Lost mail, spooky things happening, and more

Question

Some very strange things happening with Mail today. First, here is my set up. I have a Yahoo account. I have two computers, and iMac running 10.3.9 and a MBP core duo running 10.4.8. (No I did not update to 10.4.9 yet.) I have Mail set to check for messages every few minutes. As today went on, I got a dozen or so messges. Though, early in the day, I realized that for some reason I was not getting some messages on my iMac. And strange enough as that was, it seemed to be explained by the fact somehow, after downloading messages to my MBP, they were being deleted off of Yahoo, which my computers are NOT set to do. In fact, all 2000 or so messages I had stored on Yahoo are now gone.
Well, if that wasn't strange enough, I responded to two of the emails I got today using my MBP. Everything went like usual, but there was some evidence that Mail was acting strange. Like, when I opened it up, it took me to some random message in the middle of my 5000 or so saved messages. Like it didn't remember where I was before like it usually does. Not so significant, but certainly strange.
I quit Mail, and then reopened it. (still on my MBP) Well, now all of my messages from today were GONE. The two emails I responded to were gone and though I always have everything saved to my sent folder, there was no evidence that I ever sent these emails.
Something stragne is happening to my mail. Anybody have a clue what is going on here? Do I have a ghost? I know I did NOT delete those messages from today. I know for a fact they were on my MBP. I know that my Mail program is NOT set to delete messages off of Yahoo.
I know, there are a lot of variables, but something is up.
Thoughts?
Thank you,
Adam

Answer 1

In the Finder, go to ~/Library/Mail/ and check whether the missing messages are still there somewhere, just inaccessible for some reason. Also, have you tried searching for those messages in Spotligth?
Not sure what the situation is here, but if some of your messages have been deleted for some reason, they’re not on the server and you don’t have a backup, you may want to try to salvage as many deleted *.emlx files as possible with a data recovery tool such as Data Rescue II, TechTool Pro, or FileSalvage. Of these, the only one I know for sure that can currently recover deleted *.emlx files is FileSalvage. Stop using your computer right now if you want to try that, as anything you do with the computer may cause the deleted files to be overwritten.
That said, if messages are being removed from the server despite you having configured Mail to not do so, either the server is misbehaving or there is some corruption in Mail’s preferences file, which might also explain some of the other strange things you’ve observed.
Verify/repair the startup disk (not just permissions), as described here:
The Repair functions of Disk Utility: what's it all about?
After having fixed all filesystem issues, if any, and making sure that there’s enough space available on the startup disk (a few GB, plus the space needed to make a backup copy of the Mail folder), try this:
1. If you have a .Mac account and .Mac synchronization of Mail data is enabled either in Mail > Preferences > General or in System Preferences > .Mac, disable it before proceeding.
2. Quit Mail if it’s running.
3. Make a backup copy of the ~/Library/Mail folder, just in case something goes wrong while trying to solve the problem. You can do this in the Finder by dragging the folder to the Desktop while holding the Option (Alt) key down, for example. This is where all your mail is locally stored.
4. In the Finder, go to ~/Library/Preferences/. Locate com.apple.mail.plist and move it to the Desktop (to be deleted if this fixes the problem).
5. Open Mail. You’ll have to set up your non-.Mac accounts from scratch all over again. If given the option to import existing mailboxes or something like that, don’t. Just enter the account information and Mail will automagically rediscover the data in ~/Library/Mail/ when done.
6. You’ll have to re-configure most of your settings in Mail > Preferences. For spam-related security reasons, the first thing you should do is go to Preferences > Viewing and disable Display remote images in HTML messages if it’s enabled.
7. You may also need to re-install or re-enable any Mail plug-ins you have installed for Mail to recognize them.
8. As a side effect of re-creating com.apple.mail.plist, Mail might rename Outbox (which is where messages waiting to be sent are stored) to Delivered. The name of that mailbox is actually a misnomer, as it would contain messages (if any) that couldn’t be delivered for some reason. You can delete that mailbox if you wish.
9. If the problem is fixed now and .Mac synchronization of Mail data was enabled at the beginning, enable it again, go to System Preferences > .Mac > Advanced, click Reset Sync Data, and choose the appropriate options to reset the Mail data stored on the .Mac server with the data locally stored on the computer, i.e. sync data must flow from the computer to the .Mac server.
Note: For those not familiarized with the ~/ notation, it refers to the user’s home folder. You can easily locate any of the folders referred to in this post by copying the folder path here, doing Go > Go to Folder in the Finder, and pasting the folder path there.