Empty Sent Message File in Mail

hi folks!. i'm having this problem: Mail doesn't show any of the sent messages i wrote. The sent messages file is there in user/library/mail/pop acount/sent messages and contains a copy of every mail i've written. anybody knows what's wrong? I'll appreciate your help here. Cheers. Luciano

Hi Luciano.
The problem is probably that the mailbox has lost the .mbox suffix in the filesystem. Did you at some point try to manually remove that mailbox from the mailbox list?
Please, report more accurately what you observe. Is the name of the mailbox really “sent messages” or is it “Sent Messages.mbox”? If the suffix is missing, quit Mail and rename the folder to Sent Messages.mbox. That should fix the problem.

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Sent Messages File Mail

I have a very large Sent messages File. I use Apple Mail. On my iMac I have it set to store the Sent Messages File on the Server and Never delete. I do not want or need all 14,000 sent messages downloaded to my MBA, but that's what is happening. What settings should I use in Mail on the MBA to keep that from happening?

I'd recommend creating a Rule. If you don't have experience doing so here is a little information for you to study.
http://www.freeemailtutorials.com/appleMail/rulesWithAppleMail.cwd
Roger

Empty sent message

My sent messages arrive with no body - any ideas what is causing this?

I've just started having the same problem om my iMac
.My mails are arriving at their destinations but are EMPTY .

Strange issue with imap and a blank empty sent messages folder

So here is a weird one. I got a new computer last week, Mac mini core duo. Set everything up, synced my .Mac and it set up mail. I have been using mail, i try to view Sent Messages for one of my IMAP accounts which should have 10,200 messsages in it. I see nothing. On rebuild mailbox it goes blank. Some messages I send are stored until i rebuild mailbox and it again is empty. On my other Macs (powerbook 12" and dual G4) I am still able to view and manipulate this same accounts Sent Messages. One webmail everything still works as well. While trying to copy old messages down to the Powerbook to archive them I noticed that it was very slow, and messages which were not cached already caused the Copy to fail. I am using Courier IMAP with Maildirs and Postfix on FreeBSD as a server.

my IMAP server uses INBOX as its root.. hence that folder only contains...
INBOX.imapmbox
INBOX
However one level down in INBOX I have...
DeSmit.imapmbox
HealthCareSource HR.imapmbox
SimTech.imapmbox
Lange International.imapmbox
Sandhill Photography.imapmbox
Sales People.imapmbox
Hosting.imapmbox
Marwan.imapmbox
Lucidics.imapmbox
Jeorgea Beck.imapmbox
Web Marketing.imapmbox
Sent.imapmbox
SEBA.imapmbox
Merchant Accounts.imapmbox
The Hired Pens.imapmbox
Kuhl Therapy.imapmbox
Keen Films.imapmbox
PeopleVision.imapmbox
Competition.imapmbox
East Street Woodworking.imapmbox
Cambium Learning.imapmbox
Legal.imapmbox
LFCG.imapmbox
Mailing Lists.imapmbox
Drafts.imapmbox
Ipswitch.imapmbox
Prism Scienceworks.imapmbox
Printers.imapmbox
Mindspark7.imapmbox
Air Media.imapmbox
Demios.imapmbox
Cabem.imapmbox
LexiPixel.imapmbox
Apple.imapmbox
Regent Theatre.imapmbox
Proun Design.imapmbox
Prospects.imapmbox
Goodwin PR.imapmbox
Xplana.imapmbox
Competitive Analysis.imapmbox
Banimon.imapmbox
Zaid.imapmbox
Stay In Touch.imapmbox
Junk.imapmbox
UI Research.imapmbox
Faxes.imapmbox
Dewey Nichols.imapmbox
StrideRite.imapmbox
Future Works.imapmbox
Franklin Cafe.imapmbox
Epsilon.imapmbox
CitySoft.imapmbox
Bearak.imapmbox
Pridgeon Design.imapmbox
BDS.imapmbox
Highland MBP.imapmbox
Create TV.imapmbox
Crystal Clean.imapmbox
Longs Jewelers.imapmbox
Lollipop.imapmbox
AFT.imapmbox
Wholen.imapmbox
Peppercoin.imapmbox
RocketShop.imapmbox
Rocket North.imapmbox
Barrister Books.imapmbox
Venture Capital Fund of NE.imapmbox
bodygard.imapmbox
Blakely Project.imapmbox
Comm Promo.imapmbox
Judith Aronson.imapmbox
Vendors.imapmbox
Trash.imapmbox
Accounts.imapmbox
Agena.imapmbox
Manifesto.imapmbox
Portfolios.imapmbox
Progressive Roofing.imapmbox
Process & Deliverables.imapmbox
Advertising.imapmbox
Chris Zikakis.imapmbox
Mojo Marketing.imapmbox
Lauer Learning.imapmbox
NOME.imapmbox
Nantucket Kneepants.imapmbox
NEMO.imapmbox
Nickelsen Partners.imapmbox
Essential.imapmbox
Lawler Kang.imapmbox
Accounting.imapmbox
Compuworks.imapmbox
Inside of Sent.imapbox we have...
Messages
Info.plist
And inside of Messages are the 2 messages I sent today after testing another rebuild command...
29601.emlx
29193.emlx

Vanishing sent messages in Apple Mail 4.3

I'm using Mac OS 10.6.4 with Apple Mail 4.3 and I've experienced a bug recently. I noticed that some of my messages, either new ones from scratch or replies to received messages, simply vanished.
If the message was a reply, I can't find it back by clicking on the curly arrow next to the name of the original message. A friend also experienced the same problems and we unfortunately can't replicate or find a logic to this bug. Searching doesn't do the trick, I'm using IMAP and it's also gone on the server but people receive these messages apparently.
Technote: MailTags and Mail Act-On are installed.
Has anyone experience the same problem and manage to isolate the cause of it? Thanks in advance for your help.

I lost everything - inbox, sent, junk, trash - everything. And, one email newsletter I subscribe to sent an email (which eventually vanished) informing me that my subscription to the newsletter had been cancelled - but I didn't cancel it. I suspect that incoming emails, including the newsletter, were returned (or bounced) resulting in the cancellation.
This is a very serious issue Apple needs to address immediately. Mail 4.4 and MobileMe mail are affected, or infected, so now I've set all incoming emails to also be forwarded to a horrible Hotmail account I've had for years. That's the only way I get them.

Sent messages disappearing from Mail

I checked the threads. This has been a problem for some, but not me before that I remember, and I haven't come across a solution that works for me.
This morning I had an email message disappear after I tried to send it. Sometime later I heard the swoosh sound, and it's there in the sent mailbox, so I didn't think much about it. This evening, after taking much time to carefully compose a long detailed technical message to some actors and performers in a musical I'm producing, I clicked send, and the message disappeared. No draft, no sent, and no "swoosh". About a minute later, I heard a swoosh. But nothing else happened.
I'm about losing my **** right here. The most frustrating feeling ever.
Now, an hour later, still no message. I've checked everywhere I could think of. I looked in the mail folders in the Library. I found the email I sent prior to this. It's late at night, and I have no way of finding out whether it was received (somehow I doubt it), and now I'm worried some other critical messages I've sent out may have also vanished.
I depend on email for my work, and I've counted on mail to do the job for many years. It's always worked for me. Now this. I'd love to keep using mail, but I depend on my email for business, and I can't afford for this to ever happen again.
Has anyone else experienced this lately and has anyone else come up with a solution? Until I do, I'm taking special precautions such as manually copying the message as I go/revise and pasting/saving into text. I wish I didn't have to, but I obvioulsy can't count on mail.

Please see my post and how it was resolved:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1181356&tstart=0
When I had that issue, I tried using Apple Mail app and noticed that Sent Mails are getting lost. Try sending an email using WebMail. You might see similar "Permission Denied" error. Try restarting the server and see if the issue still exists.

Sent messages in apple mail

I have two email accounts. I managed to set up two inboxes. I set up two draft boxes and two trash boxes, one for each.
However, i can't seem to set up two Sent boxes
Is this possible??

Hmmm, wqhat if any messages to you get tryibg to maje the second Sent box?
Are you highlighting that econd ccount before trying it?

Sent message from Mac Mail work email shows my personal gmail account as Mail to: and account summary shows outgoing mail server as smtp.google while incoming shows imap.google

sent email from work through Mac Mail shows to the sender Mail to: (personal gmail). Account summary shows smtp.google on outgoing server and imap.google on incoming

Is there a way to add this automatically?
For a semi-permanent change, the Sending Server is named as "OutGoing Mail Server SMTP" on the Preference pane for each Mail Account.
To change its specifics, move the mouse cursor over it and choose "Edit SMTP Server List" from the drop-down Menu. Then choose the SMTP Server you wish to inspect/change and its information will be shown. If using similar ones for two different email accounts, change the description field, e.g., change "gmail" to "gmail (work)".

I made a mistake and deleleted all the sent messages in my mail box is there any way to get all the messages back?

and of course then i deleted everything that was in the trash before i understood that i made the wrong decision ... any way to get the messages back from Apple Servers?
Of course, it's not the real truth, the real story is that i made that on my wyfe's computer and i'm now in real trouble with her!

Unfortunately, I use Time Machine on my own computer (on my nas) but I never been succesfull trying to use Time Machine on the same Nas with my wife's computer ... so Time Machine is not the solution ... anyway that Apple could help? My life will be painfull for the next days !

AOL and mail some sent messages are not saved

I have been having a problem with sent messages using mac mail and my aol account. Occasionally the message will get hung up and will take a long time to send. The send progress bar fills up and the message is eventually sent, but it is not copies to my sent folder. This happens for about one out of every ten emails that I send.

Hello p:
Welcome to Apple discussions.
That is, I am relatively sure, an AOL server problem (happens to me occasionally).
You might try Open DNS (the free one) to see if it will address other possible problems.
http://www.opendns.com/start/
Barry

Mac mail not saving sent messages

I am using IMAP for my mac mail (since I work on several computers). I am on OSX 10.4.11 and mail 2.1.2.
The problem: None of my messages are being stored in the sent folder, even though in preferences it is enabled to do so. Also, when I hold my cursor over the sent folder a pop up message appears that reads "content stored on server. Name of server = INBOX/SENT". And yet, there are no messages on the server. I even looked through my control panel on my web host just to make sure.
Not being able to have a copy of sent messages makes mac mail virtually useless - I can't bcc myself on everything! I'm feeling desperate - anyone out there have any suggestions?

click the SENT folder on the server.. then go to MAILBOX > USE THIS MAIL BOX FOR SENT

Unable to read sent messages

OK. Another email question and I know this has been answered previously but I wasn't able to find it this time. My sent emails are reading as "The message from Sandra Xxxx has not been downloaded from the server. You need to take this account online in order to download it." I've actually deleted months worth of emails hoping this would open up some room in my sent box folder, but I still get the same message. Can you let me know how I can retrieve these sent messages?
Thanks. Sandra

What type of mail account is this (POP, IMAP, .Mac). If POP, you probably have the problem described in the following article:
Overstuffed mailbox is unexpectedly empty
As you can see, letting a mailbox grow indefinitely is a really bad idea. If you’re just starting to experience the problem, doing what the article suggests might work. If you’ve let the problem to become worse over time, however, it may be too late to solve it as described in the article, but you may still be able to fix it as follows:
1. Quit Mail if it’s running.
2. In the Finder, go to ~/Library/Mail/POP-username@mailserver/.
3. Locate Sent Messages.mbox and move it to the Desktop.
4. Open Mail. A new empty Sent Messages.mbox will automatically be created within the account folder, and this will allow you to continue using Mail normally while trying to solve the problem.
Although Sent Messages.mbox appears to be a file, it’s actually a special kind of folder (a package) that contains several files. Ctrl-click on Sent Messages.mbox and choose Show Package Contents from the contextual menu to see the files it contains. Of these files, mbox is the most important and is where all your messages are stored. What’s the size of that file? Depending on its size, you may or may not be able to directly import it back into Mail in the next step.
An Incoming_Mail file may also be present, in which case it might contain messages that Mail couldn’t transfer to mbox. Incoming_Mail is also a standard mbox file like mbox proper, just named differently, and can be imported back into Mail in the same way.
5. In Mail, do File > Import Mailboxes and follow the instructions to import the Sent Messages.mbox that’s on the Desktop. I’m not sure what the import options available in Mail 1.x are, but you should choose Other / Standard mbox or something like that, so that Mail looks at the mbox file only (and Incoming_Mail, if present) and ignores the other files in the package.
If Mail doesn’t let you select Sent Messages.mbox in step 5 because it’s a package instead of a plain folder, rename Sent Messages.mbox to just Sent Messages (i.e. remove the .mbox suffix) so that it becomes a normal folder, and try again. You cannot do this directly in the Finder because removing a suffix by normal means causes the Finder to hide the suffix instead of renaming the file. To remove the suffix from the name, you must do File > Get Info (⌘I) on the file and change the name there.
If the mbox file is too big for Mail to handle it, however, you’ll have to break it into smaller pieces. You can do that with an MBOX Breaker Script available at Allan Sampson’s website, or with Emailchemy. The former will ignore the Incoming_Mail file that I mentioned previously, but you may try importing that file directly if it’s not too big or just ignore it if all your messages are in mbox. Also, if you removed the .mbox suffix from the name of the mailbox, you may need to add it back again for the script to recognize it.
If all is well and you don’t miss anything, the files on the Desktop can be deleted, although you may want to keep them for a while, just in case.
Note: For those not familiarized with the ~/ notation, it refers to the user’s home folder. That is, ~/Library is the Library folder within the user’s home folder, i.e. /Users/username/Library.

Sent Messages mailbox crashes programme

Every time I click on my Sent Messages mailbox the Mail (1.1.1) programme crashes - can that be because it is too full? Is there any way I can get into the Mailbox in order to delete some emails? Or is there any other way of solving my problem? Would be grateful for any help.

Thanks.
This mailbox is in some very bad shape.
Copy the Sent Messages.mbox and place the copy in another location of your choosing such as your Documents folder for backup purposes.
Repeat Show Package Contents for the original Sent Messages.mbox on the Desktop and delete all package content files except for the following files and empty the Trash.
tableofcontents
mbox
Info.plist
With the Mail.app quit and using the Finder, go to Home > Library > Mail > Mailboxes.
Move the Sent Messages.mbox from the Desktop to and within the Mailboxes folder.
Launch Mail and this transferred mailbox will be available in the mailboxes drawer along with any other user created or imported mailboxes you may have.
Select this mailbox in the mailboxes drawer and the Mail.app will take additional time to re-index the mailbox.
If successful and when finished, all messages may appear as unread even though these are sent messages.
If so, select a message in the message list and at the menu bar, go to Edit > Select All. At the menu bar, go to Message > Mark and select As Read.
Use the Rebuild Mailbox function on this mailbox for good measure. With this mailbox selected in the mailboxes drawer, at the menu bar go to Mailbox and select Rebuild.
If this is successful and there are no missing messages, you can delete the copy of this Sent Messages.mbox placed in your Documents folder.

Cannot view SENT messages

Had this problem 2 yrs. ago and can't remenber what I did to resolve it. I can see who I sent e-mail messages to, but the message itself does appear any longer. Instead I get this:
"The message from Ben Shari <[email protected]> concerning “<Unknown subject>” has not been downloaded from the server. You need to take this account online in order to download it".
Anyone know what it means? I have a feeling it has to do with removing messages from the server which I have done (I think) in Mail Preferences but the support folks at Cogeco, my service provider couldn't be of much use when it comes to MACs
Any ideas please?

You’re welcome.
is there a way to save all messages in another folder before doing a rebuild?
If you’re referring to the messages that don’t show up properly, no. You must fix the problem first, then move the messages wherever you want. Actually, it looks like you’ve kept storing sent messages in that mailbox without having completely fixed the problem first, which is a really bad idea, as it can only make it more difficult to recover the missing messages.
Assuming this is a POP account, proceed as follows:
1. Quit Mail.
2. In the Finder, go to ~/Library/Mail/POP-username@mailserver/.
3. Locate Sent Messages.mbox and move it to the Desktop.
4. Although Sent Messages.mbox appears as a file, it’s actually a special kind of folder (a package) that contains several files. Ctrl-Click on Sent Messages.mbox and choose Show Package Contents from the contextual menu that appears. Report the size of the mbox file contained in the mailbox package. Depending on the size of this file, Mail may or may not be able to import it in step 6.
5. Open Mail. A new empty Sent Messages.mbox will automatically be created within the account folder, and this will let you continue using Mail normally.
6. Do File > Import Mailboxes and follow the instructions to import the Sent Messages.mbox that’s on the Desktop. I’m not sure what the import options available in Mail 1.3 are, but you should choose Other / Standard mbox or something like that, so that Mail looks at the mbox file only (and Incomning_Mail, if present) and ignores the other files in the package.
If Mail doesn’t let you select Sent Messages.mbox in step 5 because it’s a package instead of a plain folder, rename Sent Messages.mbox to just Sent Messages (i.e. remove the .mbox suffix) so that it becomes a normal folder, and try again.
Note: For those not familiarized with the ~/ notation, it refers to the user’s home folder, i.e. ~/Library is the Library folder within the user’s home folder.

How to get newly-added Sent messages to show up?

Somehow I lost all my Sent messages; don't really know whether I trashed them or they spontaneously disappeared.
But I had a recent hard disk backup, and tried copying my backed-up Sent messages to all of three locations:
~/Library/Mail/Mailboxes/Sent Messages.mbox
~/Library/Mail/[a POP server]/Sent Messages.mbox
~/Library/Mail/[another POP server]/Sent Messages.mbox
In no case upon subsequently launching Mail did they show up in Sent messages.
(If I actually send a new message, it goes into the third of the above locations.)
I even tried restoring all the other ancillary files straight from my backup:
Incoming_Mail
IncomingTable_ofContents
Info.plist
mbox
mbox.SKindex
Messages
tableofcontents
... but still no joy.
How do I restore my backup Sent messages?
(And why does this crap have to be so hard?!!)
Thanks!
PowerBook Pismo 500 Mac OS X (10.4.5)

George,
I am reviewing your very thorough listing of the contents of what appears to be the current Mail folder -- is this correct?
I am counting two POP folders, indicating two accounts -- is this what you expect, and have?
Based upon what I can see, you upgraded from Jaguar, directly to Tiger, in mid December 2005 -- is that correct?
The second of the two POP account folders, appears to not have had any activity (based of dates last modified) since late 2004 -- is this from a backup? Also, this second POP folder has never been converted to Tiger, consistent not only with dates, but there being no Messages folder.
In most xxxx.mbox folders, where there is both a mbox file, and a Messages folder, the comparison of size is favorable to all messages having been largely converted, successfully -- would you agree? However, some in the Mailboxes folder were not expanded, and I cannot be sure of those. These are three within a folder named Archive, so you would need to examine those.
The Sent Messages.mbox folder in the Mailboxes folder has NO message content, since its mbox is zero in size, and it has no Messages folder. The temp.mbox folder in the Mailboxes has a mbox file, whose size exceeds the size of the Messages folder -- would you have deleted some messages, after upgrading to Tiger, and that would explain its smaller size?
The first thing you should do, after quitting Mail, is to remove all files that are WITHIN any xxxx.mbox folder (including any within another such folder), of all files, EXCEPT the Info.plist, mbox, and Messages folder. Furthermore, for those where there is BOTH a mbox file and Messages folder, but the Messages folder size EXCEEDS the size of the mbox file, you can delete the mbox file, also.
If you really have a second POP file, and the one with 2004 dates last modified is only from backup, then you will keep the Info.plist file, and the mbox file in each mailbox, for now. It would be good to know if this is a currently valid account, however?
For those few, where the mbox size EXCEEDS the size of the Messages folder, I recommend copying those, and saving them on the Desktop. Then in the original, delete the mbox file, leaving ONLY the Info.plist file, and the Messages folder. Later you can decide if you think the old mbox files, of size, might have messages you still need to salvage -- we can work on that.
Now, at the root level of the Mail folder, delete the Envelope Index file. Launch Mail, and it will announce that it is ready to import your mailboxes. Allow this to continue, and it will only be reindexing those xxxx.mbox folder that have only a Messages folder, but for those with only a mbox file, it will be converting the message content, and creating a Messages folder -- again this only seemed to occur in the one, old POP account?
Later, you should look at those where conversion was needed, and if the Messages folder equals, or exceeds the size of the original mbox, then you can delete those mbox files.
I hope this is clear. It is not hard, but is very detailed work.
Ernie

Empty Sent Message File in Mail

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