Issues with flagged mail not clearing out

Question

Level 1

8 points

Issues with flagged mail not clearing out

Hi there,

I have been using Mail Version 9.3 (3124) to receive and respond to emails from different mail accounts (gmail, yahoo, hotmail + private mail server) and flagging important emails to sort out my workflow. On Thursday I had 80 emails flagged and while I was working on a different program Mail decided to reflag every previously unflagged email.

I have restarted the computer several times but I now have 2508 emails flagged randomly since 2011 (I was not working with Mac at that time and did not use flags).

Here are my computer specs

OS X El Capitan v 10.11.5 (15F34)

MacBook Air (13-inch, Mid 2013) 1,7 GHz Intel Core i7

Does anybody have any recommendations on how to restaure my flags to Thursday's count?

T

MacBook Air, OS X El Capitan (10.11.5), MacBook Air (13-inch, Mid 2013)

Posted on Jun 20, 2016 3:09 AM

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Answer 1

Jun 23, 2016 2:53 AM in response to ultreyatours

Hello ultreyatours,

Thank you for being part of the Apple Community!

If I understand correctly, all of the emails within the Mail app on your MacBook Air are now flagged instead of only the ones you chose to flag.

One possible solution would be if you use Time Machine. You would be able to restore Mail from before all the emails were flagged incorrectly. Here are instructions on how to use Time Machine:

Use Time Machine to back up or restore your Mac.

Look for the "Restore specific files" section:

Restore specific files:

Choose Enter Time Machine from the Time Machine menu , or click Time Machine in the Dock.

Find the files to restore:

Use the timeline on the edge of the screen to see the files in your Time Machine backup as they were at that date and time. The timeline may also include local snapshots.

Use the onscreen up and down arrows to jump to the last time the contents of the window changed. You can also use the search field in a window to find a file, then move through time while focused on changes to that file.

Select a file and press Space Bar to preview the file and make sure it's the one you want.

Click Restore to restore the selected file, or Control-click the file for other options.

Have a great day!

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Answer 2

Jun 23, 2016 2:59 AM in response to ultreyatours

It's possible you could reindex Mail and it would reset Flags correctly, but most likely you will have to restore from Time Machine.

With Mail quit....

Go to the User's Library folder. This folder is hidden by default. To unhide: Select the Finder in the Dock. Under Go in the Menu bar > hold down the Option key and you’ll see the Library.

• Go to Mail folder.

Select the V3> MailData folder.

Delete any files in MailData with envelope in the name. (should be 3)

Open Mail.

Mail will reindex your files.

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Answer 3

ultreyatours Author

Level 1

8 points

Jun 23, 2016 2:57 AM in response to srbwanderer

Hi srbwanderer, thank you for your response, but I was hoping for a more permanent solution then just restauring with Time Machine. Not all my emails were flagged just random ones (mostly old ones) and it did keep the real ones flagged so I was able to get it back manually quite easily. But I am worried there is a bug somewhere (or worst like a virus) that has been messing with my flags and that this problem could happen again anytime.

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Answer 4

ultreyatours Author

Level 1

8 points

Jun 23, 2016 2:58 AM in response to dianeoforegon

Thank you dianeoforegon, at the moment the flags are back to normal after some manual unflagging but I will try that solution if the problem happens again!

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Answer 5

Jun 23, 2016 12:35 PM in response to ultreyatours

I've had flags reset too many times for comfort. I'm seeing all flags being reset to red instead of the issue you are reporting. Aarrgghh!

I bought MailTags and use it to tag my messages with a tag to indicate flag status. That way if Mail messes up, I can use the tags to reset.

http://www.indev.ca/MailTags.html

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Answer 6

Dec 16, 2016 8:22 AM in response to dianeoforegon

great. this worked for me.

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