Pop mail LOST when reinstalling MAC but still in iPhone / iPad

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Level 1

8 points

Pop mail LOST when reinstalling MAC but still in iPhone / iPad

I had to restore my Mac and forgot to take care of Mail before formatting. I have a pop account in Godaddy server and unfortunately once reinstalling accounts in iOS I found my Mail in MacBook Pro (2013) was empty while my Mail in iPhone and iPad has the 11k mails I was looking for.

I tried to follow indications to change account from pop to Imap so I can recover in Mac those emails I see in iPhone Mail, but a message says I can't change the pop account into a IMAP (validity error). I think it is because I created account server as a POP mail in Godaddy firstly and when I tried to change to Imap server there is a message showing it is not possible to contact server. I also looked for apps and soft or used iTunes without any luck to retrieve emails form phone and iPad.

Any suggestions to recover the work of a life?

Posted on Feb 17, 2018 4:14 AM

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Answer 1

Best reply

Eric Root

Level 10

684,051 points

Feb 18, 2018 8:21 AM in response to emiliano118

If you did a full restore, your e-mails should have been restored. If you go to Mail/Preferences/Accounts, does the account show there?

Try rebuilding the mailbox.

Rebuild 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. High Sierra use V5.

Reindex messages (2) See post by Linc Davis

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Answer 2

Feb 17, 2018 8:27 AM in response to emiliano118

Two possibilities I can see:

1 Although I suspect it will be empty also, but can you still log onto your Godaddy account and see your e-mails via the web? If you can then it's an account setting problem on the Mac, if it's also empty on the web, then because you used POP and didn't select 'Leave mail on Server' POP3 would delete any mail after it's been dowloaded.

2 As IOS and Mac OS mail are rather different, my solution would be to setup another e-mail account on your iPad using either, iCloud (preferably), IMAP or Outlook Exchange as these all leave the mail on the mailerserver until you decide to delte them.

Once that's setup, copy each e-mail to the new server, and then setup the same account on your Mac, where you can now download them all sort them into the relevant folders etc.

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Answer 3

emiliano118 Author

Level 1

8 points

Feb 17, 2018 8:34 AM in response to AbsoluteComputers

Hi, thanks so much for your note. No, I don't see emails in web (it was set to empty server so they are shown). The weird thing is that iPad and iPhone are both Pop accounts but they work like iMAP. I can share screenshots but when tried to change any of both form pop.secureserver.net to imap.secureserver.net in any device, it was impossible and not allowed with a message of validity error. If I mark as unread in iPhone (for example I marked all as unread) the 11k emails appear now as unread in iPad. Nothing happens in Mac. I even created a pop account in Mail in my Mac, with identical settings used for Pop accounts in my devices. With expectation that they would be sync, I had nothing retrieved and only iPad and iPhone emails changed.

When I copy messages to a shared folder in Mail in iPhone or iPad and Mac, they partially are copied to server and recovered in Mac Mail. Slow process. I copy using batches of 50 emails or so. Sometimes it blocks and they are not removed from the Pop account or only some messages are really copied to server.

Problem to copy from Pop to another email as you have suggested is possible but I have 11k emails.

Is there any way I do backup of mailbox and folders in iPhone so I can retrieve all emails in my Mac? My whole life work is there in devices and I can't see a way to be more safe and easy to handle.

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Answer 4

Feb 18, 2018 8:07 AM in response to emiliano118

emiliano118 wrote:

I even created a pop account in Mail in my Mac, with identical settings used for Pop accounts in my devices. With expectation that they would be sync, I had nothing retrieved and only iPad and iPhone emails changed.

POP email accounts do not sync across devices.

I don't believe that you can export email boxes from an iPhone. AbsoluteComputers solution is the only one I know of.

I does sound as if you really need an IMAP account. But, you can't change a POP account to an IMAP account just by changing the settings. You need to contact GoDaddy and have them change the account type (if they offer that).

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Answer 5

emiliano118 Author

Level 1

8 points

Feb 18, 2018 8:08 AM in response to IdrisSeabright

Thanks. I will do that. My concern is that when I ask them to make that Pop account becomes IMAP they sync with empty other iMac and I lose all email (11k) stored in my iPad and my iPhone. I will let them know I want to keep them.

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Answer 6

Csound1

Level 9

59,973 points

Feb 18, 2018 8:22 AM in response to emiliano118

IMAP does not work that way, an empty folder will not cause the server content to be erased, the sync is one way only (server to client), so if the emails are on the server (which unfortunately it sounds as though they are not) they will be copied to the client. If they are no longer on the server they are gone. You should always backup a POP account before deleting it, or the computer it is housed on.

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Answer 7

emiliano118 Author

Level 1

8 points

Feb 18, 2018 8:21 AM in response to Csound1

when I checked in web mail using godaddy I couldn't see any email since it was deleted from server (maybe I did it when created since I normally store emails in my devices). So now server is empty and devices are full of mail to be recovered. I was concern godaddy staff makes sync from server to my iPhone and then I would lose everything. I will call anyway, no other options.

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Pop mail LOST when reinstalling MAC but still in iPhone / iPad

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