Apple Mail recovery / rebuild

Question

Hi guys,
In desperate need of help here!
I've searched the internet pretty extensively but haven't found anything that solves the problem I'm having.
I was hoping to delete some RSS news feeds in my setup as they have been a nuisance to keep up with.
I thought I right clicked and deleted the rss feed, however on closer inspection when coming back to my computer later, I realised my whole inbox was gone and I must have had the wrong folder selected.
I checked the trash, undo etc. however they were pretty solidly deleted.
I resorted to Data Rescue 2 at first, however this only pulled up .mbox files which contained nothing like the amount of data I had deleted.
After a bit more research on the net, I understood that I needed to recover .emlx files which Data Rescue does not have the ability to do.
I switched to File Salvage, which after a good dozen hours or scanning, managed to recover approximately 10,000 .emlx files.
Looking at these files individually in TextWrangler, I can see that they are indeed the correct files, but obviously I need them back in Mail so that they're of use to be searched etc.
Now this is where the trouble starts...
I've tried to place these .emlx files back in the messages folder of the MBOX that I had emptied by mistake in the first place.
I've then selected to rebuild the mail box.
After a short time rebuilding, some messages become listed in the inbox, however they are completely blank. No subject, no content and no headers.
If I now go straight to the newly modified/updated .emlx files in the messages folder in the MBOX and open them up in TextWrangler, their content is as below for example (see bottom of post - it seems like it's only converted a few lines).
I really need to rebuild these emails properly as they contain all my company receipts and other typical important information for accounts etc. Really hoping someone on here might be able to help guide me please!
Regards,
Alan
153
by smtp-in-104.livemail.co.uk (Postfix) with ESMTP id A480ED8094
for <[email protected]>; Fri, 3 Dec 2010 13:51:35 +0000 (GMT)
Received: from SNT13<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
<key>date-sent</key>
<real>1292371956</real>
<key>flags</key>
<integer>261250</integer>
<key>sender</key>
<string></string>
<key>subject</key>
<string></string>
<key>to</key>
<string></string>
</dict>
</plist>

Answer 1

I've managed to get somewhere with this, but really not the way I wanted.
As I've had no luck importing the emails to Apple Mail, I read an article saying that you could rename the .EMLX files to .EML files and drop them into Entourage.
Entourage has managed to read them okay. It's taking forever to drop them in, and the moment I'm doing them in batches of 1000 each. Probably about 20 mins per batch.
Ideally I'll find some way of exporting these when all done, and get them back into Apple Mail.
I have a feeling that the first two text lines in the email files I recovered were slightly corrupt.
In new .emlx files I've received, the top looks like this...
25695
X-Eon-Dm: dm0216
Return-Path: <[email protected]>
Received: from badger07001.apple.com (17.254.6.168 [17.254.6.168])
However in the recovered .emlx files, they look like this (with the first two lines slightly corrupt)...
-Eon-Dm: dm0218
Return-Path: <[email protected]>
Received: from badger07001.apple.com (17.254.6.168 [17.254.6.168])
I have a feeling this is where Apple Mail may be failing to interperet the files and deciding they are blank.
If it's not this causing it, then maybe Mail is not coping rebuilding the message folder with the existing Mail preferences.
I'll try importing the messages to Apple Mail on a fresh new user account and see if that solves anything.