At the request of my hosting provider (added security), I changed my Mail account log-in in settings from "my-name" (shortform) to "my-name@my-domain.com" (long form). Passwords, mail server, everything else remain unchanged.
My old email messages disappeared, inbox and outbox.
I have restored from Time Machine (back-up last week) but I have lost messages from the last few days.
Is there any way to get the lost messages back?
You using POP or IMAP?
POP (unfortunately)
Actually POP messages may be still hiding if you know which mailbox they ended up going to.
Users -> yourname -> Library -> Mail and Mail Downloads folders stores the POP messages on your account from Mac OS X Mail in there only files that represent your mail folders. Other mail software may be stored in different folders.
A simple text editor such as Barebones Textwrangler can do a multifile search of the folder to see if you can find keywords from those messages and which folder the message resides in. If you actually did the message, the only way to recover it would be for the backup not to have overwritten in, in between. Time Machine's backup are recursive, but overwrite if there is insufficient room to keep all revisions.
If Textwrangler can't find what you need from either the Time Machine drive or the original, data recovery software as described below may be able to:
http://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-1689
Any messages you sent may be in the mail server logs of your internet provider. If you know the time you sent a message, they may be able to recover it from their outgoing mail server.
Haven same problem on my wife's Mac book Air running Mac OSX 10.75.
Suddenly no more messages in her mail account (IMAP) Mail inbox.
If I give a look in User/library/mail/V2 still find some folder with messages inside (I think they are; they have .emlx extension). But nothing in the Mail screen.
IF I would try to restore from Time Machine, what do I have to restore?
Any other method to solve this issue?
Try rebuilding the mailbox.
If that doesn't work, try re-indexing the mailboxes. This can take awhile if you have a lot of mail.
Reindex messages For El Capitan, try looking in V3. Sierra use V4
Reindex messages (2) See post by Linc Davis
There is only one file in Snow Leopard.
I tried rebuilding mailbox and reindexing messages (2) without results.
Not clearly understood what is Reindexing messages. The link points to reindexing a disk in spotlight.
However, thanks.
You are welcome. Reindexing Spotlight allows the computer to update its database about what files are on the computer.
If you restore from Time Machine restore the V2 folder.
Mail messages disappeared
