"On My Mac" Folders Problem - Mails Disappearing

I can not see emails in my "On My Mac" mail folders! They still exist, I can find them using the search function on the desktop, but they don't exist in the email application.
I am a new mac user, just took it out of the box yesterday.
I'm having a problem with the mail application on my iMac / Intel Processor / Leopard 10.5.
I setup my email server properly, then forwarded several mails from gmail to my inbox. The mails arrived just fine.
I then created several new mail folders in the "On My Mac" sidebar. I dragged the emails from my inbox to these folders. Once there, I could no longer view them in the preview pane, and when I attempted to open them, I got only an empty window. I then used the "Rebuild" option, but that only removed the items from the new "On My Mac" folders altogether!
When I search for the keywords using desktop search function, I can find some of the "gone" emails, so they still exist somewhere.
How do I a) find them? and b) get those "On My Mac" folders to work properly?

try rebuilding the whole Mail index. quit mail and delete the file
homedirectory/library/mail/envelope index. then start Mail and let Mail import (this means reindex).

Similar Messages

Multiple "On My Mac" folders in Mail app

I have one me.com email address and 6 email address from other sources. My Archive box looks like this in Apple Mail.
These multiple "On My Mac" folders don't make any sense as EACH folder contains all archived emails (they are identical). When I tried to delete one they all disappeared - including the me.com box - I had to restore them to get my archived mail out of the trash. I thought there would be a box for each email address and the respective mail would be filed in the appropriate box. Having 7 boxes with identical content doesn't seem like the Apple thing to do.
My question is: Is this the way the Archive box is supposed to be? If not, anyone know of a fix? Thanks in advanced.
Mavericks 10.9.4
iMac 3.5GHz Intel Core i7
RAM 16GB 1600 MHz DDR3
Mail version: Version 7.3 (1878.6)

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:
~/Library/Mail/V2/MailData
Copy the selected text to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C. In the Finder, select
          Go ▹ Go to Folder
from the menu bar. Paste into the box that opens by pressing command-V, then press return.
A folder window will open. Inside it there should be files with names as follows:
          Envelope Index
          ExternalUpdates.storedata
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. ClickOK. 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.

How do I set file path for "on my mac" folders in Mail 4.3

Hi, is it possible to set a custom location for where the emails are stored when in "on my mac" folders? This would solve all my problems!
Basically, I have some folders on my local hard drive which sync with Dropbox and I'm thinking there might be a way to do the same with Mail folders ... i.e. so I can access my emails in the "on my mac" folders from multiple devices (other macs, iPads, iPhones).
Don't ask me why I'm not using another way to do it! Mainly because I have too many emails in too many folders to move to IMAP, Exchange, etc.
Thanks
D.

Hi, why not just add this folder to sync with Dropbox also?
/Users/YourUserName/Library/Mail/Mailboxes
Other than that possibly using Aliases, Symlinks, or Hardlinks might work.
Mainly because I have too many emails in too many folders to move to IMAP
Hmmm, you can get a free Gmail imap account that'll hold 8 GB, & IMAP is really, really what you want.

Sort "on my mac" folders in mail

My boss has a large amount of folders in mail in the "on my mac" section. Now after years of having them in dissaray she now wants to sort them. Since the heirarchy is so extensive manually moving folders around would take many days. I would think that in each folder level you would be able to sort but I have not found the option.
I have found solutions for IMAP folders but unfortunately that will not help me here. Either my search terms are not the best or the answer is buried deep within the series of tubes. Any (helpful) ideas are welcome. Thanks
Nathan

Thanks for your response.
It seems like there is no built in way to do this, at least with the present system (OS 10.7.4). After a reasonably lengthy telephone call, it seems that if there is, then the Apple support staff have no more clues about how to do so then me.
So I guess we live with manual ordering.… unless Mail in OS10.8 addresses the problem.
– Allan

How to loop through the "On My Mac" folders in mail?

Hi there - i am new to applescript, but am slowly working out how to use it.
I am stumped on how to write a rule that will move a message to a folder identified by a tag in a message (I am using MailTags).
I have script that will take the first tag and move the message to a mail folder in a fixed location (e.g. Archive/<tag name>) however I wanted to make it more generic by looping over all of my mail folders and finding one that matched the tag name.
However I am stumped on how to loop over all of my mail folder names - I have tried:
repeat with aFolder in (every mailbox of (mailbox for "ON MY MAC"))
and
repeat with aFolder in every mailbox of inbox
etc.
but none of these seem to work.
Is there some magic syntax to do this, so that I can do:
if (name of aFolder = msgTag) then
move oneMessage to mailbox (name of aFolder)
end if
Tim

You don't necessarily need to assign a variable to the entire list in order to loop through them (unless you really want to) - for example:
tell application "Mail" to repeat with aFolder in (get mailboxes)
-- do stuff with aFolder
end repeat
There are several AppleScript resources, but the main ones I use are:
AppleScript Language Guide
AppleScript Tutorials at MacScripter.net

Help: folders in Mail disappeared!

I regularly check two POP mailboxes in Mail in 10.4.3.
While on vacation, I moved the Users/Library/Mail folder and my Mail prefs (Users/Library/Preferences/com.apple.mail.prefs or whatever it is) to my laptop and then proceeded to work from my laptop while I was traveling. Worked fine.
Came home, did the opposite (dragged those two files from the laptop to the desktop), started up Mail, and everything looks normal -- I have my two POP boxes at the top, then a couple dozen folders below that. But as soon as I click "Get New Mail" all the couple dozen folders disappear!
If I quit and reboot Mail, the same thing happens.
If I reboot Mail, but click on any of these folders, I can go through them and read messages, etc, but as soon as I click Get New Mail (or it does that automatically, on a 5-minute timer), all my folders disappear!! (Leaving only the POP boxes, Drafts, Sent, Trash, and Junk)
HELP!
Both computers running 10.4.3.

I did correctly copy both the Mail folder and the prefs file.
I later solved the issue. For some inexplicable reason, two of my mail folder's permissions got screwed up in the transfer. I found this after I went into my Mail folder, looked at the long list of folders, and saw the red sign next to two of them. After I reset them both to read and write (and their contents), Mail is now back to functioning normally.
I have no clue what set this off (the permissions were fine on the source computer's Mail folder and all its contents), but that solved it.
Argh. I hate permissions.

How to recover lost local 'On My Mac' folders after Mail 6 upgrade?

The Moultain Lion Mail 6 upgrade has dropped all my local 'On My Mac' archive folders.
Any ideas how to get these back?
Best,
Keith..

Number 6 wrote:
Nice idea but one of the 'value-adds' of my Mountain Lion 'upgrade' was it broke my Time Machine backups' integrity and forced a fresh backup.
Time machine is good when trying to recover from small
incremental changes or the accidental trashing of work
data, but should really not be relied upon for any major
system changes such as an OS upgrade.
I personally don't use it at all. For data and entire home folder
for that matter, I have a backup drive and for the system itself
I do periodic clones. Actually, since I rely on coputers for work,
I also do daily backups of projects I work on.
Some one asked me once how many backups should I have.
My answer was, "Always one more than what you have."

Folders In Mail Disappeared after Leopard Boot

I downloaded Leopard to my wife's computer, and her mail, internet settings (including bookmarks) are all intact, however, I had to download twice to my MBP before it went through, now my bookmarks are gone, and folders I had created in mail are gone as well. If I search through spotlight, I can find the old messages in those folders, however, I can't seem to find their path as if they didn't exist. Please, can anyone help me restore my mail folders?

Did you try clicking on the "on my computer" arrow in Mail? It starts up with that arrow closed, if you click it and open it you might see folders there you had previously had on your computer in the old Mail app. I did this and found all my old stuff...
-B-

Moved to Lion and all folders in mail disappeared. How can I restore them from Time Machine?

When I moved to Lion I had to reconfigure my mailbox and all previous folders disappeared. How can I restore them? I have backip of everything in the Time machine but cannot find the folders and do not know how to import them when I do.
Thank you so much

Se the blue box here:
http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/15.html
Regards,
Colin R.

Mail imap problems: Mail created random folders and saves multiple drafts

Hi there, I have a brand new MacBook Pro, and set up Mail to imap my two primary email accounts (new to discussion forum and forums in general):
I have two imap accounts set up: Gmail and Network Solutions (my work webmail). Gmail is working fine.
Network Solutions imap account:
- Saves numerous copies of drafts of the same email as I type, and when I try to delete them (select them all, delete, or select all and move to trash), I get a message saying the Network Solutions server on port 143 has timed out. So I have a bunch of drafts that I can't clear.
Mail menu on lefthand side of Mail window looks like:
Mailboxes
Inbox icon with dropdown to
Gmail Inbox icon
Net Sol Inbox icon
Drafts icon with dropdown to
Gmail Drafts icon
Net Sol Drafts icon (this is where all those drafts keep saving and can't be deleted from)
Sent icon with dropdown to
Gmail Sent icon (only about a dozen sent emails are shown here)
Net Sol Sent icon (only about ten sent emails are shown here)
Trash icon with dropdown to
Gmail Trash icon (seems to be all my trash)
Net Sol Trash icon (seems to be all my trash)
REMINDERS
ON MY MAC
RSS
GMAIL drop down to
[Gmail] white folder icon that has the following sub folders:
All Mail (appears to have all mail from gmail in here)
Drafts
Sent Mail (appears to have all sent mail here)
Spam
Starred
Trash
NET SOL (drop down triangle)
Draft folder (empty folder)
locker folder (empty, no idea what this is, did not come from Net Sol)
Sent (does not refresh properly, always missing recent msgs)
Sent Items (empty folder)
Trash
The thing is, that in Network Solutions, prior to imapping with Mail, I had these folders:
Inbox
Deleted Messages
Drafts
Sent
Trash
NOW, after setting up imap to Mail, new folders have appeared in Network Solutions:
Folder Name
INBOX
Deleted Messages (Bolded)
Draft
Drafts
INBOX
Sent Messages (Bolded) (all recent sent msgs are in here now)
Sent (Bolded) (all sent msgs from Nov 6 and earlier are in here)
Sent Items
Trash
If I want to reference an email I sent after Nov 6, I have to log onto my Network Solutions webmail and go to that Sent Messages folder, move them to the Sent folder, then log out and update my Mail, at which point, I can see them on Mail.
I have not made a single folder in Mail -- what's there is a result of me setting up the two imap accounts.
Network Solutions has no idea what that "locker" folder is, it is not a Network Solutions-generated folder, does not appear in my Network Solutions webmail folder list, and I did not make it.
Can anyone help me clean this up, explain these mysterious folders, why I can't delete Net Sol drafts, why I can't get my sent messages that are more recent than Nov 6 into Mail, even though I've been primarily using Mail to send and receive mail for both Gmail and Network Solutions?
Thanks in advance for any help you can provide!
-Sunny

Hi. I posted again, and no one has answered either, here is the other post, it's more detailed in scope:
I am having a very strange problem here which started about a week ago, maybe someone can point me in the right direction:
1) I use both gmail and my domain's server email which load into Mail.app. I use gmail because I like their spam filter and I use their SMTP because where I am, my ISP SMTP server isn't very reliable. Gmail solves my outgoing mail problem, but doesn't support showing when mail has been answered and that is a useful feature.
2) My procedure is to open up gmail in my browser, mark and delete the spam (IMAP Account), then close the browser and open mail.app
3) I have a rule in mail.app which moves my gmail to my domain mail Inbox where I organized with folders and subfolders and use many signatures to send different email out to customers. Mail has been very good as you can do quite a lot with it compared to most other email clients for OSX. I do this for three domains, with several email addresses within each domain.
4) In mail.app, I can choose which mailbox to use for sent mail, junk, etc. This way I am sending from my domain, the email response shows and is linked to that mail so I can look for old responses fast and organize things by department. Spotlight or search works fast and perfectly. It's a good solution which I have used for well over a year (whenever gmail released IMAP services), or was, until a week ago.
Problem 1) As of now, when I open the mail account, the domain subfolders which should be below my Inbox are no longer there. If I look lower to the account folder, sometimes the folders show up there, sometimes they do not show up at all, but they are online in my web-based mail with my hosting company. The mails are not lost, but mail.app is not connecting with the host correctly as they appear and disappear randomly.
Problem 2) Every time I open mail.app now, most of my email inbox folders have to download all of the mail and their attachments again, even though I have the boxes in preferences correctly checked. Once the inbox loads all of the mail, then the subfolders disappear. This is very consistent. As long as there is no mail showing in the inbox, then the subfolders are showing correctly. As soon as the inbox is loaded showing mails, then the subfolders either disappear or move.
Problem 3). The mailboxes that my hosting's webmail service creates (like deleted mail, mail to delete, trash, trash delete, whatever, it's a Windows server) keep showing up in Mail. They never did that before. Once I deleted them, I could see them online, but not in mail. All was as it should be. Now they keep coming back every time I reconnect and I often have to reset which mailbox is being used for junk, sent mail, drafts, etc.
Problem 4). This same problem happens on all three of my machines, two being PPC and one Intel, running 10.4.11 and 10.5.5 respectively. The problem started happening on all my machines at the same time. This is also connection from three different ISPs.
Solution? My hosting company says that they have changed nothing in their settings (IMAP uses Port 143 and I do get a time-out error sometimes but not often). They have tried it in Outlook and do not get the same results, they say it's working fine. I have tried to subscribe in Leopard (you can't do this is Tiger, only in Leopard, but Mail.app says I have no subscribed folders, which is not true). The Quota Limits shows the standard Mail.app mailboxes, the Subscription List shows nothing, and no way to change it).
I tried Thunderbird and it connects faster, downloads faster and the folders are OK, but I still get mail folders appearing randomly. Sometimes I get mail folders appearing that I have not ever created with names like "System Mail". Sometimes I get mail boxes which are stored On My Mac which appear on IMAP suddenly. (Also, Thunderbird has poor signature file support, so I would prefer to use Mail, it's a better program overall.)
I have tried rebuilding the mail accounts, have done this, realistically, 25 times. Yesterday I did a complete reinstall of 10.5.5 just because I am at the end of my rope. Now I am about ready to change hosting companies as I am still having the same trouble. I am in the process of archiving all of my mail into Gmail so I can switch hosts if that is the problem. But, I would like to know first if that is actually the problem, since overall I am pretty happy with my hosting company. They are in Arizona and speak my language and they are easy to talk with. However, they do not have a Mac there so they cannot test my situation from their facility.
It's a strange problem in that one, I have used the system fine for well over a year with perfect results. Two, it happens on three different Mac used in three different places (office, home, and another person's home), and three, I have not changed hosting companies, I have been using the same host for two years and they deny changing any settings on their end.
The hosting company has no answer for me, they are not Mac users, and say that it's perfect in Outlook, but it's not actually perfect in Outlook either as mailboxes still appear randomly and sent mail ends up in my inbox randomly even in Outlook. They just don't realize it as they are not watching my mail boxes except when I am on the phone with them.
I am not having trouble with my websites. I do not have this problem with Gmail, only with my domain webmail.
I have to use Windows because of a particular shopping cart system I use, but IMAP systems should be the same on Windows or anything else. Some how, some where, some one has changed some thing. Any idea what and how to solve the problem?
Thanks,
John

Mail disappears when transferred to folder On My Mac

I am having trouble losing pieces of mail when I transfer them to folders that I have created on my mac. Today I moved one, checked to see if it is in the new folder, and it is not in any folder at all!
Advice, anyone?

Laura Kaiser wrote:
Thanks Elko,
In my special mailboxes for my mac.com account, store junk messages on server is checked, delete is set to never.
This tells me that your junk messages will be with you forever. You aren't deleting them from the server when you download them, and you aren't deleting them ever, from your computer. No reason I can think of to keep junk, on the server or on your computer, but maybe I'm not thinking right.
Also move deleted messages to Trash is checked, permanently erase deleted messages 'when quitting mail' is set.
This is good, HOWEVER if you are having a problem with mail disappearing, change this setting so that they aren't deleted when you quit, but maybe a day later in case you need to retrieve them from the trash folder.
In another account that included messages that disappeared, only move deleted messages to a different folder is checked, erase when one week old is set.
So have you looked in the trash folder of this account for the mail that is disappearing?
In the Advanced Tab, checked boxes for mac.com acct. include enable this account, and include this account when checking for new mail.
It also says keep copies offline, all msg.s and their attachments.
This tells me that you have a different version of Mail than I have. My choice that is closest to that says to remove copy from server after retrieving a message, nothing about attachments. What version of Mail do you have?
For the other account, (not mac.com), checked boxes include enable this account, and include this account when checking for new mail, and remove copy from server when retrieving a message is set at right away.
What does this tell you?
I guess I should have asked you in the beginning, HOW are you moving messages to other folders (and then not finding them there?) Are you selecting the message and then using the move to command from the drop down menu? Are you sure you are putting them in a folder on my mac?
Have you rebuilt your mailboxes lately?

TS3276 Folders on Mail just disappeared how do I get them back

I just lost several of my folders on Mail. They just disappeared how do I find them or get them back

Hi, I have the same problem. How did you get them back?

Problem with .mac account and mail 2.05 (os x 10.4.4)

hi!
i am not able to add a .mac account in mail 2.05. system is os x 10.4.4.
.mac settings in system preference work fine, on my cube with os 10.3.9 i can add the .mac account without problems.
in mail under 10.4.4 i can´t even select accounts besides IMAP, POP and EXCHANGE. if i delete mails plist and even the mail file and achieving a "virginal mail" i just can select these 3 accounts (POP,IMAP,EXCHANGE). strange because if i setup .mac settings in system preferences before setting up a POP mail account (i have 3 POP accounts besides .mac), the .mac account is automatically set up in mail. but even than i can´t set up manually (another) .mac account (can´t be selected in account pulldown menue) as well as soon as i delete it it can´t be resetup.
no way with new user, same procedure. i reinstalled mail from tiger-dvd as well as reinstalling 10.4.4 combo update and repair disc permissions. no way to get .mac to work the normal way.
has anyone any idea?
thanks so long,
peter

the empty folder ~/Library/Mail/ at root level seemed to be the problem of not being able to activating the .Mac account in mail. after copying this folder onto harddisk again (i have a new "20 iMac at work with 10.4.4) the problem was solved. no idea how to get this folder again besides installing a blank 10.4.x install onto external firewire hdd or having a second system...
thanks so long.
i guess i made a mistake when migrating my old mail prefs from 10.3.x to 10.4.x blank install when moving the folders to 10.4.x maybe i have first choosen the ~/Library/Mail/ folder at root level and when recognizing that mail is not working with new user, i´m sure i might have deleted the whole mail prefs and mail folder on root level and copied the whole stuff again into USER/Library/Mail/. Therefore the folder ~/Library/Mail/ at root level became empty. i purchased .Mac just a few days ago so i recognized this failure just now...

Mail disappears from Mac account inbox

Hi folks.
I'm a relative apple newby. I have 2 mail accounts, 1 of which is an apple mail account. On 2 occasions now all the mail in my mac inbox has just disappeared. Any ideas how to retrieve them and why is this happening?
Tks in advance

My wife has a sub-account on our MM family pack subscription and had this issue: occasionally mail on her iPhone would appear briefly in the iPhone inbox, then disappear from the list. It never showed up in Mail.app at all. (I have the master account on this family pack and haven't had this issue… knock on wood.)
I was also a recipient on some of those mails -- but if I forwarded them to her she still didn't get them. I had to copy the text out of the messages and paste into a new mail. That worked. So it seems there's something in the mail header (perhaps?) that causes this… yet the mails have not all been from the same person / address. In fact, mail from person "A" might do this disappearing thing today, yet mail from the same person "A" might work fine tomorrow. It's that sort of multi-variable, intermittent problem that's very hard to pin down.
I tried changing her password -- to guarantee that only her known clients were logging in (no lurking POP mail readers that she'd forgotten about). No effect. Then I tried turning off her junk filters, both local and online at MobileMe (thinking maybe some rule was out of control -- deleting random messages, rather than filing them as junk). No effect (other than a lot of complaints from her about junk in her inbox, of course).
Finally, she suggested that maybe it had to do with MM push services -- since it only happens on the iPhone, not on her Mac. We turned off push on her iPhone and voila! It seems to have fixed the issue.
I haven't found anyone else who's connected this with data push on the iPhone. I'd be interested if other folks who try this as a solution would see if it works for them and post results here.

Mail--my iMac .Mac mail disappeared from "Mailboxes", but is still on my MacBook. How do I restore it to the iMac?

Mail--my .Mac mail disappeared from "Mailboxes" on my iMac this morning. It is still accessible
on my MacBook and iPad. How do I restore it to the iMac?

Reset the page zoom on pages that cause problems: <b>View > Zoom > Reset</b> (Ctrl+0 (zero); Cmd+0 on Mac)
*http://kb.mozillazine.org/Zoom_text_of_web_pages

"On My Mac" Folders Problem - Mails Disappearing

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