Mailboxes disappear in Mail 3.6 on Leopard 10.5.8

I have curious problem in Mail 3.6 -- when I launch the ap all my Mailboxes initially appear, then within a minute, the last 5 boxes in my list "disappear".
I can still search and find the messages in those mailboxes.
If I quit and restart the ap, the missing mailboxes appear again, but only for a minute or two, then they disappear again.
How can I make all my mailboxes always visible?
I recently updated from Tiger to Leopard, ran all the updates. I'm now 10.5.8

My problem is solved. It looks like I trained my Mail program to always load the missing mailboxes. Over the course of a few days they began appearing on launch and staying. Its possible that it was taking the OS some time to locate all the messages for those boxes. I'm not a Mail expert so that's just my guess.
Sorry to hear so many others here have had Mail messages wiped out or disappear. All I can say is check your Home> Library > Mail > Mailboxes folder to see if the Mailboxes contain any data. If they do, use your Mail ap to import them. And in the future use Time Machine or another back up program to save copies. Good luck all.

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Disappearing inbox mail since upgrading to Leopard

I went from Tiger to Leopard about 2 months ago. Since then messages in my inbox mysteriously disappear. I spent 1 hour at the Genius Bar tonight, and they confirmed that this is a Leopard 'glitch' (their word) and it happens for a small percentage of users. It's fairly frustrating, however tonight, my ENTIRE inbox is empty (after having over 1000 emails just one minute prior.) I would call this more than a 'glitch'. This happened on my IMAP mailbox. Anyone else having this issue???

I think that I have the same problem. Mail has begun to loose mail occasionally. Sometimes all mail in a certain IMAP mail account disappear. Mail notifies for example that new mail mail has been received and shows a proper number in dock icon, but none of the mails in this specific IMAP INBOX folder shows up (neither the old nor the new mail). This certain inbox is completely empty and yet the new mail sign is on. What is even more confusing is that the mail which is located in subfolders (IMAP) is visible and accessible. Just the inbox is completely invisible. I have witnessed this behavior both on my iMac and MacBook Pro. Then the mail suddenly after unspecified period of time appears again. However now, at this time, I have not been able to see/restore mail messages that have disappeared. This problem seems to concern only one of my three IMAP accounts. All other IMAP accounts works properly.

Mailboxes disappeared in mail - rebuild not an option

My mailboxes (http mail account) disappeared after doing some automatic software updates yesterday and restarting as directed. Rebuild is grayed, so I don't think it's an option.

Oy, I feel dumb. Somehow an httpmail account mailbox icon appeared with all of my mailboxes under it. It did not look this way before. Do you have any idea why it changed? Doesn't really matter, since the mailboxes are all there (THANKS). I just don't know why mail seems to have rearranged my mailboxes that way and apparently on its own.

Main mailbox disappeared for iphone5

My main mailbox disappeared from mail although it still appears under mail accounts. Anyone know what happened? I still have all my other accounts listed under mailboxes.

How, exactly, did you close out the Mail App?
In fact, close out all running apps, including the Settings App, and then restart the device.

(Mail) Smart mailboxes disappeared

I have been running a fairly comprehensive set of smart mailboxes to organise mail since August 2002. Today I noticed all my smart mailboxes have disappeared.
Oddly enough they have disappeared on both of my user accounts on this mac, although it's only one of those user accounts where their loss would be disastrous. They may not actually have disappeared today, just merely that I noticed it today.
I keep regular back ups of the library/mail folder, but rather than start to fiddle and experiment with replacing files from my back ups, I'm assuming someone here can tell me exactly which files from the backed up library/mail folder I should move to my actual library/mail folder. I'm guessing it will be one or more of the files in the MailData folder.
My back ups are incremental back ups but assume the smart mailbox data is held in a single file, so I don't need to hunt down lots of files.
This what I have in my actual library/mail folder.
And this is what I have in a recent back up
I'm assuming the size of the backed up SmartMailbox property list indicates all my lost data is safe, but I don't really know whether that property list is the only file I should replace.
Thanks in advance guys.

The same thing just happened to my smart mailboxes. I noticed that you did not receive an answer....Did you find the file or another way to resolve this?

Can't import my mailboxes from Tiger Mail into Leopard

Hi everyone,
I bought a new MBP and I'm now in the process of carefully importing my mailboxes from Tiger mail, on my Tiger backup HD, to the new mail program. I have about 20000 messages saved since 1999, sorted by project etc. Each time I select a batch of mailboxes to import, I get a failure message when it's almost done, saying that some messages couldn't be imported. This is very frustrating: my e-mail archive is possible the most important collection of files on the computer. I would hate for it to become messed up/corrupted.
Thanks for any suggestions!
Alex

Try copying the directory ~/Library/Mail/ (the library folder in your home directory) from your old computer to the same location on your Leopard install. I believe the versions of Mail in Tiger and Leopard use the same directory structure, so this should work.

Mail hangs , mailboxes disappear

My mail has been hanging up several times a day. The mailboxes disappear and the application hangs. When I force quit it comes back as good as new until the next time it hangs. I noticed this happening before with the mobileme sync. I turned that off and it seemed to solve the problem but now it has returned and mobileme is not set to sync. Any ideas?

You may have to reimport the mailboxes. Try this
1. Go to ~/Library/Preferences, and trash the com.apple.mail.plist. (don't empty the trash yet). Restart.
2. Restart Mail, and Import From Mailboxes. Navigate to the ~/Library/Mail folder, and look for your accounts. They will start with "POP" or "IMAP". Import each one. Move the mailboxes out from the "Imported" folder.

Mailboxes disappeared after Leopard install

When I installed Leopard my mailboxes disappeared. I still have the same messages in INBOX, SENT, TRASH, and JUNK that were there before and my address book is fine, but the critical mailboxes (folders) where I filed my messages have vanished!
HELP!

I know I need a real Mac expert..but until I find the 'right' one...I too cannot access ALL my address book after Leopard was installed.
Where do I find the folder mentioned? Went to applications..NADA...have so many problems with mobilemail..it is discouraging.
Appreciate any simple response that I might be able to use until I get major help!

Really stupid bugs in Mail 4.2 (Snow Leopard 10.6.2)

Hi everyone,
I decided to write about all bugs that I discovered in Mail 4.2 (Snow Leopard 10.6.2) since there is no known solution and since Apple's MobileMe Chat Support does not have any clue how to resolve this issues. First – I have three configured e-mail accounts: MobileMe, Gmail (IMAP) and third-party IMAP account.
The issues are:
1. IDLE command turned on causes new mail sound stop working. If I unchecked this option in all accounts (also MobileMe) the sound is back. If any of the accounts has this option checked, sound stops working again. So I found a workaround (not a solution) – I set checking for new mail to 'every 1 minute' and hoped everything would work.
2. But it's not working as one could imagine... At first it is, but then, after some time for no known (at least to me) reason Mail doesn't receive any new mail from third-party IMAP account and Gmail. MobileMe is still working. I tried every solution that in my opinion could have helped: erasing account and setting it up again, rebuilding mailboxes, deleting envelope index file, repairing permissions etc. Nothing helped. I even installed once again Mac OS X 10.6.2 Combo Update to be perfectly sure I did everything.
3. Next bug I discovered is with sending e-mails. Since I sometimes want to have access to my draft messages from internet I checked 'Store draft messages on the server' checkbox. Now... when composing a message in Mail app it's momentarily saved on the server, whether it has attachments or not. Then when the message is complete I push the Send button and the message is being sent. The reasonable mail app would then delete the draft version of this message from the Drafts folder. But not Mail 4.2, regardless in which e-mail account the message is stored. It doesn't delete the draft, what's more then synchronizes it with my other computer and then I have to log to webmail to delete the unwanted draft messages manually. VERY annoying.
Please let me know if you have similar problems or maybe anyone has a solution?
Pawel

It is my thought and contention that #1 is not a bug, but purposeful -- see:
http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=11160423#11160423
With regard to #2, have you ever removed the Envelope Index without first removing any IMAP or Exchange account folders? If so, that can problematic. I cannot confirm any of the experiences you are having. I have 15 accounts, 7 of which are IMAP, and the latter include one Gmail and one MobileMe, and none of these issues are present. Have you tried creating a New User Account and setting your IMAP and Gmail up as that New User to further test the application itself?
The issue with Drafts being saved beyond their apparent usefulness is not new to Mail 4.2 -- happened with some frequency in all versions of Mail 3.x, and probably less frequently in 4.2. When it has happened, which is relatively infrequently for me, it has been seen in POP and IMAP alike.
Ernie

Emails in local mailboxes disappearing

I have a POP account and I'm accessing it only from one machine, my G5 dual 2GHz with 8GB RAM. Since I switched over from Eudora over the weekend, Mail.app has caused no end of headaches for me.
Occasionally, emails stored in various "On My Mac" local mailboxes have seen fit to just vanish, leaving what looks like a blank mailbox. Rebuilding the mailbox doesn't work. On the occasions that the emails do show up as a list, when I click on any individual email, it displays the infamous "The message from <Name> <[email protected]> concerning <Subject> has not been downloaded from the server. You need to take this account online in order to download it." message (which shouldn't be happening since the emails are already stored locally on my hard drive--this is a POP account after all and nobody has access to it but me and I'm only using one machine to access it). I have to re-import the emails using Mail.app's built-in menu option to do so. I cannot use the "remove the Envelope Index" trick because, in total, I have in excess of 560,000 emails in over 460 mailboxes that I need access to when searching for emails on a certain topic and having Mail.app reindex everything takes something close to 5 hours. I cannot be down for 5 hours. I have already run "Repair Permissions" using Disk Utility and have gotten a clean bill of health.
Is there anything I can do to make sure that my locally-stored emails just display their contents and not give me the dreaded " The message from <Name> <[email protected]> concerning <Subject> has not been downloaded from the server. You need to take this account online in order to download it." message or just display blank mailbox(es) and not have to rebuild the damned thing(s) all the time? Why is Mail.app so fragile anyway? I've used Eudora for decades in POP mode and have never experienced the problems that Mail.app has given me in a mere weekend.
PowerMac G5 dual 2GHz & MacBook Pro Core Duo Mac OS X (10.4.9)

The recommended mailbox size limit for Tiger Mail is
2GB. Do any of 460 mailboxes approach or exceed this
limit?
I thought this artificial limit was removed after Panther? You're saying that it still exists? I sort my mailboxes by years so they are stored in this hierarchy:
<Topic> (contains current messages about <Topic>)
- <Topic>-200x (contains messages about <Topic> in year 200x so there could be many mailboxes at this level; when 2007 ends, I will have a <Topic>-2007 mailbox which I will move all email about this topic into, leaving the <Topic> mailbox only containing current emails for the year on that topic)
Now, this 2GB limit, is it just for the *.mbox folder or for just the Messages folder or for any hierarchy? When I do a "du -k" in some of my hierarchically filed mail, e.g., ~/Library/Mail/Mailboxes/Apple Lists, I get this:
1608 ./ACN/ACN Forums 2001.mbox/Messages
1612 ./ACN/ACN Forums 2001.mbox
11096 ./ACN/ACN Forums 2002.mbox/Messages
11100 ./ACN/ACN Forums 2002.mbox
31744 ./ACN/ACN Forums 2003.mbox/Messages
31748 ./ACN/ACN Forums 2003.mbox
65524 ./ACN/ACN Forums 2004.mbox/Messages
65528 ./ACN/ACN Forums 2004.mbox
130860 ./ACN/ACN Forums 2005.mbox/Messages
130864 ./ACN/ACN Forums 2005.mbox
175032 ./ACN/ACN Forums 2006.mbox/Messages
175036 ./ACN/ACN Forums 2006.mbox
415888 ./ACN
243280 ./ACN.mbox/Messages
243284 ./ACN.mbox
856 ./AppleScript.mbox/Messages
856 ./AppleScript.mbox
56 ./ARD.mbox/Messages
56 ./ARD.mbox
2652 ./Cocoa Dev.mbox/Messages
2652 ./Cocoa Dev.mbox
192 ./Mac Net Prog.mbox/Messages
192 ./Mac Net Prog.mbox
536 ./OpenGL.mbox/Messages
536 ./OpenGL.mbox
464 ./OSX Client.mbox/Messages
464 ./OSX Client.mbox
34624 ./OSX Svr/MacOS X Server Topics 2002.mbox/Messages
34628 ./OSX Svr/MacOS X Server Topics 2002.mbox
98904 ./OSX Svr/MacOS X Server Topics 2003.mbox/Messages
98908 ./OSX Svr/MacOS X Server Topics 2003.mbox
159824 ./OSX Svr/MacOS X Server Topics 2004.mbox/Messages
159828 ./OSX Svr/MacOS X Server Topics 2004.mbox
163916 ./OSX Svr/MacOS X Server Topics 2005.mbox/Messages
163920 ./OSX Svr/MacOS X Server Topics 2005.mbox
119972 ./OSX Svr/MacOS X Server Topics 2006.mbox/Messages
119976 ./OSX Svr/MacOS X Server Topics 2006.mbox
577260 ./OSX Svr
27828 ./OSX Svr.mbox/Messages
27832 ./OSX Svr.mbox
32 ./System Imaging.mbox/Messages
36 ./System Imaging.mbox
116 ./XSAN.mbox/Messages
116 ./XSAN.mbox
1269176 .
Which, as you can see, totals out to around 1.26GB for the ~/Library/Mail/Mailboxes/Apple Lists hierarchy and none of the individual .mbox or Messages folders exceeds 2GB. And some of the above folders have been the ones exhibiting the vanishing emails (i.e., they are there when I look at something once and then they are gone the next time I try to look again in those mailboxes). I've even experienced the disappearing mailbox phenomenon in mailbox hierarchies which, in total, do not exceed 500MB for all subfolders.
The "has not been downloaded from the server" error
message is not accurate and indicates what is called
an "overstuffed" mailbox issue which means the
mailbox has approached or exceeded the recommended
size limit or the mailbox has some corruption.
Oh crap. Sigh. I never had this issue with Eudora which has a 32767 email limit regardless of size of individual emails, attachments, etc.
Using the Finder, go to Home > Library > Mail. All
imported mailboxes are located within an Import named
folder located within the Mailboxes folder - Home >
Library > Mail > Mailboxes > Import > imported
mailboxes - which appear as folders at the Finder
level and include an .mbox extension.
Within any .mbox folder at the Finder level is a
Messages folder (which contains each message stored
in the mailbox as a separate .emix file) and an
Info.plist file. Any other folders and file names are
left over from the import process which are not
needed by Tiger Mail but are not deleted after the
import process is complete and can sometimes cause
problems.
Does "Rebuild" delete the Info.plist and recreate it?
There is also a Eudora mailbox cleaner utility which
may be helpful here.
Yes, this is what I used to bring my mailboxes over from Eudora. It doesn't work very well and I'm in contact with the developer who has given me a beta to try and it's a little better.
Do you sleep? ;~)
Rarely. I sometimes get by on 4 hours a night.
This can be done before you go to bed which will be
completed in the morning when you wake.
I was assuming that the "Remove Envelope Index" trick was to be used when in dire need, not a nightly event. Are you saying that it should be a nightly event? Sometimes it doesn't even complete, leaving some mailboxes in the same state as outlined in my original post, whereupon I have to do the "Import Mailboxes from Apple Mail" trick from within Mail.app itself but this gets old fast since I have to move the contents from the Import(-x) hierarchy to its "proper" place in my mail hierarchy and then wait for it to "rebuild" which takes a while but nowhere as long as 5 hours. Maybe 20 to 30 minutes. But multiply that by a couple of mailboxes and my day is shot.
PowerMac G5 dual 2GHz & MacBook Pro Core Duo Mac OS X (10.4.9)

New Smart Mailboxes Disappear (again & again)

There are two smart mailboxes setup in the "Mail" application on my desktop Mac ("All Mail" & "Newspaper"). These mailboxes also exist on my laptop. On my desktop, I deleted the "Newspaper" mail box and created several new smart mailboxes. The next time I looked, the new mailboxes "self-deleted" and restored the "Newspaper" mailbox. I tried this several times with the same result. I then created a new smart mailbox on the laptop and deleted the "newspaper" mail box. Same thing happed; the new mailbox disappears and ther "newspaper" mailbox returns.
I use use IMAP with my Gmail account and forward my "iCloud" mail to my Gmail account. The "Mail" setting is "checked" in my iCloud system settings (but not sure what impact that has on my setup).   I thought this setting may allow the smart mailboxes to synchronize between the Mac and possibly my iPhone. I am using OS X 10.9.3. I recently returned to mac "Mail" after several years of simply using the Gmail web interface on the Mac (plus iOS Mail) and am a bit unclear how the iCloud sync should work. I am pretty happy with the newer IMAP capabilities after using POP in the past.
Any suggestions on how I can create (and keep) my smart mailboxes?
Thanks,
Dave

WHAT DIDNT WORK for me:
I have the problem, but I never had Docs & Data switched on, so Sheppard's solution does not apply for my case (there are no such files as mentioned there). Neither did Beda's move work for me. Causing fresh copies of the two files he mentioned to be created does bring back the Smart Mailbox category and a default Today smart mailbox, but putting the original files back in position, puts the problem back to square one -- no smartmailboxes appear.
WHAT DID WORK for me:
What I found worked was moving smartmailbox specifications from SmartMailboxes.plist into a clean SyncedSmartMailboxes.plist file.
Steps: (This procedure requires something that enables you to open and edit plist files (e.g. Xcode). As always, keep safeties of everything before you mess around.)
0) Before starting, check this file and confirm your smart mailbox specifications are actually still in there. If not, this won't work.
    ~/Library/Mail/V2/SmartMailboxes.plist
1) Taking a tip from Beda, move the following files out and then launch Mail and quit it, to force creation of new copies of these files.
    ~/Library/Mail/V2/SmartMailboxesLocalProperties.plist
    ~/Library/Mail/V2/SyncedSmartMailboxes.plist
2 ) Open the new SyncedMailboxes.plist. It contains a single item (a default Today smartmailbox specification). Delete that.
3) Open your SmartMailboxes.plist. It contains a sublist called 'mailboxes' where all your smart mailbox specifications reside. Copy each of these items over to (the top level of) SyncedMailboxes.plist. You have to do this one at a time if you are using Xcode, because there is no multiple selection available.
4) Save and close SyncedMailboxes.plist (and close any other plists for good measure).
5) Launch Mail and your smart mailboxes should be back.
Hope it works for you as it did for me.

Nokia E72: Urgent:Mailbox disappears when 'memory ...

Hello Nokia,
I had set up my corporate email account on my phone. Bydefault it uses Phone Memory for storing all messages. I tried to change the Memory In Use in option by selecting 'Memory Card'
Messaging->Settings->Other->Memory In Use->Memory Card
After this change my corporate mailbox disappears and I no longer see the mailbox. However when I change the setting back to 'Phone Memory', The mailbox appears.Is this a bug or normal function ?
Also is there a way I can transfer all my email messages currently on the phone memory to memory card ?
Do I need set up the email again after changing the memory setting? Is that the only way out ?
Appreciate quick response as I am worried about my phone memory getting used up fully.
Thanks
Venks

Yes it goes, you have to setup email once again when you change the storage to memory card there is no way to transfer the mails stored in the phone memory to card. If you are dealing with some important mails its better to store them on the phone memory, if ur memory card gets corrupted or unusable it would be difficult or no way to get those mails back, also you make sure u delete unwanted mails when u use phone memory as it may eat up phone's memory making it slow and lagging its better to maintain some considerable amount of space in the phone.
If a reply has solved your problem click Accept as solution button, doing it will help others know the solution. Thanks.

E72, IMAP mailbox disappearing

Hello,
I got a E72 that got in China and I got some major issues with a SMTP/IMAP mail setup.
(I got my Hotmail set up as well and it works just fine)
I have updated my phone to the latest firmware - as of today.
Okay, when I go in and setup my smtp account it works for some time, but then the mail counter will disappear from the home screen and in the also under Menu/Email (The Hotmail account is still there). I have to restart the phone and it normally comes back. This has been going on for some time now.
Lately I have had a new issue with this IMAP account, now I can see the mailbox, but I can't open the mails! I see all the mails in the inbox, but I can't open them or delete them. If I try a couple of time the phone jumps back to the home screen and I can't even access the mailbox. The phone still gets all the new mails whenever I get new mail.
Hope there is some help out there, Thanks.

I have seen the same issue with IMAP mailbox disappearing. At times I've noticed that if you have the mailbox already open and then try to open it again say after a short gap, the mailbox disappears. But it actually does not and once you go to the already open mailbox by looking at all open apps, your mailbox opens. I will have to think this is a bug in E72. Latest FW does fix few memory issues with email but its still far from being perfect.

Hidden Mailbox in Apple Mail 'On My Mac'

When changing the name of an existing Mailbox located 'On My Mac' in Apple mail the Mailbox disappeared with all its content. I tried to create a new Mailbox using the same name as the one that disappeared and I receive the following message: The mailbox "XYZ” could not be created. The mailbox “XYZ” already exists. I however cannot see "XYZ", It seems that it has been hidden somehow. Hope someone can help?

No luck! The mailbox does not show and us still hidden!

Mailboxes disappeared from list

Let preface here by noting that I upgraded to Mountain Lion just a couple of weeks ago. However I only noticed this problem today so I don'y know if one thing had anything to do with the other.
I've long had archive mailboxes from past years in my Mailbox list. Every January I would make a new archive of the previous year's emails. But I just looked up and realized the archive mailboxes were gone from the mailbox list but I have no idea when that happened. Fortunately I dug around my hard drive and found the mailboxes are still in the Library but I can't figure out how to get them displayed again in the Mailbox list.
Thoughts?

I had the disappearing mailbox problem after I updated the software on my iPhone when it was plugged into the computer. Three important mailboxes, and their contents, disappeared on Mail, although they continued to exist on the iPhone. They mailboxes did not exist in the Library either. I eventually solved the problem by accident, by deleting and reinstalling my Gmail account on Mail. Maybe this will help…..

Mailboxes disappear in Mail 3.6 on Leopard 10.5.8

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