Moving messages to mailboxes on multiple computers under Exchange 2007

Question

My work email was recently switched to Exchange 2007, which behaves like IMAP. However, since space is limited on the server, I need to move messages from my Inbox and save them "on my Mac", and some of these messages are moved automatically using Rules that I have set up.
Now, I have two computers with the same Rules. The problem is that when I open my mail on one computer, rules are applied and the messages are moved from my Inbox, but then, on my second computer, these messages are nowhere to be found since they were removed from the Inbox.
The only Mailboxes that are synced through Exchange are the Inbox, Sent, Drafts, and Trash. All my other mailboxes are on my Mac (on both computers, same mailboxes).
How can I move messages from the Inbox to archive them on my Mac on one computer and still have access to these emails on the other computer? As soon as I move a message from the Inbox, it disappears on my other computer before I have a chance to apply the same move. The result is that depending where I open my email, some messages are stored on one machine or the other, but not both. Is the only solution to copy messages instead of moving them? I will then end up with many duplicates eventually, and it will be hard to know which has already been copied from my Inbox and which has not.
Am I missing an easier solution? It used to work well when my email was a POP account, and other IMAP emails (Gmail) are OK because I can store all my mailboxes on the server. But in the case of my work email, because of space constraint, I cannot store all my messages (>30,000) in Exchange mailboxes.
Thank you for your help.

Answer 1

You’re welcome.
Unfortunately, I don’t know what happened here and I’m afraid you may have lost those messages. If the messages have disappeared in Mail, they are not on the server, and you don’t have a backup, your only option is probably to try to salvage as many deleted *.emlx files as possible with a data recovery tool such as Data Rescue II, TechTool Pro, or FileSalvage. Of these, the only one I know for sure that can currently recover deleted *.emlx files is FileSalvage. Stop using your computer right now if you want to try that, as anything you do with the computer may cause the deleted files to be overwritten.
You should also verify/repair the startup disk (not just permissions), as described in the following article, in case there is something amiss in the filesystem that has a bearing on this:
The Repair functions of Disk Utility: what's it all about?
When done, report the names of the files and folders present at the first level of the ~/Library/Mail/Mac-username/ account folder.
In order to post the exact file names and avoid typing mistakes, proceed as follows. In the Finder, go to ~/Library/Mail/Mac-username/. With that folder open, if you’re looking at it in View > as List mode, first collapse any expanded folders so that the Finder only shows the files and folders at the first level. Now, do Edit > Select All (⌘A), then Edit > Copy (⌘C), and paste it in your reply to this post -- you may disguise any mailbox names you wish to keep private.
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.