 1 user staff 127 10 Apr 11:39 Library/Preferences/org.gpgtools.gpgmail.plist

Fixes I've tried, so far, with no success:

a) Restarting. As described, after login I had to punch in my iCloud password multiple times and ignored the app-specific-password prompt.

b) Changing the app-specific password. I created a new app password for Mail, then tried to "add an iCloud mail account" from above. It asks me for my iCloud password first, then prompts me with the same dialog from login, that I need to use an app-specific password, with only the options "Later" or "Create". I'm never actually given the opportunity to enter one (as I'd already created this), and attempts to open up the preferences for Mail to set this somewhere are rejected (it reacts as if the dialog box is still open, even after I select either option).

c) Removing ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.mail.plist.lockfile (no change)

d) Removing ~/Library/Preferences/MobileMeAccounts.plist (as suggested in another thread– no change)

Can someone, please, please help me before I need to access my email for work again on Monday? This isn't amusing in the slightest. I have a couple time machine backups so if there's a particular file I need to restore, this is possible. But I've no idea what to do and the other support questions and answers are abysmal. I suppose I could try turning off two-step verification and then going through the rigamarole of re-staging it, but I suspect this won't actually help my current issue, and hence I hesitate to try it due to the work involved in turning it back on.

Message was edited by: scrambledhelix (sanitizing for anonymity)

MacBook Pro with Retina display, OS X Yosemite (10.10.3)

Posted on Apr 11, 2015 3:38 AM

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Answer 1

Apr 11, 2015 4:44 AM in response to scrambledhelix

I'm no longer able to edit this, but I can now add:

e) I've logged out of iCloud, and back in again. No change.

f) I've removed the files ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.mail* and still no change. Furthermore, even after taking this step I cannot enter the account details fresh. Each time I try, a prompt tells me the account I'm attempting to "create" is a duplicate.

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Answer 2

John Galt

Level 10

146,810 points

Apr 11, 2015 9:56 AM in response to scrambledhelix

1) is associated with two-step verification as you suspect. The number of Messages accounts you are using will only add to the confusion.

... there's no indication what iCloud is trying to access, this is unclear.

Correct, and I already informed Apple about that ambiguity. I suggest you do the same. The dialog box asks for your iCloud password when in fact you may require an app-specific password. As a workaround, keep clicking Cancel until the harassment ceases. Then, when you need to sign in to a particular service, do so from within that service. Messages and FaceTime will absolutely require your app-specific PW. Not sure about all the others; you will have to do your own research.

I suppose I could try turning off two-step verification and then going through the rigamarole of re-staging it, but I suspect this won't actually help my current issue, and hence I hesitate to try it due to the work involved in turning it back on.

I totally agree. It won't help your present situation at all. Disabling it will only preclude future inconvenience at the expense of reduced Apple ID security. At present one outweighs the other. I'll leave it to you to decide which one that is.

As for the Mail problem: deleting its .plist will remove all your Mailboxes from the Mail interface, which is what you experienced. As of Yosemite and its iCloud integration, removing .plist files should now be considered ill-advised with anything that can possibly rely upon iCloud integration, so it was probably a bad idea to trash the .plist.

Each time I try, a prompt tells me the account I'm attempting to "create" is a duplicate.

That's because it is. Mail maintains and organizes its own database, and it has been corrupted. Your Time Machine backup will save the day, but before doing that determine if you can recover your Mail messages by choosing Import Mailboxes... from Mail's File menu. Point to your user Library/Mail folder. Imported messages will appear in an appropriately named folder, so you may have to organize its contents to your liking again.

You can also use Time Machine from within the Mail app. Try that also. No single technique is particularly advantageous over another.

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Answer 3

Apr 11, 2015 8:28 AM in response to scrambledhelix

More information:

After signing out of iCloud, and back in again this morning seems to have resolved my first issue (1) and I no longer receive requests to sign into iCloud after a reboot.

I attempted to set up a new Mail account and this seems to work fine. My more pressing problem is that every time I try to add one of the previous accounts I had (one Exchange account, and two Gmail accounts), I get a message that it's a duplicate, and it fails to create the account. I've removed every conceivable Preferences file, including the entire ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.mail directory, but the duplicate error still prevents me from re-creating these accounts.

Any help at all?

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Answer 4

Apr 11, 2015 10:07 AM in response to John Galt

Thanks for the reply– I posted my last followup without seeing your response, but the Import Mailboxes approach was a novel idea, thank you for that.

To note though, I never "trashed", rm'd, or even touched any *.plist files when this error appeared today– unless of course there was one hidden in the ~/Library/Mail\ Downloads directory that I was unaware of. Each time I've tried to restart Mail after removing a .plist file as I mention, I simply tarred up the file, restarted Mail, attempted to stage a new account, and after seeing it fail again, I un-tarred the file back into place to prevent further corruption. My goal was to try to remove any record of a duplicate account.

The Import Mailboxes approach appears to be working, if anyone else is looking to try this. A word of warning though– the process took over an hour to complete listing which boxes to import (what looks like an astounding number of AosIMAP boxes that I'm not sure the purpose of), and didn't seem too responsive at first. It may just be slow: my Mail/V2 directory is 22GB in size. It's finally gotten to the actual "Import" stage, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed...

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Answer 5

John Galt

Level 10

146,810 points

Apr 11, 2015 12:47 PM in response to scrambledhelix

22 GB is indeed large. Other than taking a very long time to import those Mail messages, its size shouldn't present a problem.

I did misunderstand what you did with the .plist, but I know that deleting it won't accomplish anything. Email accounts, even non-Apple ones, appear to become associated with one's iCloud account in a manner I cannot explain. Once so associated, I have no idea how they can subsequently be disassociated, or if it is even possible to do so. That may not be true of all email accounts.

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Answer 6

Apr 11, 2015 2:46 PM in response to John Galt

Well the import certainly retrieved all my messages, but it seems to've duplicated the data twice over and it's now using an additional 40+GB on my disk (63GB in total from 22GB before). I still can't add the accounts, which is more the point.

Thanks very much for your help– hopefully an actual Apple rep will tune in at some point and help me sort this out. I think you're right, in that there's some iCloud magic going on preventing this. One last trick I can maybe try later is un-syncing the **** thing from iCloud, signing out, removing the Mail app settings and restarting from scratch (most everything I have is staged elsewhere, which always led me to wonder what the hey was taking up so much space before anyway). Hopefully when I get a hold of my backup disk I can sort it out, but that's likely going to kill a day of work 😟

Thanks again, Mr. Galt. I do hope you're not lonely when you're happy.

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Answer 7

John Galt

Level 10

146,810 points

Apr 11, 2015 4:43 PM in response to scrambledhelix

That may be worthwhile. I doubt iCloud Mail messages are actually duplicated on Apple's servers, and what you are experiencing is probably a local phenomenon. You might even consider deleting the V2 folder's contents entirely and importing your messages from the Time Machine backup, using the same Import Mailboxes option, or, restore the V2 folder's contents from Time Machine interface. Or, "Enter Time Machine" from within Mail. This is obviously a case where at least one additional, redundant backup should be created first, and safely put aside until your troubles are resolved.

hopefully an actual Apple rep will tune in at some point and help me sort this out.

They don't do that here, other than to recommend relevant Apple Support documents anyone can find on their own. Liability concerns, I suppose.

You're welcome. I'm always happy.

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Answer 8

Apr 14, 2015 11:01 AM in response to John Galt

In case you or anyone else looking is interested, taking from the backup was the correct solution– an import wasn't really needed in the end. The duplicated accounts that were giving me problems were stored, simply, in System Preferences > Internet Accounts (my face is a little red on that one). I was able to reattach my Gmail accounts through there. It wasn't actually necessary once I got my hands back on my backup though.

In the end all I really needed was to restore a small component, the ~/Library/Mail/V2/MailData subdirectory, not the entirety of ~/Library/Mail. After this all my accounts and settings were back in working order. It did take a very long time to poll my mailservers and re-populate my Apple Mail application with the email headers, hashes and what-not for searching. It took a few hours, actually, before all my flagged emails were shown in their proper places– but they were.

The only thing missing after all that was the results of my "rules" applied to the different emails (I rely on colors to identify at-a-glance how important any given email is). All this did seem to help slim things down, a bit– ~/Library/Mail is down to 16G from the previous 22G from before.

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