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Q: Mails missing or invisible in personal folders since Sierra upgrade

My emails have disappeared from the Personal Folders in Mail since macOS Sierra upgrade from the previous El Capitan version, indeed the personal folders  themselves seem to be missing or invisible.

 

New emails that have arrived subsequently, for which I have Rules set up to move the email to a sub folder in my Personal Folders seem to magically recreate or reveal the part of the folder hierarchy necessary to reveal or recreate the destination subfolder AND reveal not just the new email but also all of  the other emails that were previously in taht folder. However, the email and its sisters in that sub folder are only actually visible after I have exited and reopened the Mail App.

 

Very weird.

 

Has anybody else  had a similar issue and / or found a solution?

iMac, macOS Sierra (10.12), 250GB SSD + 1TB HD

Posted on Sep 21, 2016 1:37 PM

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Q: Mails missing or invisible in personal folders since Sierra upgrade

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  • by lbcliff,

    lbcliff lbcliff Sep 24, 2016 6:22 AM in response to collumend
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Mac OS X
    Sep 24, 2016 6:22 AM in response to collumend

    Installed Sierra (from Yosemite) on Wednesday. First noticed that my Mail signatures were gone. Called Apple Support, when first one failed, was transferred to a Senior. Repaired permissions, restored from Time Machine - still didn't work. Yesterday discovered that some of my mailbox folders were empty, some had old mail, but not recent. Another senior tech got nowhere and reported it to the Engineering Team.

     

    I've since discovered that the missing messages are there, but they're invisible in the mailboxes. When I do a keyword search, the "invisible" messages are returned in the search results (showing as being in their proper folder), and I can read the full message from the search window. But if I open the folder, it doesn't show.

     

    Also, messages I have read in the InBox disappear after I've read them. Demented.

  • by lbcliff,

    lbcliff lbcliff Sep 24, 2016 11:57 AM in response to collumend
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Mac OS X
    Sep 24, 2016 11:57 AM in response to collumend

    Update: I think we figured it out. The tech walked me through reindexing the mail. When we launched again, there was no difference. Then I noticed under the View Menu "Disable Filter." I tried it on the InBox and it worked! On all the other folders as well. You just need to open your mailbox folders one at a time and hit Command-L to disable the filters.

     

    I never intentionally set up filters for the mail (or Rules). It must have been some glitch or default setting in Sierra. The tech said that he had seen transition problems before with users who have a lot of nested folders. To me it's logical filing, but with younger generations, I guess they're just not into hierarchy. I hope this helps you!!

  • by collumend,

    collumend collumend Sep 25, 2016 3:31 AM in response to lbcliff
    Level 1 (19 points)
    Mac OS X
    Sep 25, 2016 3:31 AM in response to lbcliff

    Glad your's is working now, unfortunately mine is getting worse and the mailbox filter issue thing does not work for me. My situation is getting worse as the emails that I can see, such as new ones that have arrived since the upgrade, now only have the header visible with the message body itself having disappeared.

     

    I have also now lost all my contacts (though they are still in iCloud) except those added on any of my devices since the upgrade.

     

    Safari has also stopped working, though it was working fine just after the upgrade.

  • by dianeoforegon,

    dianeoforegon dianeoforegon Sep 27, 2016 4:03 PM in response to collumend
    Level 5 (5,731 points)
    Mac OS X
    Sep 27, 2016 4:03 PM in response to collumend

    Try the demo for EmailChemy

     

    Select to convert Apple Mail

    ec1.png

    It will default to this location. Click Next

    ec2.png

    Convert All Messages > Convert

     

    Save to Desktop and select Format: MBOX (standard)

    ec3.png

     

     

    When complete, find the folder that contains your local (personal) folders. The Outbox will be in Personal folders.

     

    Example:

    example-local.png

     

    In Mail, Under File in the Menu bar select Import Mailboxes...

    Navigate to the folder that contained your personal folders.

    Import.

    Check to see if these folders are visible and work correctly.

     

    Note if this works you will need to delete the demo emails (contains a watermark) then purchase and convert again.

  • by muzz63,

    muzz63 muzz63 Oct 2, 2016 4:23 AM in response to dianeoforegon
    Level 1 (23 points)
    Photography
    Oct 2, 2016 4:23 AM in response to dianeoforegon

    I had the same problem. To be clear, the folders that were missing for me were Personal folders and all were for POP accounts.

    I solved it by first creating a new personal Mailbox with a distinctive name "On My Mac".

    With Mail quit, next I went into the ~/Library/Mail/V4 folder and looked into the folders that had various alphanumeric names until I found the new one with the distinctive name.

    I then opened up my Time Machine disc from the Finder and drilled down to the last backup from El Capitan and went to the ~/Library/Mail/V3 folder and found my previously saved personal mailboxes, and dragged the smallest one to the folder in the V4 hierarchy with the newly created mailbox in it. I just used one mailbox to test whether the process worked.

    Once it had copied across I went to the ~/Library/Mail/V4/Maildata folder and deleted any file with "Envelope" in it's name.

    I then restarted Mail, and got a dialog that it was importing mail and once it completed, my personal mailbox had been re-created in the macOS Sierra Mail app.

    Next I repeated the above steps with all the other remaining mailboxes from my old V3 mail and once they had all copied across, deleted the "Envelope" files again. This took quite a long time as there were quite a few years worth of mail to move over but it has worked perfectly since then (as far as I can tell).

     

    Hope that helps.