Help w/ IMAP (sent mail lost)

Hi,
Since switching to IMAP several weeks ago, my Mail app has been very flaky. Some, but not all of my emails never arrive at their destination, and I get no errors either. Also, my 'sent' mail folder sometimes will show mail I've sent, and then it disappears.
From reading on this board, some people mention that the 'sent' mail folder on the server needs to have the same name as the one in Mail.
Well, how do I change that? Mail won't let me change the name of the main 'Sent' folder. Down below on the sidebar, there is another group of folders for each account that has IMAP. There is a 'Sent' folder there too, and I can change the name of it -- but I can't change it to the name that is actually on my server's web mail, which is 'Sent Mail'.
What is going on? Can someone explain to me how this works? I am sick of people never getting my mails and me not knowing it.
Thanks
Bob

I have no idea about the Mail not going as thats unlikely to be a Mail issue but more likely a hosting problem. try sending mail to yourself and also look at the Activity and Connection Doctor windows for clues.
As to the Sent Mail location, I don't know about the advice but my IMAP account has two folders - one called Sent and another called Sent Items. I have no idea what determines when it uses them but mail sent from the mail programme sometimes appears in one or the other.
If you can't find any mail, check you haven't got two similar folders.
Strangely, if I send mail, and check on my iPhone, it appears in yet another IMAP folder called sent which mysteriously empties itself into the other two every time the Mail program opens - until then it stays there on the iPhone.
Go figure ...

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IMAP sent mail help

Hello,
Can somebody help me understand what IMAP is doing with my sent mail? I switched over to IMAP from POP a month or two ago, and things still aren't really right.
I'm trying to get it so that I see the same inbox and 'sent' mail lists from my computer at work, at home, and on the iphone. The inbox seems OK, but sent mail is really not.
On my computer here at work, in Mac mail, there is the 'Sent' group at the top with the paper airplane icon. Then at the bottom there is another group called [email protected], which is the email address in question. Within that group is a 'Sent' folder and a 'Sent Messages' folder.
The messages in all three of these folders are different. Also, when I login to my ISP's webmail for this account, it has a 'Sent mail' folder--those messages match the ones in 'Sent' under '[email protected]' on the mac.
Then there's the phone -- the account settings allow me to set the 'Sent' box to various folders 'On the Server'. There's 'Sent', 'Sent Messages' and 'Sent Mail'. But within the mail app itself, there are TWO folders called 'Sent' -- one with an airplane and one as a folder. There's also a folder called 'Sent Mail'. But no 'Sent Messages'. AAAAAAAAAGH
wft is going on. I just want them to be all the same, one sent mail folder, is that possible? What do I need to do? I don't want to screw it up and lose years of old sent messages either.
Thanks very much for anyone who can make this a little clearer for me.
Bob

Your ISP's webmail is putting your sent mail in the folder called "sent mail." You have Apple Mail on your desktop set to put mail that has been sent into a folder labeled "sent." So you have 2 folders on your server, "sent mail" and "sent." Since you can change the folder on your mac and probably can't change the folder choice for webmail, change the folder for mail that has been sent by Apple Mail from "sent" to "sent mail." Or, track both on your desktop.
If you are just starting out on IMAP, unless you are using canned IMAP such as Gmail, Apple has never figured out how to do IMAP right. I am going back to Thunderbird, which though a bit geeky, handles IMAP much better. Check my old posts if you want to hear some recent Apple Mail horror stories.

Can't Sync IMAP Sent Mail on E72 and other issues!

Has anybody any idea why Nokia felt it a good idea to release a phone with a mail client, that supports IMAP, but DOESN'T sync your sent mail? It is such a ridiculous omition that I am lost for words. I actually recommended the E71 to our IT department a few years ago but the mail client was so poor, we ended up getting 15 phones and 15 Profimail licences. The IT department have asked me to recommend the next phone as the E71 was a big hit and I asked them to get me this E72 to test. It is with great reluctance that I am going to try the iphone instead and recommend that as I believe the mail client on it is very good and the E72's is totally hopeless unless you go through the Nokia Messaging server, which obviously a corporate isn't going too. Before I knee jerk though, has anyone else had this issue and found a way around it?
Also, the predictive text is shocking now, the web browser is so buggy and closes without warning due to memory issues all the time.
Oh, the optical control pad is dreadful and totally useless and the select key also doesn't work in off-line mode, so the E72 is useless on a plane.
Nice to see that Nokia took the very good E71, played with it, broke it, made it far worse and buggy, stuck a new case on then released it as the E72. I remember the days that a Nokia phone worked from the minute you bought it, but now with firmware updates Nokia feel they can release half baked phones by the dozen, monthly. Pathetic.
Oh, and this is the latest firmware, too!
And one other thing, OVI Suite, PC Suite and the umpteen other applications that all do useful things....can Nokia not just release one main PC support app that works and has ALL the features under one roof? I have to installed them all on my PC as well as loads of other sync and office apps on the phone (like OVI Files) just to do the obvious things that you use a modern smartphone for.
Nokia, there is a very obvious reason why you are losing market share at the moment, and it isn't because people trust Google or like DRM and fruit pictures on their phones. Get a grip will you?
If anyone can help primarily with the Sent Mail sync issue in Nokia Email (without suggesting I route all my mail through Nokia's unreliable servers and divulge all my passwords), I would be very Grateful Indeed.

I had a number of problems setting up Google Apps with my phone. Mail, Calendar and Tasks were not syncing.
Mail
Ok here is the solution to your sent mails problem. I have spent far too long setting up google apps to sync properly with my new E72 (latest software installed). It really is a superb phone but if Nokia is not going to fully support integration with Google Apps with a simple app then Android and Blackberry will simply take over for Apps users. It really isn't up to Google to solve this its up to Nokia. Are you going to move from Google Apps or change your phone????
I have gmail and business google apps accounts and both are now syncing properly with what seems to be pretty good Nokia email software on the phone. This is allowing me to receive, send, view attachments, view sent mail etc. Here are the steps I took from the beginning.
1. Enable IMAP for the google accounts. Couldn't get anything to work otherwise.
2. Follow this instruction https://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=78887
3. Your inbox should now be working however you now need to map the folders you want to see on your mobile. While at your inbox go to >settings>mailbox settings>what to sync>folder subscriptions.
4. Click on Gmail and highlight the folders you want to see
5. Go back to your inbox and go to the dragdown list of folders and highlight 'More Folders'. Under 'Gmail' you will find your sent items along with attachments etc. Problem solved. Its not a pretty solution but at this stage like me you just want something that works.
Calendar
This was a nightmare and I am now running a third party app called Googasync which is working fine. In 10 days time I will need to buy this so if someone knows how to setup calendar syncing properly without it please let me know.
Tasks
Googasync will not sync Tasks and I don't know if there is any app out there that will. If someone can help please let me know. Surely this should be pretty simple!?!?!
By the way I mailed Nokia support last Thursday on the above but have not received a reply.
In summary its a great phone and I've moved from a Blackerry Bold to it but I shouldn't be spending days finding workarounds!!

Sent mail lost because of Quota

Hi,
Is there a way to retrieve sent mail from a imap account that was not stored on the server becuase of a over quota.
Client is running 10.6.2 server is also running 10.6.2.

Never saw this, but check Mail>Preferences>Accounts>Mailbox behaviors & see if Sent: Erase messages is set to never.
Might try to make a Smart Mailbox that only includes From: = [email protected]

Gmail IMAP Sent Mail folder missing in Mac Mail

I made a change in Mac Mail by using the Mailbox/Use this mailbox for Sent Mail menu item on the [Gmail] Sent Mail folder and the original
[Gmail] Sent Mail folder has vanished. It still appears in the Gmail web interface and is checked on to show up in IMAP, but it doesn't appear in Mac Mail. Sent messages to appear in the Mac Mail snet folder, which is fine but I want to [Gmail] Sent Mail folder back. I tried turning the "show in IMAP" setting in Gmail on and off and it works for other folders, but not for the "Sent Mail" folder. I also tried restoring an older copy of the com.apple.mail.plist file but that didn't work either. Any ideas how to get it back? Pop is turned off as well.

It seems this is the desired behavior in Mail, as I don't need the [Gmail] folders to appear since the mail is all in the Mac Mail folders.
Of course, this might all break again when I upgrade to Mavericks :-(

Sent mail lost

I reverted to 10.6.1 after having problems upgrading to 10.6.2 with Adobe and Microsoft apps (slow/beach ball). I did it by restoring from the latest 10.6.1 Time Machine back up. Everything worked fine, except there were some sent emails in Mail that disappeared. All the pre-upgrade email (about 3 days worth) duplicates came in, but the Sent mailbox is empty and none of those came in. No recent sent mails are on the server's webmail. Is there any way to retrieve recent sent mail?

If Mail put the message in Sent, that means the outgoing (SMTP) server told Mail that the message would be delivered. If the message never reached its destination, it could be because the SMTP server didn’t fulfill its promise or because the message was filtered out by either the recipient’s incoming mail server or the recipient’s mail client for some (probably spam-related) reason.
There is no way to determine whether a message you sent was received other than asking the recipient.
Check that your System Preferences > Date & Time settings are correct. An invalid timestamp in the message headers could be the reason one of the servers involved is rejecting those messages.

Error: Can't Save Message also Sent Mail Lost - IMAP

I'm having a problem with one of my IMAP accounts(several mailboxes from the same server) where when I am composing a message...about 2 minutes into writing the message an error pops up saying the message cannot be saved. I hit ok, send message then the sent message is not saved. I've been troubleshooting this problem. It only occurs in the Mac Mail.app with this particular server. The messages are saved when I send them from the server's webmail application and when I use Thunderbird. These are mailboxes associated with my website...so my buisness partner is having the same problem with his account and Mac Mail. Any and all help is greatly appreciated. I've searched this forum and tried several "solutions" including rebuilding the mailbox.
This is really annoying and making it difficult to do buisness.
Thanks folks!

I'm having a problem with one of my IMAP
accounts(several mailboxes from the same server)
where when I am composing a message...about 2 minutes
into writing the message an error pops up saying the
message cannot be saved. I hit ok, send message then
the sent message is not saved. I've been
troubleshooting this problem. It only occurs in the
Mac Mail.app with this particular server. The
messages are saved when I send them from the server's
webmail application and when I use Thunderbird.
Had exactly the same darn problem!
Google helped! :-)))
Enjoy a working system!
http://revoltltd.org/support/helpcenter/howto/applemailimap
Fix Draft, Sent, Trash IMAP Folders In Apple Mail
This How-to describes how to configure Apple Mail to use appropriate folders on the IMAP server for storing Sent and Draft emails.
Apple Mail requires users to set up which folders on the IMAP server should be used for the "Sent", "Drafts", and "Trash" mailboxes.
If a user doesn't set these up they will be unable to see their sent or deleted messages and will get an error message when saving drafts of emails.
To manually assign which folders on the server will be assigned to the Sent, Trash, and Drafts folders, follow these steps for each mailbox name:
1. Click on the IMAP folder in the mailbox drawer
2. Select the menu item "Mailbox-->Use This Mailbox For-->(choose the mailbox name)".
Mac OS X (10.4.7)

Sent mail lost. Not in sent, not in draft, not in outbox!

Hi,
I use IMAP with a gmail account.
I find myself a few times sending e-mails and a few minutes later I check that the mail has not been sent, and it's not in draft either. There is no outbox either, not even showing an outbox. When I check activity down to the left I see "Incoming messages 10 from 23" (or any number) kind of halted, at 0 kb/s... then I need to close mail and open mail again, but my sent messages have been lost!
Then I go to Gmail and the mails are not there. Lost.
This happened a few times, not too much. But that thing of incoming messages halted at 0kb happens EVERY DAY. If I go to Gmail I have a few new e-mails, but my mail is halted. Any thoughts???
Thanks

I am having the identical problem w/ Mail on a 10.5.2 system using IMAP
It has happened twice that I know of- mails reached the recipients but do not exist anywhere else- i have grepped all of the files on the server as well, so they are definitely not getting saved.
our mail setup is bincimap 1.2.13, vpopmail 5.4.24, qmail 1.03
really disturbing

Mail - Yahoo IMAP sent mail not appearing

Hi all,
I've been trying to troubleshoot this without much success. I've an iphone and a MBP running Lion. I've several Yahoo and Gmail accounts, and they are all set up as IMAP accounts.
Receiving and viewing messages are fine. However, if I were to send an email using one of the Yahoo accounts via Mail on the MBP, it gets sent successfully, but that email does not appear within the 'server' sent mailbox, nor within my iPhone mail app. Gmail seems to work fine.
I've highlighted each relevant 'sent' mailbox on my mac and set it to 'Use this mailbox' within the Mailbox menu, but it has not made a difference.
Any ideas on how to resolve this?
Much appreciated.
Thanks!
Alvin

Sending is done via SMTP. What happened here is that SMTP accepted the mails for sending (thus, the mail client put them in the sent folder). From that moment on, SMTP needs to actually deliver mails to the recipient(s). Until this has happened, mails stay in the mail queue of your mail server.
You did not mention if the mails got eventually delivered, so here is a list of some possible reasons for late delivery or non-delivery:
-Receiving mail server does not respond
-Connectivity issues
-amavisd not running
-Mail got flagged as spam (non-delivery). This would happen if you are trying to send mail from a blacklisted IP (like dynamic IPs) and your mail server is not configured to bypass spam scans for authenticated users.
HTH,
Alex

Help missing important sent mails

just sent 3 critical messages and non e show up in sent.
how can i make sure dont lose critical emails. mac mail does this but myfree emial doesnt ever lose it . i htought paid email was better? what can i do?
i cant afford to lose emails!

my clock had lost time and filed mac mail messages in wrong time. so they were there .found them by accident after saw clcok on computer was changed. now fixed clock all is well again.

Sent mail - Yahoo mail

Help please - my sent mail has completely disappeared apart from the last 3 days of sent mail. I have not deleted or changed any settings. Thats 5 years of sent mail completely gone. Is there any way of getting it back?? What could have happened?

OUTLOOK ?
Please refrain from using profanity !! <--- Joke
Ok.. I haven't used webmail in eleventy million years but something my missus just did in our email client might be a clue. She accidently clicked Unread messages and wondered why there was now only 3 emails in the inbox instead of 100. So I logged into webmail to see if that option was there and lo and behold... it is.
You didn't accidently click the same option perchance ?
I had to sned myself a test email to get one in the sent folder !!
An MSCE in computing is like having a McDonalds Certification in World Cuisine, pointless.

Help! Migrated from POP to IMAP - Lost Sent Mail!

Hello all,
OK, I messed up. It happens to us all, once in a blue moon (even if I knew better to back up BEFORE I tried something new, and it had been 3 months).
I've been using the Mail App with my Gmail accessed through POP Mail since 2005.
Today, I wanted to make a switch from the Mail app checking my Gmail account with POP to checking it with IMAP. It's the same Gmail account that I previously retrieved with POP, but now wanted to access through IMAP (better syncing ability through multiple machines).
I created a new IMAP account in the Mail Preferences.
I had meant to disable the POP account, but instead...I DELETED THE POP GMAIL ACCOUNT! This stupid accidental mistake has me kicking myself!
As a result, all of my sent mails are gone. My Inbox is synced up like it was before, but NOT my Sent Mail.
The last time I backed up was 3 months ago - so I could retrieve 5 years (minus last 3 months) worth of sent emails.
I've checked my Library / Mail Settings, and the Pop Gmail account is no longer there. That file, that has all my sent mail data, is not in the Trash - it's nowhere to be found.
I can find the file that has all my sent mail on a backup drive. (A .mbox file found in Library / Mail.) Since I have not backed up recently, I'm losing 3 months worth of sent emails.
Any help in retrieving it would be appreciated.
thanks,
Mike

Mike,
Gmail, which is not true POP, captures a copy for the Sent on the server if you use their SMTP -- smtp.gmail.com. To see those messages captured that way requires web mail access and will not be seen by any other email client accessing as POP. I know this to be true, for I tested it when I once used POP with Gmail.
In general your comment is true for POP, as I well know.
Ernie

Saving sent mail to a different IMAP folder?

I'm in the process of consolidating several IMAP accounts into one, in the hopes of improving Mail.app's performance (most notably by decreasing the number of mailboxes that make up my unified inbox).
Overall it should work but there's a problem: I want to be able to continue sending mail from multiple email addresses, saving each sent message to my single account's sent mail folder on the IMAP server. I'm not sure how to do this. I can set up several "dummy" POP accounts to allow sending from multiple addresses, but then the sent mail is just saved locally. I can keep multiple IMAP accounts and turn off automatic checking, but then I'm still checking all those mailboxes when I look in my unified inbox or sent mail folder.
The simplest approach would simply be a way to define several "from" addresses in Mail.app and send them all through the same account...but I don't see any way to do this.
Any ideas? Thanks.

The question is, are you trying to solve an actual problem that you have? If you're experiencing performance issues, it could be that there is something wrong with the index, which you can re-create as follows:
1. Quit Mail.
2. In the Finder, go to ~/Library/Mail/. Make a backup copy of this folder, just in case something goes wrong -- e.g. by dragging it to the Desktop while holding the Option (Alt) key down.
3. Locate Envelope Index and move it to the Trash. If you see an Envelope Index-journal file there, delete it as well.
4. Move any "IMAP-", "Mac-", or "Exchange-" account folders to the Trash. Note that you can do this with IMAP-type accounts because they store mail on the server and Mail can easily re-create them. DON'T trash any "POP-" account folders, as that would cause all mail stored there to be lost.
5. Open Mail. It will tell you that your mail needs to be "imported". Click Continue and Mail will proceed to re-create Envelope Index -- Mail says it's "importing", but it just re-creates the index if the mailboxes are already in Mail 2.x format.
6. As a side effect of having removed the IMAP account folders, those accounts may be in an "offline" state now. Do Mailbox > Go Online to bring them back online.
Also, go to System Preferences > Network > Show: Network Port Configurations, and make sure that the configuration used to connect to Internet appears at the top of the list.
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.

Unable to view my BCC recipients in Sent Mail - please help!

I used BCC when sending mail to our alumni group (over 1000 members) about a month ago. I need to view the list of recipients in those e-mails from the BCC field - the problem is in my mail app I cannot view the BCC list for some reason in my sent mail folder.
- using latest version of leopard
- using IMAP
- can view to: and cc: but not bcc:
- tried to add bcc field to sent mail but it was grayed out.
Please help!

select that send message and go to view menu->message->raw source. see if the bcc is recorded there. if not that info was not saved and there is no way to get it now.

Can't save drafts, doesn't save sent mail thru imap account

I learned what an imap account was when I signed up for my .Mac account. I like the idea of sent mail being saved on the server and shared to all my computers. It saves duplication of effort between the two of us working here. So, I've recently had my web guy switch my old POP account to an imap account. But there's problems.
Whenever I begin composing an email to be sent through my new imap account, I get a message that says, "This email cannot be saved." I can compose and send the email through that account, I just can't save it to my draft folder. When I hit the "Save as Draft" button, it seems to try to save. The "Save as Draft" button goes gray for a couple of seconds but, afterward, I can't find any trace of a saved draft. There's not even a Draft "mailbox" or subfolder under the main "Drafts" heading. Also, once the letter is sent, it doesn't show up in a sent mail folder, I suppose because, again, there isn't a sent mail subfolder for that account.
My web guy showed me how in his Thunderbird mail preferences he's asked to choose a folder in which his drafts and sent mail will be saved. I can't find a question like that in the Mac Mail preferences. Even if I were asked where I want the mails to be saved, those folders would have to be on the imap server for the contents to be shared between computers, right?
Two side notes, there is an inbox for this imap account, just no "Sent" or "Draft" folders and second, I'm on OS X 10.4.10, Mac Mail Version 2.1 (752/752.2).
Anyway, does anyone have any idea what's going on and how it can be fixed?
TIA,
Peter

Yes! Brilliant! When I followed the first half of your instruction (this account requires INBOX to be typed in Preferences, etc.) the imap server did indeed create the draft folder and when I sent the email it created a sent mail folder. Just what I wanted! Thank you. I'm so grateful!
OK, now a couple more questions based on things that seem to have started happening as a result of following the first instruction.
Now, instead of not saving drafts, it's saving two, three or four. Just as an experiment, I tried writing a letter to be sent through Mac.com. As I wrote the letter a draft appeared in the proper draft folder. When I changed the subject or added a recipient, that draft was amended to reflect my changes. In the new imap draft folder a new draft was added each time I made a change. They all went away once I sent the message so I see that as a small problem.
Second, since I saw the draft and sent mail folders appear, the inbox for that account is acting oddly. The little whirling icon that appears when incoming messages are being checked shows up as expected next to each box (subfolder). In the case of the account where the changes were made, the whirling icon freezes and does not display the number of new messages until I actually click on that subfolder. One other little issue that might be related; mail that appears in the new imap inbox doesn't always appear in the overall inbox (atop all the subfolder inboxes). If I click on that inbox subfolder, the mail will appear.
Third question/comment, the second half of your email suggested that if I succeeded in getting email to "save messages on the server, but maybe in a mailbox different from where you want them to be. To fix that, select the desired folder in Mail and choose the appropriate option from Mailbox > Use This Mailbox For. " Although it seems to be saving in the right folders I looked at the "Use this mailbox for" command and the choices are grayed out no matter which mailbox I choose, whether it's a subfolder mailbox, a main mailbox or a mailbox folder I've created. I don't care but I'm curious. Is that odd?
Thanks so much for your help so far! This is just great!!!
Peter

Help w/ IMAP (sent mail lost)

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