Mail Preferences Disappeared

Mail was working just fine all day. My wife tries to reply to a message received earlier and gets the following error message:
"This message could not be delivered and will remain in your Outbox until it can be delivered.
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."
I go to Mail->Preferences and the only Preference pane I get is for Junk Mail. General, Accounts, Fonts and Colors, Viewing, Composing, Signatures, Rules are all missing. Can't very well verify the SMTP server settings if the Preference pane isn't there.
My Inbox looks OK and I have received one message since this all started. I can read the contents and was able to empty the Junk Mail and Deleted Messages mailboxes. File sizes in Users->xxx->Library->Mail all are the right size and appear intact.
I've tried a reboot and a complete system shutdown (including power disconnect), but Mail Preferences are still missing. There's nothing in the Trash that looks fishy. I've tried a couple of test messages back to my own e-mail account and got the same error message.
Is there a way to reinstall only the Mail app? Is there some way to find/verify that the Mail Preferences exist?
Need help, here. This is weird-and-a-half. First time in 20 years on Mac that I've seen anything like this.
Dual 2 Ghz G5 Mac OS X (10.4.3)
Dual 2 Ghz G5 Mac OS X (10.4.3)

OK, I found the answer in a reply to another question. The pill-shaped buton in the upper right corner of the Junk Mail Preference pane retrieved the rest of the Preferences and I was able to check my SMTP Server settings, which were correct. My test messages also came through this morning, leading me to believe that my ISP had a problem on their end, which was subesequently corrected.
My habit has always been to close any Preferences window while in the "Show All" mode, so I didn't think to check that first.
Dual 2 Ghz G5 Mac OS X (10.4.3)

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Mail 'preferences' disappear

When I am clicking on Mail > Preferences, I only see the "accounts setting" page with the various email accounts. I miss all the other settings such as Rules, Signature, etc... Any idea ? Thank you

You are so incredibly awesome!! What a simple solution to a frustrating issue that I have also been dealing with and trying to figure out. Yeah! Thank you so much for taking the time to respond to that question.
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In Mail preferences my iCloud account didn't seem to be working so I deleted it, logged into iCloud, selected 'Mail and Notes' and the Mail account was recreated. After signing out of iCloud the account disappeared from Mail preferences. Why?

So, then, do you recommend that I remain "signed in" to iCloud all the time on both my desktop and my laptop so that the iCloud account always appears in the Mail application? Or should I "sign in" to iCloud periodically to see if I have mail in my iCloud account or, alternatively, access mail in the iCloud account through iCloud.com?
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Mail Preference options disappeared

HI suddenly totay as I wanted to add another rule in my mail program I clicked on mail-preference as usual but I only get the window composing a mesage with the red light on and I have no way to go to the other menue options.
I did not change anything on my computer ?????
but obivously something did change.......
Any idea help???

Replacing the application will not delete anything.
Download Easy Find - VersionTracker or MacUpdate - and use it to search your drives to see if the Mail application may have been moved into one of the system folders. Spotlight does not search system folders by default. Easy Find is freeware.
I can't tell you what may have happened other than applications do not spontaneously disappear.

Mail preferences has disappeared how do I get it back

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Hey MingtheSiarmese,
Thanks for the question. Let’s try quitting the Mail application and restarting your computer. If you have trouble quitting the application, see this article for information on how to Force Quit:
OS X: How to quit an unresponsive application using Force Quit
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3411
Thanks,
Matt M.

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Having the same problem - random messages just keep disappearing
A colleague noticed that messages are just vanishing from her inbox in front of her eyes. She was in the middle of reading one when it just disappeared! It doesn't show up in any searches or other folders. Sometimes they re-appear when she quits Mail and re-opens it, but sometimes they don't which is a huge worry. I've tried re-building mailboxes when they don't re-appear but no joy. She hasn't got any rules or filters applied.
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I had the same problem and your mail isn't lost forever. It's still sitting on the server in California. Here is what I had to do to get mail back up and running..... I had to go to mail preferences and delete my account and then reset it. It was a bit of a chance but I had already backed up my system before upgrading to 10.5 so I wasn't too concerned. My reset worked beautifully and all of my mail came back up in a matter of seconds. In my case there seemed to be an error in outgoing server recognition and once I reset it all was well. Hope this helps and good luck!

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"On my Mac" folder including all my subfolders in Mail have disappeared after OS X Yosemite version 10.10.2 install! What should I do?

Quit Mail. Force quit if necessary.
Back up all data before proceeding.
Triple-click anywhere in the line below on this page to select it:
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Move those files to the Desktop, leaving the window open. Other files in the folder may have longer names that begin as above. Move those files, if any, to the Trash.
Relaunch Mail. It should prompt you to re-import your messages. You may get a warning that the index is damaged and that Mail has to quit. Click OK. Typically, the process takes a few minutes, but it may take hours if you have gigantic mailboxes. In that case, you may be able to speed things up by temporarily adding your home folder to the Privacy list in the Spotlight preference pane. Remove it when Mail has finished importing.
Test. If Mail now works as expected, you can delete the files you moved to the Desktop. Otherwise, post your results.

Mail preferences, accounts, advanced

I have several gmail accounts and I have duplicate folders of messages that I am unable to simply delete. Even if I delete the hundreds of messages that are stored there, the messages come back. So I'm wondering if this is because of choices that I have made in Preferences. In the options: "Keep copies of mail for offline viewing", "Don't keep copies of any mail", if I choose the latter, I get this dire warning, so I'm not sure what to do. Will this choice also remove copies from the server? Thanks for your help.

Hi, I followed the instructions that Thomas gave to make these folders disappear: opened up my gmail account, went to Settings, Labs and then enabled Advance IMAP Controls. Then I went to Labels and only had options to Hide or Show, not to Remove. And I wasn't sure if the instructions just referred to what I would see on the internet or what I would see in my Mail app.
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I went to the local Apple store earlier this week and asked on of the folks at the Genius Bar if he knew how to set the outgoing mail address. He showed me that I could enable the "reply to" field and then put my mail forwarding address into that field. Unfortunately, there is no easy way to pre-populate that field so that it always has my mail forwarding account address.

Mail preferences not sticking and sometimes change on their own.

Maybe somebody else has seen this odd behavior. Here's the scoop:
I clean installed 10.5.1 yesterday on my Mac Mini(1.42GHz G4, 1GB RAM)and after setting up my admin account, I immediately grabbed the 10.5.2 through Software Update. This is my first taste of Leopard and so far so good.
Now that everything is updated, I started to configure Mail. I set up two IMAP accounts in Mail and specified certain preferences under Mailbox Behaviors. I unchecked all the boxes that had to do with storing things on the servers. Since my IMAP account quotas are fairly small, ~150MB, I don't want Mail storing anything on my company's servers. Saved the changes and started logging in to my accounts. Tested it out by sending a few messages and noticed my sent messages and deleted messages were being saved on the server. Back in to Mail preferences I go and I noticed that some of the check boxes under Mailbox Behaviors had checkmarks back in them. What gives? I didn't leave those boxes checked. Why had several of the checkmarks reappeared?
Anyways, I've toyed with this thing for hours. It's seems to be a random problem and I don't have any clue why it happens. I've even deleted my own com.apple.mail.plst file and Mail folder multiple times to start over from scratch. I always uncheck the "store xxx on the server" boxes, but occasionally Mail turns them back on. It's happened multiple times now, so I'm getting a little paranoid about it. The last time it happened, I found the "Store draft messages on the server" re-checked under one of the IMAP accounts.
Seems like Mail.app has a mind of its own. Any idea how to put a stop to it?

I've done some more testing and found out several things.
1. It doesn't matter which of my IMAP accounts I configure Mail to access. I can reset Mail (by deleting my ~/Library/Mail folder and com.apple.mail.plist file) and then reconfigure my preferences for each IMAP sever. The problem still persists.
2. It definitely is a 10.5.2 problem. I erased the HD and reinstalled 10.5.1 from DVD onto my PowerBook G4 and then ran Mail. Configured it to access my IMAP accounts and had not problems with it. It didn't reset my "Mailbox Behaviors" preferences at all. In fact, it worked the way it's supposed to. On to step 3.
3. I then installed the 10.5.2 combo updater(dl'ed from Apple's support website) and ran Mail. With the previous accounts still configured, it didn't mess with my "Mailbox Behaviors" at all, but when I reset Mail (by dumping my Mail folder and prefs into the trash) and reconfigured it for my IMAP accounts, the problem came back.
4. With a fresh reset of my Mail preferences in 10.5.2, the very first email I send cannot be found in any folder until I quit out of Mail and then come back in. Checking my "Mailbox Behavior" prefs, I see that Mail has decided to put the check mark back in the "Store Sent Messages on the Server". That's not the way I set it up in the begining. This weird behviors repeats itself on the first draft message I save and the first email message I delete out of my Inbox. Mail always causes the first draft and deleted message to disappear until I quit and come back in. The "Mailbox Bevaior" prefs also get reset for storing drafts and deleted messages on the server.
So there we have it. Many hours spent on this thing. If others want to try it out in 10.5.2, just move your Mail folder and plst file out of your home folder temporarily and re-run Mail. Put your settings in, uncheck a few boxes under "Mailbox Behaviors" and see if Mail starts messing up.
I guess I'll be waiting for this problem to be resolved in 10.5.3. Until then, its back to 10.5.1 for me.

My icloud mail is disappearing

My Icloud mail keeps disappearing from my Mac, Iphone, Ipad and Pod. Please what can I do?

Check in the Archive folder to see if they are missing or if they were just moved from the Inbox.
Do you have Time Machine backup? If yes, you can recover but in the mean time, you might want to forward your messages to another account as backup. You can setup a Gmail or Outlook.com account if you don't have a second account.
Forward all messages automatically
          1.          In iCloud Mail, choose Preferences from the Action pop-up menu in the sidebar.
          2.          In the General pane, select “Forward my email to,” then type the forwarding address in the text field.
          3.          If you don’t want to store a copy of each forwarded message in iCloud, select “Delete messages after forwarding.”  Keep in mind that storing copies of forwarded messages decreases your available iCloud storage space.
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Passwords in mail preferences being erased automatically

Why are passwords being automatically erased in Mail > Preferences > Accounts > Incoming mail server which causes pop up screens asking for passwords? This happens multiple times for the same email accounts.

Passwords disappearing from both mail and keychain... odd.
It’s not that the password disappears from both Mail and the keychain. Mail saves your password in the keychain and nowhere else, reads it from there when needed, and apparently also removes the password from the keychain when it thinks is invalid...
I thought Keychain's function was to preserve and protect passwords not erase them.
The purpose of the keychain isn’t to preserve anything, but rather to make certain pieces of information accessible to authorized agents only. There is nothing wrong with allowing the agent that stored something there to remove it later.
The problem has nothing to do with the keychain itself, but rather with the fact that Mail sometimes assumes the password is invalid when that’s not the case.
Is mail 4.0 new for OS X 6.0 (Snow Leopard)??
Yes.
I could swear I had this problem prior to upgrading to Snow Leopard.
This I don’t know. I do know, however, that it happens in Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard), but didn’t happen in Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger).

Passwords in mail are disappearing...

My passwords in mail are disappearing. I feel this is not a bug but rather a malicious attack on my computer. I've tried everything I could think of but when I go to mail | preferences | accounts the passwords are gone. I use Keychain to store the passwords but to no avail they keep disappearing. Could I have a virus or malicious attacker doing this to me? I've tried everything I could think of with no luck. It's working fine at the moment but all of a sudden they disappear and not all at the same time as I have multiple email accounts setup through mail.app.
Help!!! Thanks!!

Passwords disappearing from both mail and keychain... odd.
It’s not that the password disappears from both Mail and the keychain. Mail saves your password in the keychain and nowhere else, reads it from there when needed, and apparently also removes the password from the keychain when it thinks is invalid...
I thought Keychain's function was to preserve and protect passwords not erase them.
The purpose of the keychain isn’t to preserve anything, but rather to make certain pieces of information accessible to authorized agents only. There is nothing wrong with allowing the agent that stored something there to remove it later.
The problem has nothing to do with the keychain itself, but rather with the fact that Mail sometimes assumes the password is invalid when that’s not the case.
Is mail 4.0 new for OS X 6.0 (Snow Leopard)??
Yes.
I could swear I had this problem prior to upgrading to Snow Leopard.
This I don’t know. I do know, however, that it happens in Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard), but didn’t happen in Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger).

Unable to open Mail Preferences, can't remove/add accounts.

Sorry I posted this under Tiger discussions as well, but it wasn't my intention. I am running Leopard now:
- I upgraded to Leopard today. My mail application that I have been using all along has been Entourage, but decided to switch to Mail.
- Setup walked me through and I configured another account (besides the .mac account created automatically).
- I wanted to change settings of the newly configured account, but when I go to Mail->Preferences... NOTHING HAPPENS!
- Tried reinstalling Mail from CD. Tried rebooting MAC. Tried removing and reinstalling again... nothing!
So I can't open Mail Preferences to modify existing accounts. What can I do?

Ernie,
Thanks again.
This is strange indeed! I can not do what you suggested. We must not be on the same page.
When I select the Mail pull down menu right under "About Mail" is the "Preferences" item. There are a series of periods behind it which usually indicates more options when the item is selected or highlighted. In this case nothing happens until it is selected at which you are taken to a "general" screen full of items with scroll through lists to select from. Accounts is not an item. Holding down the option key doesn't change the results at any point I tried.
My Mail version is 3.0 (912.1/912).
I may have to give up on Mail and go back to Entourage or thunderbird.
Dan

Mail Preferences Disappeared

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