Disappearing Messages in Mail - CMD-L

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Level 1

103 points

Disappearing Messages in Mail - CMD-L

In Sierra, Apple Mail has a not-terribly-well-known Filters feature.

See this (somewhat incomplete) article:

Mail for Mac: Filter the message list in Mail

By default, the Filters feature filters out all unread messages. So, if you've read everything, your Inbox window displays nothing. (Read the above article to see how to modify this behavior)

You can toggle the Filters on and off using CMD-L shortcut (so often used in Safari, iTunes, and other apps)

HOWEVER....

If you use the Classic Layout in Mail (as I do), and you accidentally hit CMD-L... ALL OF YOUR OLD MESSAGES DISSAPEAR!

Hit CMD-L again and they reappear... but only if you know what's going on. Hint: the header in your message window will say something like "Inbox (0 filtered messages.....) - but it's pretty "fine print."

If you search discussions for "disappearing e-mail messages" you get all sorts of info on rebuilding mailboxes, and other complex procedures, which are totally beside the point.

BE ADVISED: I spent FOUR HOURS today with Apple Support people until an advisor four levels up in the supervisory hierarchy finally came upon the fix... and he was as surprised as I was. Lower level advisors nearly had me wipe my hard drive to restore from Time Machine. Thank goodness I was very skeptical.

Posted on Oct 24, 2016 6:03 AM

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Answer 1

mjstarks

Level 1

4 points

Nov 4, 2016 1:46 AM in response to Darryl Rehr

Thank you so much. I was going down the same rabbit hole when I came across your solution. I'm sure I triggered the problem when trying to force mail's "rules" to run by pressing option-command-L, and I must have missed the option part of the press. Still - took me 30 minutes to find this, I guess I got lucky in noticing the "Inbox (filtered messages)" and including that in my search.

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Answer 2

nmic

Level 1

4 points

Nov 25, 2016 2:16 PM in response to Darryl Rehr

Thank you thank you! I have just spent an hour trying to get my read messages back. After reading your post I realised that I did the dreaded cmd-L thing by mistake when Mail was open (I thought I was doing it on Safari). Restarted Mail, restarted the Mac. Couldn't understand it - it said "XX filtered messages", but I had no filters or rules set up. Searched Google for ages trying to find a solution (all the posts are how to display only unread messages, but I needed the opposite), until I found yours - a lifesaver!

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Answer 3

jmn111

Level 1

13 points

Jan 12, 2017 7:07 AM in response to Darryl Rehr

I watched it happen - I knew I'd hit CMD and something else but had no idea what! CMD-L - gotta remember that. I've printed out your response and will tape it to the wall near my computer for the next time this happens! It's panic when all those messages just disappear from sight! Thanks.

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