Mail Preferences and lost Messages

Had an issue after a software update: finder constantly relaunches. Tried, PRAM zap, reinstall sys, removing com.apple.finder.plist preference. Nothing worked.
Then I relocated my entire preference file. Now the problem is gone, it was some preference, I do not know which one.
Now I have to set up some programs again, or swap in the prefs from the old folder. The problem is that I have no mail boxes on my mac in mail. All of my messages from the years, catagorized into folders, are gone.
Looks like the first time I every opened mail. I have original prefs folder and all its contents, however if I swap the old prefs back into the lib, most prefs return on restart, however there is still nothing in mail and the finder relaunching error resumes.
Where did my mail go? Did new preferences for mail overwrite my entire mail archive? How can I find them? Where did they go?
Unfortunately I have been meaning to back them up ever since I lost the last backup. Too many good numbers in my emails, user names, passwords, activation codes, directions to Eden. I want them back!
Ideas?

No real help from me I'm afraid but just had a call from my brother who was just lost all his mail setting and messages, mail is appears as if it was started for the first time. His Mail folders in the Library have his pop and mac account folders but no contents.
Have you checked if the messages are in your library? (Home > Library > Mail)

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The Mail application has suddenly started giving error:
"Verify that you have addressed this message correctly. Check your SMTP server settings in Mail preferences and verify any advanced settings with your system administrator.Select a different outgoing mail server from the list"
It was working fine till yesterday, suddenly it stopped. I have 3 email accounts configured here, 2 are on exchange servers and one yahoo. Connection verification works and shows all servers as green.
Any inputs?

I had 3 accounts, 2 ms exchange accounts and 1 yahoo. After removal of yahoo, everything is back to normal.
Regards
Rohit

Mac Mail Issue: I was having trouble sending to hotmail accounts from my Earthlink account, they had me go into Mac Mail preferences and make changes, now Mac Mail doesn't work AT ALL - any help changing the settings back to correct Mac Mail settings? I c

I was having trouble sending to hotmail accounts from my Earthlink account, they had me go into Mac Mail preferences and make changes (because they claimed it was Mac Mail's fault, even though the hotmail error code said it's because Earthlink is blocked by hotmail), now Mac Mail doesn't work AT ALL - any help changing the settings back to correct Mac Mail settings? I can provide a transcript of the entire tech chat session, if that will help...

both apostrophes are used correctly, thanks
doesn't = does not (this is called a contraction)
it's = it is
Mac Mail's fault = possessive
any help with the actual issue? thanks!

I am using outlook express for my mail. When using internet explorer on PC I could set it up so I could simultaneously see all my inboxes, the mail details and a message preview. Can I do this on my Mac?

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HT5361 how do I keep the classic look ? I go to mail preferences and click the button but when I launch mail again it is still in the list view which I hate. Anyone know ?

how do I keep the classic look ? I go to mail preferences and click the button but when I launch mail again it is still in the list view which I hate. Anyone know ?

The first thing to try if a setting does not "keep" is a PRAM reset.
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1379
Change the setting to what you want, then PRAM reset on restart:
Shut down your Mac.
Locate the following keys on the keyboard: Command (⌘), Option, P, and R. You will need to hold these keys down simultaneously in step 4.
Turn on the computer.
Press and hold the Command-Option-P-R keys before the gray screen appears.
Hold the keys down until the computer restarts and you hear the startup sound for the second time.
Release the keys.

HELP!!! Mail preferences and toolbar HELP!!! PLEASE!

I am trying to change my font size to default to a lerger size. I looked in email help, and it said to go to mail preferences, and select font & color, There is no Font & Color in my email preferences! Also whenever I shut down my Mac, my email icon dissapears from my tool bar, How do I get it to stay?

Hello, and welcome to the Discussions.
I think you have your Toolbar hidden. The simplest way to show the Toolbar, is to click on the small, white, pill-shaped button at the top right of the Mail Preference pane -- do you see this?
For the issue of the Mail Icon, do you mean the Dock, rather than the Toolbar? If you mean Dock, have you ever removed the Mail Icon from the Dock? If, once you have launched Mail, and it is in the Dock, Conrol-click over that Icon, and choose Keep in Dock from the resulting contextual menu.
More info, please.
Ernie

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.

I clicked on a new mail notification and lost my work on the email I was writing.

I'm submitting this already solved because I just about freaked out and may have lost my work for real:
On my iPhone 4S with iOS 7.1.2 I opened the Mail app and browsed to the Drafts folder on my Gmail account. I opened a draft and had written a page or two when I received a mail notification banner. I clicked it and was taken to the incoming mail message. Realizing I hadn't "saved" my draft in any way, I quickly went back to the Drafts folder and opened it up. To my dismay, the draft was as if I had not written those two pages! By God's grace I chose to press "Cancel". I pulled down on the list of drafts to refresh with the server, and opened it again. Voila! All my work was back.
Apparently when I clicked the notification, iOS saved my draft to the Gmail server, but when I went back to my Drafts folder, it opened a cached copy. I'm guessing that if I'd edited the cached copy and saved it, the one on the server would have been overwritten.
I hope this helps somebody.
God bless.

Hi, this has worked for a few...
Make a New Location, Using network locations in Mac OS X ...
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2712
10.7…
System Preferences>Network, top of window>Locations>Edit Locations, little plus icon, give it a name.
10.5.x/10.6.x/10.7.x instructions...
System Preferences>Network, click on the little gear at the bottom next to the + & - icons, (unlock lock first if locked), choose Set Service Order.
The interface that connects to the Internet should be dragged to the top of the list.
Instead of joining your Network from the list, click the WiFi icon at the top, and click join other network. Fill in everything as needed.
For 10.5/10.6, System Preferences>Network, unlock the lock if need be, highlight the Interface you use to connect to Internet, click on the advanced button, click on the DNS tab, click on the little plus icon, then add these numbers...
208.67.222.222
208.67.220.220
Click OK.
Also, turn off IPv6:
System Preferences » Network » AirPort » TCP/IP tab » Configure IPv6
Or whatever Interface you use.

Mail crashed and lost all accounts

Mail just crashed, and whern I restated, it went back to defaults and all my accounts except .Mac have disappeared. My mailboxes are intact, except all mail in my inbox has disappeared. I know this info has to be on my HD somewhere, where do I find it and how do I get it back?

Hello David.
What is your hard drive capacity and available free space?
As a firs step, check this link for system troubleshooting procedures and when doing so, follow all steps/instructions in the order provided:
http://www.thexlab.com/faqs/repairprocess.html
When completed and with the Mail.app quit, using the Finder go to Home > Library > Mail. Copy the Mail folder and place the copy on the Desktop for backup purposes.
If you have limited free hard drive space - well less than 5GB available, do not place the copy of the Mail folder on the Desktop - this needs to be place on an external drive or anywhere else.
Using the Finder go to Home > Library > Preferences > com.apple.mail.plist. Delete the com.apple.mail.plist file and empty the Trash.
Note: Deleting the com.apple.mail.plist file will require re-entering all email account information when relaunching Mail with the exception of your .Mac account.
Launch Mail and decline any prompt to import mailboxes.
After re-entering all other email account information the same as before, the Mail.app should rediscover the existing account named folders and mailboxes within the Mail folder at Home > Library > Mail.
After confirming all mailboxes were successfully rediscovered and all messages are available, you can delete the copy of the Mail folder.

AQ transactions and lost messages

Dear forum,
I am developing an application in which messages should not get lost.
I have the following test setup :
an MDB which is deployed with the transaction attribute="NotSupported".
The MDB runs in a oc4j container.
The onMessage method of the bean is run in the Eclipse debugger.
I observe the following:
When the MDB picks a message from an AQ queue and enters the onMessage method the message state in the queue goes to "processed".
When the container is forced to crash before the onMessage method returns the message has disappeared from the queue and is not in the exception queue.
When I run the same test with the transaction attribute="Required". The onMessage method runs in a container managed transaction and the message goes to the exception queue with state "expired".
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Greetings,
Huub

No real help from me I'm afraid but just had a call from my brother who was just lost all his mail setting and messages, mail is appears as if it was started for the first time. His Mail folders in the Library have his pop and mac account folders but no contents.
Have you checked if the messages are in your library? (Home > Library > Mail)

Help! Mail Compaction Error - Lost Messages

I had too many e-mails in my inbox and was selectively deleting e-mails. I got a message about a "compaction" error, and when my e-mail restarted, I had gone from 5,000 messages to 75.
I need to keep many of the lost messages -- that's why I was selectively deleting them. This happened to me once before a year or two ago, and I know there's a way to get those messages back -- but I can't find my notes.
Help! What do I do?

Hello Emily.
The folder it created contained a folder called
"split_mailboxes" but nothing ever appeared in there.
What did appear were files called "Sent Messages-0001",
"Sent Messages-0002" etc...
I believe these files are the parts into which the script breaks the troublesome mbox file within the Sent Messages.mbox package. They are in the same mbox format, just named differently, and are to be imported into Mail using the Other data format option. I believe the script should do this automatically, but apparently it didn't for some reason.
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Mail indexing and lost sent mail

since yesterday, mail has been repeatedly indexing, always getting stuck on one particular email and taking over 1/2 an hour each time before allowing access to the program. Finally, I was able to run a search and delete the offending email before the indexing hung. I assumed this would resolve the problem. But no. It still gets stuck at the exact same point.
On the next pass I selected rebuild mailbox on the sent mailbox as this is where the particular email was. Now all the sent mail foir that account is gone. Yet indexing still reports as stuck on the very same email as before.
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I cannot quit Mail either and have to Force Quit all the time. Sorry to say that I have started using Thunderbird with no problems but Mac Mail is my default mail app.
I click the segmental timer in top right of bar and up comes a list of active processes that are currently running. I click the big red Stop icons on this list but this doesn't stop them - things just grind to a halt. Mail doesn't quit/hang but just freezes.
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All 3 email accounts show up under Inbox, but all three also show up as iCloud, sbcglobal.net, and gmail. The iCloud account will occasionally get duplicates, the sbcglobal.net account only gets mail that sbcglobal.net has put into a "bulk" folder and seems to be all junk mail and does not show up in the sbcglobal.net inbox account and the gmail shows up in both places, but I can delete messages in the gmail inbox account and they do not download again, but the second gmail account is the one that keeps redownloading the already deleted messages into the gmail "all mail" folder. I have tried deleting the gmail account and have gone to gmail's help page, but they are behind with set up for Mac Mail. The set up is for Mail 3.0 and not 6.2. It keeps downloading over a thousand emails into this gmail "all mail" folder. Is there any way to stop this?

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I have copied the Preferences and the Mail folder of Library from en eMac to an iMac Intel.
The accounts appears but not the mailboxes I had in the eMac.
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guillermo,
You may have to rebuild the Index. Within the folder <home>/Library/Mail there is a file "Envelope Index". Close Mail and then using Finder, move that file to the desktop and then re-open Mail. This will cause Mail to re-create the "Envelope Index" which will hopefully cause your mailboxes to be visible. If that works then you can move the file "Envelope Index" from the Desktop to the Trash.
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Mail Preferences and lost Messages

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