Mac mail automatically deletes messages from two weeks prior

I'm using Mac Mail on 10.6.8 - snow leopard. I use this program for my work emails and mail will automatically delete messages in my Inbox that are two weeks old. The email account is IMAP. I have looked in the "Account Preferences/ Advanced" and can not find a setting to correct this. What am I missing?

Are you sure it's Mail that's doing this? It could be on the other end (the server end).
Mac Mail has a preference for "Remove copy from server after retrieving a message", but there's no choice for 2 weeks, so I doubt that's it.

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Mail App deleting messages from .Mac server

Hi
I haven't seen this issue on this board. Let me know if I'm wrong.
This is on the interaction between my .Mac email account and the Mail Application. I have two email accounts set up.
I have 2 computers and keep my mail on one, so I kept my previous (Eudora) mail apps set to "leave mail on server" on the other.
I don't see a setting for this for my .Mac email account in Mail.app. When I check my mail with the Mail.app recently, on the computer where I don't keep my mail, it is deleting the mail from the .Mac account. I don't think it did this before. The mail is no longer on .Mac when I check via a browser.
My earthlink pop account seems to be working fine.
Any suggestions would be most appreciated
Quicksilver G4 Mac OS X (10.4.6)

Whether it's correct or not depends on the
circumstances under which mail is removed from the
server. If it's because it's being moved out of the
account Inbox and into "On My Mac" custom
mailboxes, then yes, it's correct.
For IMAP-type accounts, mail on account mailboxes are
stored on the server instead of locally (you can
configure this behavior for mailboxes other than
Inbox in Preferences > Accounts > Mailbox
Behaviors). Whatever you do to that mail you're
doing it to the mail stored on the server. If you
tell Mail to move a message out of Inbox,
that's what Mail does, it moves the message out of
Inbox at the server.
Thanks -- so if I understand this properly, the mail is stored on the inbox on the server, but if I have a rule that moves it to a mailbox that I created locally (imported from Eudora, for example) it moves it from the server to my local mailbox *not leaving a copy on the server*. I have lots of mailboxes that I use to sort the mail and rules to route messages. So to correct this issue I should disable the rules if I don't want the mail moved off the server and into a local mailbox.
Many thanks for your help and patience
Quicksilver G4 Mac OS X (10.4.6)

Mail 4.2 Automatically Deleting Messages from Inbox/Sent after 30 Days

Running Mail 4.2 and four POP accounts - I've looked everywhere in Preferences but there is nothing that indicates why Mail should be deleting my Inbox and Sent messages over 30 days old. This just started and it has always let me view my messages back well over a year. The messages that I've moved to mailboxes I've created are all intact, just the Inbox/Sent.
This is not good because I've kept a lot of messages in there I've wanted to keep. I'm running Time Machine and it's no use -- the messages don't exist there either. Any thoughts?
I suppose I could run a script each day to move Inbox/Sent messages to a "Hold" mailbox but that seems like a ridiculous work-around. Thanks! Greg

I usually either delete them after I've answered them, or move them to an appropriate mailbox I've created - I have at least 15 - to keep (some indefinitely). I try to keep my inbox and sent box reasonably clean - the only messages there are current/unanswered/waiting for action.
I used to have a few problems with messages disappearing quite some time ago and could not figure it out until I finally changed my settings on the Comcast web mail preferences - they are now set to be deleted after 30 daywhich is fine for me. My Mail preferences are set to remove messages from server after one week - but they are not; as I learned, the Comcast settings override the Mail settings.
It's a long shot, but you might want to change the settings on your Comcast web mail not to delete messages until 90 days later - changing my settings took care of my local Mail problem.

Yahoo e-mail automatically deletes after a few weeks

Why does my yahoo
e-mail automatically disappear after a few weeks

Welcome to Apple Discussions.
Many e-mail clients have an" automagically empty" the timer on them... in Mail it can be accessed from Preferences->Accounts:Mailbox Behaviors you can have timers on sent, junk and deleted items folders.

Mac Mail Always Removing Messages from Hotmail

I have a Hotmail account that dates back to 2005 and I have recently bought a new Macbook Pro and Mountain Lion. It took about 2 days to download all my messages into Mail.
The problem is that my Mail started to get delayed coming through and then stop occasionaly with a Port 995 error.
If I check the activity window I can see the potential problem but I don't know how to solve it:
The activity window says 'Fetching new mail' and underneath this it says 'Removing message x of 43,583' (x being the message number being removed)
I use my laptop pretty much all day, but somewhere along the line the process restarts and so it never finishes to remove the messages and this is obviously holding up the server.
Would anyone have a solution to this?
Thanks

Having monitored the situation, it appears to be a software issue. There is in infinite loop with removing messages from the server. I found it completes the removal and then begins again holding up the server.
Every time it completes the 'removal' my new messages are downloaded. After this the 'removal process' beings again in the activity window!

Problem with Mac Mail not Deleteing Mail

Mac Mail no longer deletes a message from the host server once it is downloaded even though the option to delete once the mail is downloaded is ticked in the account prefernce area.
Has anyone else come across this problem and have a solution?

Have changed the account preference in Mac mail to "delete message once it is removed from inbox" this deletes the message on the ISP's server.

When deleting a user created folder from On My Mac in Mac Mail the sent messages that are part of conversations that reside there are not deleted, only the received mail gets deleted.

When deleting a user created folder from On My Mac in Mac Mail the sent messages that are part of conversations that reside there are not deleted, only the received mail gets deleted. Any way for both the received and sent mail that resides there to be deleted?
I create a lot of project folders where i keep all my conversations regarding the project. Once the project is finished i would like to just delete the folder and get rid of all the emails associated with it but when i delete the folder i've noticed that only received messages are deleted. Now I am stuck trying to sort through my sent folder for messages that were returned there after the conversations was supposedly deleted.

Mail/Preferences/Viewing - un-check include related messages, delete the folder, then go back and reset yo include.

Mail:Cannot erase messages from Deleted Messages folder located on my mac

Hi,
I recently ran a script to discover that I have hundreds of thousands of messages sitting in the Deleted Messages folder located on my mac. I tried to erase them but no luck, no error messages of any kind but the messages are still there. Can anyone help with me with this as these unwanted messages are taking up a lot of space. I have run a disk verify just to check permissions etc and all is ok.
Many thanks

Hi,
Many thanks for you reply. Yes it looked like the deleted messages from an old exchange account I had had were sitting in a folder on my mac and this was visible in the sidebar. However it was not simply called deleted messages it was named deleted messages (xxx xxx) where xxx xxxx was the name of the old mailbox. So when I went to mailbox to erase deleted messages this folder was not picked up. So I moved everything in the folder to the trash folder (took a long time) and then selected the option to erase trash on quitting. It took hours and hours when I quit mail but I left it running overnight and now the folder is empty and mail is functioning ok. Thanks again for your help

How to stop iOS7 Mail from deleting messages from server?

Recently I started using an iPhone 5S after over four years with an iPod Touch. The Mail app on the iPhone deletes messages from my server. I do not want it to do this, I cannot find the option to turn off in Settings, and the iOS Mail help page at Apple Support is for an older OS version. Insight and advice would be appreciated. Thanks.

I think I figured out a workaround at least. It appears that the "Power Nap" feature is doing the mail checking. Although the concise descriptions of Power Nap say it "allows your Mac to do things like periodically check for new mail, calendar, and other iCloud updates" (http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5394?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US), it apparently doesn't just allow these actions, it does them -- regardless of your mail settings. I suspect this is a bug.
Turning off Power Nap (in the Energy Saver panel in System Preferences) stopped the unwanted mail fetching, but unfortunately that also means that I don't get the benefit of the other activities it does, like Spotlight indexing. There are two places to turn it off, one for the "Battery" tab and one for the "Power Adapter" tab.
Since Power Nap was introduced with Mountain Lion, but I never had the problem until Mavericks, I assume that either (1) Power Nap was off by default in Mountain Lion but is on by default in Mavericks, or (2) this is another of several Mail problems introduced by Mavericks.

Mail is not downloading messages from two accounts but the messages are in the server.

Hello, I'm having this problem. Mail is not downloading messages from two accounts. I don't know why but there're two accounts working so bad. If I click with the right button on the account and click to see the account details, I can see the messages on the server but not in inbox. I made a sync with this account and my iphone and then the iphone downlad the messages with out problems. Not my imac at work or my imac at home... what can be wrong?
Thanks.

For Gmail, this is normal, there is nothing you can do about it -- just type Mail AND Gmail in the search box to see threads discussing how Gmail works.
As for the other accounts, this shouldn't happen. I wonder if what you're seeing is just that Mail is ignoring this setting for mail that was already on the server when you started using it. I've seen something like this happen when playing with that setting, e.g. changing it from "After one day" to "After one week". Mail would just ignore messages that fell in the timeframe where the two settings could interfere and I didn't notice it until some time later, when Mail "forgot" those messages had already been downloaded and, being faced with them again, dutifully downloaded them as if they were all new.
I believe that, if you leave the setting however you wish and stop playing with it, then Mail shall correctly process any mail that arrives from now on. In order to manually delete old messages that Mail seems to be ignoring, you can invoke the Account Info window (this is probably what you meant when you said "I can delete messages individually"; if that's not the case and want more info on this, just ask).

"Command-i" which was so useful in being able to selectively delete messages from the servers no longer works. Is their a replacement? Will it be fixed? Or should I change my mail application?

"Command-i" which was so useful for selectively deleting messages from servers has disappeared in Maverick. I wonder if it has been replaced by something else or should I look into other mail applications.

Hmmm. Which Mail program are you referring to?
in Mac Mail command -i used to bring up the Account info pane on the server (10.8.5)
Now it seems you have to use the gear at the bottom in "Mail Activity" to get the drop down (10.9) :

"Delete messages from server" Mail iPhone 5

Hi, I am trying to locate "delete messages from server" option in Mail Settings on iPhone 5 and can't find it. In iPhone 4 it was just in the Advanced settings but it is not there in iPhone 5. Help please? Thanks

Not sure who your email provider is. Mine is hotmail. When you set up email with hotmail on an iPhone 4 the delete from server never is available. I just got an iPhone 5, i reset up my hot mail account and can't find that setting either. I set it up by using the hotmail button not "other" so meaning delete your hotmail account from your phone. Then re set it up. But when you do add email account, don't use the button that says hotmail. Use the bottom choice that says "other". I have no idea why this is different but if you do this it will set up hotmail just the same. But now that setting is there. The "delete from server" and you set it to "never". Now when you delete the emails from your hot mail account on the iPhone, it leaves that email on the hotmail server. So when you look at email on the computer it's there still. It's good this way if you share email with someone.

How to delete message from the fodler of AOL account using Java mail

Hello All,
I am using Java MAil API in my application, i want to delete message from AOL account's folder,
when i set the folder as "Recently Deleted" or "Trash" , i get an exception as "folder does not exist".
when i tested , some times mail is moving into Recently Deleted folder, but not every time.
this is happening in both the interface as AOl Interface or my application.
when i use folder.close(true) after setting the flag of message as DELETED. it completely remove the message from the acount.
but i want to let the message be remained in the Recently Deleted folder. what should i do.
i dont want to remove the message completely from the account.I am using IMAP also.

You'll need to figure out what the real name of the "Recently Deleted" folder is on the AOL IMAP server
(assuming it's a real folder and not some sort of "virtual" folder), then copy the message into that folder.
See the folderlist.java demo program as a way to explore the names of all the folders on the server.

Keeping emails in mail but deleting them from .mac account?

My mobile phone wants to download the entire .mac mailbox whenever I check my mail - is the answer then to empty the .mac mailbox everyday? I once did this and lost all the emails in Mail on my computer. I'd like to keep them on the computer, but is this possible?

Hello, and welcome to the Discussions.
Exactly how you use your Powerbook and phone is the key to arriving at the best way to do this. If you do not have your Mac connected at all times, or at least when needing to use the phone to check email, then you can set up your .mac account as a POP account, rather than .mac, and then remove messages from the server whenever you first download them onto your computer.
A .mac account, like an IMAP account (it really is just an IMAP account) has its Inbox, and usually its Sent mailbox residing on the server, whereas a POP account has the Inbox, Sent, etc residing on your hard drive. While you can leave messages on the server, when using POP access, so as to download to other computers, the original concept of POP was to download and remove.
The Mail Application has all the needed selections for instructing the server to keep or remove messages after download, when the account is set up as POP.
The other choice is to create a New Mailbox, which will be on your Mac, and then move messages from the .mac Inbox to this new mailbox, and thus remove them from the Inbox, which should take them off the server.
More info, please.
Ernie

HT1277 How do I make Mail remove junk/deleted messages from the server? The only option tht works for me now is the "Remove from server" button at Account Info Messages on server.

How do I make Mail remove junk/deleted messages from the server? The only option tht works for me now is the "Remove from server" button at Account Info > Messages on server. What am I doing wrong?

Mail > Preferences… > Accounts > Advanced > Remove copy from server after retrieving a message

Mac mail automatically deletes messages from two weeks prior

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