Lost mail folders

I have recently changed internet providers and because of this i have lost a significant number of my mail folders I've organised emails into. Some come up, but only with half the emails i have saved. Others are not coming up at all, and i now see random folders I've never made. When i search for these missing folders in the search panel some show up but i can't access them.
Please Help!!!

Okay this is really weird but they just showed up again under On My Mac. I rebooted twice, don't know if this had anything to do with it. I am just glad I did not lose anything important.

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Just installed new OS (mavericks) and lost mail folders. any advice?

I had set up several mail folders. When I installed the new Mavericks OS they all disappeared. Left with Inbox, Sent, Drafts, Trash and Junk. Is there a way of recovering the lost folders? Some very important info in them.

I had set up several mail folders. When I installed the new Mavericks OS they all disappeared. Left with Inbox, Sent, Drafts, Trash and Junk. Is there a way of recovering the lost folders? Some very important info in them.

HELP - Lost Mail Folders - Any way to recover?

All of my custom email folders have disappeared. This is tragic, as my last backup was several months ago (yes yes... I know this is my own fault). After reading around online here, I see that the Preferences file can get corrupted if hard drive space is low. I am guessing that this is my problem, since I had Photoshop running at the same time, and only 6gig free on my 80gig drive, and remember a pop-up window appearing in Photoshop saying that my hard drive space was low.
This being the case -- just because a preference file gets deleted/messed-up, does this mean that there is NO way to recover those messages? What happened to those original files of mine that held those messages? I must have had 30 folders, and all of them are zapped from my hard drive? Not in the trash, not in the POP folders in my Library, not anywhere when I do a Find for their name. I just don't understand how they could disappear completely, and isn't there a chance that there is some recoverable data somewhere on my drive??
I also don't understand why my Junk Mail, Sent Mail and InBox mail was NOT deleted. Only the folders that I had created to file my messages. And I didn't have to re-setup my accounts or do anything like that.
Thanks in advance for any advice that anybody might be able to share.
G4 Titanium Powerbook Mac OS X (10.4.4) Mail 2.0.5

Hi all. I sure appreciate everybody's suggestions and feedback. Even though ultimately things have not worked out for me, I have a renewed faith in the Apple community as a whole -- which counts for something.
I'll try to sum up what happened for me. First, my mail folders/mbox files were nowhere to be found on my computer (either by looking in that specific heirarchy or by doing a Find for their names). Also, I did not delete any accounts at the time of the problem. I DID delete a folder from within Mail that showed up at the top of my Mail list, named "/" and which contained a single folder named "library" (I think?) which contained a single folder named "mail" or something to that effect. Basically, several folders nested within each other, with the bottom folder being caled "INBOX" (written like that) and containing mail that I had not seen before. I selected all, dragged it to my real InBox, and then deleted the top-level folder from Mail's list (named "/"). It was shortly thereafter that I lost all of my mail folders. I've never seen a mailbox folder just add itself to the list like that -- has anybody else? And then combine that with the fact that I was running a huge Photoshop file and had maxed out my hard drive's empty space as PS used it up for memory... So basically it evidently all set up a situation that caused corruption on a huge level, and caused me to lose every custom mailbox that I had defined, but not my InBox, Drafts, Sent Mail or Junk. (Luckily my Junk mail was saved, eh? How lucky for me. ha ha)
With the advice of folks here and at the Apple store and on the phone with data-saving software reps, I tried Disk Utility to first repair permissions and then fix the disk. It did find a few things on both tests, and I did repair them -- but Mail still wouldn't pull up those folders. I also ran TechTool and Data Rescue II on my drive (TAKING HOURS AND HOURS) -- but no luck.
Nobody ever seemed to think I would have much luck, but I had to give it a shot, since losing all of that mail was going to be hard for me.
And so this afternoon, I have come to the conclusion that my situation is hopeless, and I need to get back the use of my Powerbook (I have huge deadlines that I'm really behind on now, because of all of this down-time having software check my drive).
The lesson here, boys and girls, is to not take lightly the significance of hard drive space -- and to not only backup your most important files (like I did)... but to also back up your mail folder regularly... as well as any other quirky little things that might not seem obvious, but which if were eliminated from your life, would make you sad.
So thanks again to all who posted their suggestions -- it was worth my effort to give everything a shot, even though unfortunately there was not a happy ending.

Lost Mail Folders, after 10.4.7?

Just noticed I have missing Apple Mail folders. Is there a known problem with OS 10.4.7 and Mail?

Hi Mike -
You wrote - "Suppose it's too late to know now, but were the 'missing' folders still on your HD, under ~/Library/Mail/ - that could have be remedied by rebuilding the mailbox."
I'm suffering a similar problem, with Mail being set back to Default settings. As my mailboxes are still where you suggest they should be, how can I get things back to normal?....... James
15" 1.67Ghz 1 Gb Powerbook PPC G4 Mac OS X (10.4.7) 15" Titanium 550 Mhz 512Mb Powerbook

Lost profile and all mail folders after mac crash

disaster! my mac crashed. when i restarted and opened thunderbird, i was prompted to create an account. ii spent a lot of time on mozilla support--determined that my address book was in tact and tried several things according to other posts including moving the profile. nothing worked. i finally set up a new account, hoping to import the old folders. but now its a mess. i cannot find anything that resembles the old folders, i dont have a back up (i know), and im in over my head.
does anyone have suggestions of how untangle this. or know of support available in nyc. the folders contain years of business emails--i would happily hire someone at this point.

If you are being asked to create a new account you have lost your profile not just the mail folders. Read this article on how to attempt to recover it.
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Recovering_a_profile_that_suddenly_disappeared

I have Yahoo mail provider but just lost my folders in Mac Mail program. The folders were not "On my Mac" but on "Yahoo". How do I get them back again?

I have Yahoo mail provider but just lost my folders in Mac Mail program. The folders were not "On my Mac" but on "Yahoo". How do I get them back again? I have reinstalled MacMail as everything had disappeared. The new install has given me everything except the Yahoo folders. When I looked one of the folders had reappeared, but now it has gone again. I am using Yosemite.
Desperate to find those folders with so much data involved.

Thanks for that babowa. If I add my Yahoo account it just goes straight to MacMail and says I already have an account. There seems to be no basic problem with mails going between Macmail and Yahoo. It is just the folders that have disappeared, while MacMail was out of action. I don't think those particular folders were ever on the Yahoo mail that I access through BT, they were just on the MacMail under "Yahoo" as opposed to "On my Mac". I am worried in case I lose what I already have if I press "Restore" from my back up. As you can see, I am not exactly good at this!

Have lost all my mail folders on Thunderbird, how do i get them back?

I lost my second search window for Thunderbird Mail so went to VIEW, TOOLBARS and selected all three options - MAIL, STATUS and QUICK FILTER. I got my search window back that enables me to search my emails for messages from a specific person. However, I then lost all of my folders (mailboxes) in my inbox - everything from A to Z bar two folders titled ALFIE and APPLE MAC EMAILS.
These folders contain everything email like from my clients that is relevant to my business. Each folder is a client name and each contains any number of emails and replies.
I clicked the REPAIR FOLDER option in order to try and do exactly that, repair the folders but so far that only appears to have been applied to the emails in my inbox, the ones that have not yet been filed in the individual folders.
I moved to Thunderbird because I was told it was a safe and easy to use system but I am struggling with this aspect of it.
Any help gratefully received!

No anti virus software running as far as I am aware, as in I didn't launch any before reinstating the search email function.
I was running a folder repair function on my inbox (which seemed to complete successfully for the emails in the inbox) when I noticed the majority of the mail folders had disappeared.

Does anyone know how to retrieve lost mailbox folders and their contents in mail?

Does anyone know how to retrieve lost mailbox folders and their contents in mail?

It might be that you selected "Delete sent mail after a mont (or a week, or whatever)" in Mail Preferences. iCloud account is IMAP, so it won't keep mail in your HD. I have that problem.

I lost mail smart folders on iMac after delete them on Mac Air

I lost mail smart folders on iMac after delete them on Mac Air with differents mail accounts.
I don't undestand, I have email accounts totally differents between iMac and Mac Air, I don't know if is an iCloud issue.
When I open Mail on Air I see a lot of smart folders I use on iMac and I thinked of a some old sync mismatch, so I deleted smart folders on Air.
Today when I turn on my iMac I see I lost ol my smart folders, but are differents computers, differents email accounts, one used for work the other at home (gmail).
Of course I have time machine backup but don't know how to restore smart folders.
Please help me, I don't want smart folders be synced beetween differents accounts
I attach my iCloud settings...

I don't know the answer to your question, but smart folders do not actaually contain messages, just links to messages from other folders. So nothing has actually been lost. Once you recreate the smart folders, you'll see the same mail inside them that you did before.
Matt

Big Mistake, I upgraded to OS X Mavericks this morning and now I have lost all my e-mail folders where I was saving important e-mails. I did a mailbox rebuild and it did not bring them back. Should not have upgraded?

Big Mistake, I upgraded to OS X Mavericks this morning and now I have lost all my e-mail folders where I was saving important e-mails. I did a mailbox rebuild and it did not bring them back. Should not have upgraded?

I do not remember what version of OS it was. I have carbonite back up but I am not sure it backed up my e-mail.

Lost mails while moving mail folders

I was reorganising my mails into mail folders and suddenly I lost all mails (many folders are empty).
In the specific I created a new folder called "projects new" in which I tried to put in all the folders and subfolders contained in an old "projects" folder. Something went worng as the programme was not able to copy the mails and their folders and subfolders. The result is that all folders I tried to move into the new folders are still there but empty.
Any advice?
Thansk luciano

First duplicate the entire Mail folder for backup purposes (~/Library/Mail)
Now choose each mailbox one by one and do a Rebuild from the Mailbox menu

Lost Mail sub-folders recovery help

A mysterious transparent folder was listed in my mail folders list. Nothing in it, just a number of folders within folders. I can't say exactly what they were named as I deleted it, and that's what caused the problem... The top folder was just called "/" the sub-folders my username; and POPsomething; junk(?) etc.
Below my inbox were numerous folders that I have created to file all my mail. Upon deleting the transparant folder ALL these sub folders and their contents have disappeared. Arrrgh!
Now I do have weekly back-up of my home>library>mail folder. If I simply replace the folder with my backed up version I presume I'll lose the mails that I've received and filed in the last few days. I also presume that if I import my inBox from the folder it won't restore all my folders and their contents...
Any ideas of the best way of dealing with this problem?
Thanks in advance

If you use import - the mailboxes that you choose to import will appear in Mail inside a folder named 'Imported'. You can then move the messages to appropriate mailboxes/folders.... & indeed move the imported folders to the main list, where they were before the problem started.
Thus you can keep your received/sent mail from the last few days and access the ones you backed up. For your main inbox & sent folders - I'd move the messages from the import to their correct location.
Given what's happened - before doing this you should back-up the current mail folder and ; in case things go wrong. Then if the worst happens you'll still have everything you need to get Mail working properly without loss of data. Perhaps make more frequent backups for a few days until you're certain the dust has settled.

Lost mail. Useless Backup

Hi everybody. I hope my english is good enough to make my point with this
Yesterday I found out that all my mail in the Inbox was gone. I don´t know how. However I had I backup and I use it to restore my lost mail. But when I opened Mail the next time, it syncked my computer mail withe the "lost" mail from the .mac server.
How am I supposed to get my lost mail back if it syncs the empty inbox from my .mac account??
I tried to usu the sync panel from the .mac preference panel, but i got the same result...
Any suggestion?

Hola Pablo!
How did you setup your .Mac account? Unless you chose POP as the account type, your mail isn't really stored locally, but on the server instead, so your backup might have no real content.
That said, if your settings in Preferences > Advanced for "Keep copies of messages for offline viewing" were "All messages and their attachments", Mail would have saved local copies of your mail on the server, and chances are that we might be able to salvage it. Try this:
1. Quit Mail.
2. Restore your mail data from the backup.
3. Shut down your Internet connection to prevent Mail from synchronizing with the server.
4. Launch Mail and see whether your mail is available while offline. If it is, create one or more custom mailbox folders (be sure to choose On My Mac as their location, not the .Mac server), and move all your mail from the .Mac mailboxes into the On My Mac mailboxes.
Sijmons: Although I often request crash reports to properly identify problems, they become available only as a result of a true crash (i.e. Mail quits unexpectedly). AFAIK, freezes and force quitting do not generate such reports -- and that makes them harder to troubleshoot.

Lost mail after upgrading to Mountain Lion

Hi, new to this forum, but I upgraded to Mountain Lion from the previous version and seem to have lost the last six months mail (Mar 2012 to the date I upgraded in Nov 2012). I have found all the old mail folders, notes, etc, and imported them based on directions from other threads, but this period still remains lost for incoming and outgoing mail. I was not backing up to iCloud and it seems that the back ups I had been doing manually were not picking up recent mail. Does anyone have any other suggestions? I have not found this mail anywhere on my hard drive and can't understand why only this period of time is missing. Any help greatly appreciated. Thanks.

There is a response here:
https://discussions.apple.com/message/19975076#19975076
Hope this helps.

Lost mail in lion and air book

My 4 month old Mac Air started to freeze intermittently. Having been told at Tech Support "oh they do that", I went to the Genius Bar, passed all the hardware tests, and agreed to a wipe and restore of lion, secure in the knowledge I had backed everything up before going.
It transpires however, that no mail on this Mac Air has been backed up. I can only restore from the backups I have from my previous Macbook.
Which means that all the mail on this new computer has been lost, which is a pain to say the least, but how do I make sure I am backing up my mail from now on?
Any ideas?
Thank you

Thanks, we're getting closer.
I am only at this stage setting up accounts, rules, prefs etc in Mail (being a Eudora user hitherto) so couldn't use the setup assistant option when installing Lion
I am currently sometimes in Lion, sometimes in SL, so simply transfering the Mail folder later does not help now. Looking at the two Mail folders they seem to be structured differently. In SL everything is at same level. Under Lion, the Mail folder has a subfolder V2 containing most the settings and a separate folder for Lost and Found items.
I have just tried making alias to V2, naming it as Mail and putting in the SL Library, and that seems to work. But that doesn't give access to the Mail Lost+Found folder. I suppose I can live without that if all it contains are old settings.

Lost mail folders

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