Lost "sent" messages

I deleted my mail account and started a new mail account. How do I retrieve my "sent" messages from the account I deleted?

I don't think you can. Unless you have a webmail and keep a copi on the server

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Some sent mails do not appear/are not saved in "sent messages" and are lost

i work with mail and 4 different imap accounts. about every 15th sent email "gets lost". i.e. i can follow the sending process in the activity window, and i hear the sending confirmation tone. and, usually, the mails even reach the receiver. BUT, the mails do not appear/are not saved in the "sent messages" folder and are lost. this is very unsettling, as there seems to be no recognizable pattern. can anyone help, or should i change to "entourage"? big thanks for replies
Message was edited by: Bassolino

Hi Bassolino and David,
I, too, have had this intermittent issue and wonder if you had found a solution?
In the past 3 weeks, two messages have been sent from my mac mail account, using the mail application (the only apparent common factor being that both messages had iphoto attachments), the recipients have received them - only I do not have a copy in my 'sent' folder.
They are not stored on the macintosh server either...
I have not altered any settings and this intermittent issue has just emerged.
Any help from 'Top Users' would be welcome. Thanks.

TS3276 Lost messages in the sent messages folder?

Has anyone lost mobileme (icloud) messages in the sent messages folder?

FYI, my husbands email on the same iPad does not do this. [email protected]

Lost all my Sent Messages / How can I find them?

I lost all my Sent Messages and I need them very much!! How can I recover them?
CRISMADRI

Hello and Welcome to Apple Discussions ...
Are you using Mac Mail or internet based like Yahoo or GMail?
If it's Mac Mail, with the Mail application open, from the Menu Bar click Mail/Preferences/Accounts/Mailbox Behaviors. You will see Drafts, Sent, Junk and Trash. Where it says Sent, do you have the button selected where it says: Store sent messages on the server. ???
This from the Mac Mail Help Viewer:
I can't find email messages stored on the mail server
If you have an IMAP email account and you set the account preferences to store copies of messages (draft, sent, junk, or trash) on the IMAP mail server, you might experience situations in which your messages are not stored where you expected.
When Mail attempts to store messages on the server, it looks for specific mailboxes, by name, in which to put the messages. If Mail doesn't find those mailboxes on the server, it tries to create them. If Mail can't create them on the server, it can't store the messages. For example, Mail looks on the server for a mailbox called Sent Messages in which to put the sent messages. If Mail can't find a Sent Messages mailbox on the server, it tries to create one. If it cannot, it doesn't save copies of messages you send. You might be able to address this issue if there is another mailbox on the IMAP server (for example, Sent Items) that contains the messages you're looking for. You can have Mail use that mailbox to store its sent messages. To do so, select that mailbox (listed under the account's name and icon) in the Mail viewer window, choose Mailbox > Use This Mailbox For and then choose Drafts, Junk, Sent, or Trash, as applicable. You can select any mailbox on your IMAP server to use to store draft, sent, junk, or deleted messages.
If you change the account preferences to no longer store copies of messages on the mail server, you'll see that messages aren't where they used to be. To use sent messages as an example: If you were saving sent messages on the server and then change your settings to save those messages on your computer, the Sent mailbox will change to contain only messages stored on your computer; messages that were stored on the server will no longer appear in that mailbox. Instead, you'll see those messages are now located under the account's name and icon at the bottom of the list of mailboxes, in a mailbox called Sent Messages. Similarly, if you change from saving sent messages on your computer to saving them on the server, the Sent Messages mailbox will change to contain only messages stored on the server. You'll now see the messages that were saved on your computer in a mailbox called Sent Messages, followed by the account name in parentheses, such as Sent Messages (.Mac Account).
Carolyn

After upgrading to iOS 5 I have lost all my sent messages'all my deleted messages have returned ,2 of which I also can't delete!

After upgrading to ios5 all my sent messages disappeared,my deleted messages returned,a couple of which I also cannot delete!Anyone any ideas?I am thinking I should have stayed with ios4,as ios5 seems to be pitched at iPad 2 users.

Thanks for the clarification. Yes, I do access my email from 2 different sources.
FYI, I use the POP mailserver as I need most of the information to be loaded onto my PC while on a plane / not connected to the interenet.
The primary use of mail on my iPhone is to be available as much as possible - even when I'm away from my office.
Thanks again for your help. I'll start deleting them in segments of 100.......

Some sent messages lost in Apple Mail

I have a new Macbook Pro early 2015 running Yosemite and use Apple Mail.
I am surprised at how slow outgoing messages are to send, regardless of whether I'm on a fast or slow wifi network, regardless of whether the message has rich content.
More troubling is that once in a while, and I think its for particularly long sends, the sent message never appears in my Sent box.
Rebuilding doesn't restore them.
This is on an imap server. It doesn't use a Path prefix, uses Port 993 and SSL is selected.
Can anyone help? I need to keep my sent messages for reference. I saw an older post like this from 2007 but was never listed as resolved.

BTW, you posted in the Lion forum instead of Yosemite. For best results post in Yosemite the next time.
We need to determine if this is a Spotlight issue or a problem in Mail. It would be helpful to know what type IMAP? iCloud, Gmail, Yahoo, Outlook.com or other.
If you search in Spotlight in the Finder (top right in menu bar) for the message subject does it show up? If yes, can you find the message in Mail search?
HOW TO RE-INDEX YOUR SPOTLIGHT CACHE FILES
Option 1)
From the Apple menu, choose System Preferences.
* Click Spotlight.
* Make sure Mail & Messages is checked under the Search Results tab.
* Click the Privacy tab.
* Drag your drive to the list. Wait a couple of minutes.
* Remove the item you added.
* Spotlight will re-index the contents of the item you initially dragged to the list.
Option 2)
Follow the steps here.
Use OS X Recovery Disk Assistant to reset Your files and folder permissions
When you restart Spotlight will reindex your entire drive.
Option 3)
Copy the text below and open Terminal (in /Application/Utilities). Paste the code into the Terminal window at the prompt.
sudo mdutil -E /
You will be asked for your administrator password (and if you've never used the sudo command you'll need to accept the warning presented). When you type your password, it will look like nothing is being typed. That's normal. Once you've typed your administrator password, press Return.
This will completely remove the Spotlight index and force a new one to be created. Probably not necessary, but I would immediately quit Terminal and restart your Mac.
SUMMARY:
Depending on your Mac and the contents of it's hard disk, re-indexing may take several hours. Doing this overnight is a good option if you have a large drive.
You can tell if it's still in progress by simply looking at the Spotlight menu: There's a blinking dot in the middle of the magnifying glass while indexing is occurring. You can also open Activity Monitor in Applications/Utilities and type in md in the search filter. You should see mdworker32 and mdworker. mdworker32 is the Microsoft Outlook Spotlight index and mdworker is for system.
Until this process is finished, Spotlight won’t know the contents of your disks and neither will Mail.

Make Sent messages go to different folder??

How do I get a sent message to automatically go to a particular folder other than the Sent folder?

I don't think you can. However, you could set up Mail Prefs to automatically BCC yourself, then make a rule that said "if sender=you, then move message to such-and-such folder". The shortcoming of this approach is that if you have other BCC recipients besides yourself, that information, which would normally be visible in messages in the sent folder, would be lost. However, if you know how to do apple scripting, when that message arrived, rather than move it, maybe you could launch an apple script that moved any messages in the sent folder to such-and-such folder (which would be occurring only one at a time).

Mail update and lost inbox messages

I am new to Macs. When I opened my Macbook today it automatically started an update to Mail. when it was done my settings for my ISP changed (eliminated my account settings and all that's there now is .Mac which I signed up for as a curiosity but don't use) deleted my inbox, deleted my sent messages and seems to have left all my other message alone.
Is this a virus? How do I get my lost message back? I don't see any references to a mail software update when I do Google searches. As much as I dislike Outliook I have to say I've never experienced anything like this and I'm concerned. I may be at fault since I just used the Mail software and didn't spend a lot of time researching it. Did I do something wrong or is there something else wrong?
macbook Mac OS X (10.4.8)

What’s the capacity and space available on your startup disk? Take a look at the comments about disk space in the following article, in case they apply to you:
Problems from insufficient RAM and free hard disk space
Even if there is enough space available on the startup disk, for some reason that remains a mystery to me, Mail sometimes “thinks” it must discard the current ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.mail.plist preferences file and create a new one. As a result, all your non-.Mac account settings (but not the messages themselves), which are stored in that file, are lost.
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), quit Mail if it’s running, and make a backup copy of the ~/Library/Mail folder, e.g. by dragging it to the Desktop while holding the Option (Alt) key down, just in case something else goes wrong while trying to solve the problem. This is where all your mail is stored.
You have three options now:
(1) Restore com.apple.mail.plist from a backup if you have one. Mail shouldn’t be running while you do this.
(2) Set up your non-.Mac accounts in Mail 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. You’ll also 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.
(3) Mail may have renamed the old preferences file to com.apple.mail.plist.saved. If that’s the case, you may try moving the new com.apple.mail.plist out of ~/Library/Preferences/ (e.g. to the Desktop) and rename the old com.apple.mail.plist.saved back to com.apple.mail.plist. Again, be sure Mail isn’t running while doing this. Since Mail decided to discard it, I would expect this file to be corrupt (I don’t understand why would Mail discard it and create a new one otherwise), but apparently that often is not the case and the settings can indeed be restored by just renaming the file.
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

"Sent Messages" folder not receiving new sent mails after a server change

My provider just moved my account to another server. The IMAP accounts needed to be re-established on my wife's PC in her program. So we know the files are all there on the new server.
Funny thing is that it's not working on Mail on my iBook. And when these changes took place, my sidebar contents in Mail changed on me. I have sent some mail to various places since this happened, but none of these new mails have copies which are saved in my "Sent Items" or "Sent Messages" folders. So I have no record now of anything new since the change happened. I DO have copies of mail in there that are pre-change.
I checked my preferences for mailbox behaviors, and the "Store Sent Items on the Server" is checked, so I'm not sure what's up.
For the record I'm running OS X 10.4.7 and Mail 2.1.
I have deleted and re-established my two email accounts in Mail in order to make them re-establish new links with the server, so I'm seeing my folders, but no new mail sent is showing up in my Sent Messages folder.
I would appreciate if anyone knows if there could be an issue with Mail, my new host's servers, or what. It looks like a Mail issue to me, since my wife's PC is reading everything fine (and she is running Thunderbird as her client).
Thanks!
iBook G4 Mac OS X (10.4.7)
iBook G4 Mac OS X (10.4.6)
iBook G4 Mac OS X (10.4.7)

You're welcome.
I don't think it's your fault. Different IMAP servers use different naming conventions, and the Mailbox > Use This Mailbox For command is meant to let you tell Mail which folder should be used for what purpose, but you shouldn't have to use it just to prevent your mail from being lost. At the very least, Mail should be able to use its own default Sent Messages folder without you having to do anything. I don't know why Mail fails to do this properly so often.
Worse yet, not only does Mail sometimes fail to use the Sent Messages folder that's already there, but it doesn't even warn you that it's failing to save your sent messages as you've told it to.

Sent messages not saved in sent mailbox

Lately some iCloud sent messages are not saved in the sent mailbox. this is an intermitant problem. sometimes msgs go to the outbox even though mail is on line; when they are eventually sent sometimes they do not make it to the sent mailbox. I call the recipient and the msg has actually been received. The lost messages do not appear in iCloud. Rebuild does not help. any suggestions?

Tks for your answer. I have a .Mac account and in already try in Preferences-Accounts- and I only see three tabs: " Account Information ", " Mailboxes Behaivor " and " Advanced ". I don´t see the " Special Mailboxes " tab that you mention and I have also read about it. In Mailboxes Behaivor I can choose the option " Store sent messages on the server " and the Delete sent messages option is in " Never". If I choose not to Store sent messages on the server, nothing seems to happen. I hope you can help me with this information and I want to thank you again

Upgraded icloud storage and lost sent emails

I upgraded the storage on my iCloud account yesterday and now all of my sent messages from my main email account have vanished. Does anyone have this problem. I also have 3 other email accounts and all of the sent messages from those accounts are still present. I have lost over 13k sent emails that are for my business. HELP!!!!

Log into appleid.apple.com and verify that both the email addresses you use do not show up there in the same account. My worry is that you might be mistaking a login alias ([email protected]) as a separate account which it might be one in the same. Either way, if you are having issues downgrading your storage you will need to contact Apple for more assistance.
Contact Apple Support: http://support.apple.com/kb/he57

Sent messages are sometimes not saved

Hello,
This is a follow up to this thread, which was never answered and is now archived:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2213207
In Mail.app, using IMAP, my sent messages are sometimes not saved. I'd say about 1 in 20 never appear in my Sent folder. The recipients always receive these messages, so it's not a delivery problem. I just don't retain a copy of them. This is very frustrating if I send a cost estimate to a client, or a detailed description of a technical problem that I need to refer back to later.
I've rebuilt my mailboxes and I've checked my IMAP folders on the server via a webmail interface, and the messages are not there.
Has anyone else experienced this? It's hard to believe I'm the only one, but it's hard to search for this problem because my search results are always full of people who have lost or can't save -any- of their sent messages. My problem is intermittent and random.
Thanks,
-Arlo

I have a similar occasional problem with an IMAP account using a Comcast Business Class Exchange server. I use Mail and my iPhone to access the account; I'm running OS X 10.6.4 on my laptop but my "sent messages" issue predates the latest release.
The first time I noticed this issue I thought, "I'll just access my mail via the Comcast web portal. It'll be in the 'sent' folder there." No dice. The "sent" messages simply never stay on the server, yet my recipients get them.
It's distressing. First, the solution would appear to be a switch to a MS mail client, which I swore off years ago. Second, I rely on having a "sent" message as a record. I switched off IDLE per your suggestion, Ernie, but otherwise I'm in the same boat as the others here. Please keep this thread alive. I'm hopeful that this can be resolved.

Updated iPhone Software to vers 2.0. Now "Sent" messages & folder are gone

*Just downloaded (40 mins) & installed iPhone Software version 2.0.*
Contacts/Phone/Bookmarks/Music Library/Picts are all OK. _PROBLEM IS I've lost all my Sent Email messages and Sent Folder for each mail account and no longer have access to any messages sent from my iPhone_. It's ironic because during iPhone 2.0 update, there was a message about backing up mail/contacts/picts et al. After update & firmware update, iTunes restored info to my iPhone, but all sent messages are gone. Everything else appears to be OK.
*Does anyone have any idea how i can retrieve them.* (Seems if they were backed up to iTunes, that it should be possible to restore the same information).
[I turned off "Push" by navigating on the iPhone:SETTINGS>FETCH NEW DATA>PUSH- "off". Since turning PUSH off, new sent messages (i.e. after 2.0 upgrade) appear in sent folder, but older sent messages are still missing in action.
Your thoughts & comments are greatly appreciated!
Geoff

This may be odd... responding to my own posting, but for anyone with similar issue, I just spoke with the people at "1-800-myiphone".
Result: "Sent Messages, and Sent Message Folder are both temporary, and are not part of itunes/iphone syncing or backup features".
To restore the prior Sent Messages that existed in the earlier iphone software version 1.14 is impossible as messages are not stored on AT&T's servers, and iTunes does not sync "sent messages." The only work-around to re-populate missing sent messages is for the recipients of those messages to forward messages back from their computer, not their iphones, (Remember iPhone strips attachments from forwarded messages, therefore recipients who have iphones must 'forward back message from their computer only).
After migrating to iphone software version 2.0, it is a really good idea to do a "Bcc:" (Blind Carbon Copy) to onself on all future messages. That way messages will arrive in your 'inbox' which can be synced and restored via iTunes software.
In short, I think Apple is using a technical glitch in it's software update to coerce users to use the "MobileMe" service that Pushes and syncs messages to an iPhone and the user's other computers.
Hope this posting is helpful to others.
Sincerely,
Geoff

Change 'Sent' Messages folder?

How do u change the folder in Mail.app?
I'm having a problem across two computers and @me: between my desktop and @me the Sent mail is synchronized, but between my laptop and @me and me desktop it isn't. I checked the folder names for my sent mail and see the following:
Desktop-> 'Name on Server: Sent Messages'
@me-> 'Save Sent Messages to 'Sent'
Laptop-> 'Name on Server: Sent Messages (mac)'
So it seems that 'Sent Messages' = 'Sent'.
The question is how, do I change it on my laptop in Mail.app? In @me->Mail->Prefs-> I can see a list box which will let me adjust between 'Sent' and 'Sent Messages (mac)' but I don't see this same option in Mail.app
tia.

You're welcome.
I don't think it's your fault. Different IMAP servers use different naming conventions, and the Mailbox > Use This Mailbox For command is meant to let you tell Mail which folder should be used for what purpose, but you shouldn't have to use it just to prevent your mail from being lost. At the very least, Mail should be able to use its own default Sent Messages folder without you having to do anything. I don't know why Mail fails to do this properly so often.
Worse yet, not only does Mail sometimes fail to use the Sent Messages folder that's already there, but it doesn't even warn you that it's failing to save your sent messages as you've told it to.

Lost "sent" messages

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