Problem with Mail need help!

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I've been using Mail for a while now without issue but today I went to look at some older emails maybe one month old and notice everything from about 3 weeks ago and older is blank, the emails are listed with subjects intact but when I open them they are totally blank...
I really need to access the information in these emails any help would be greatly appreciated. I have not made any changes to anything in quite a while so I'm not sure whats up.

Ok, heres an update on something I did just after posting this, I imported everything from mail to entourage (which I never used) and everything is fine, so why is mail not showing my older emails properly...
 
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May be there was some setting regarding keeping the mail for a predefined time and you set it to 3 weeks

Thanks

I've been using Mail for a while now without issue but today I went to look at some older emails maybe one month old and notice everything from about 3 weeks ago and older is blank, the emails are listed with subjects intact but when I open them they are totally blank...
I really need to access the information in these emails any help would be greatly appreciated. I have not made any changes to anything in quite a while so I'm not sure whats up.

Ok, heres an update on something I did just after posting this, I imported everything from mail to entourage (which I never used) and everything is fine, so why is mail not showing my older emails properly...
 
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Josh_MacMan
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Could be, but I kinda doubt that, I figured if something like that was enabled the emails wouldn't be there at all but I'll take a look at that tonight.
 
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First, have you tried the Rebuild command? (under Mailbox menu)

You can also go to homefolder~Library/Mail/your Account/(inbox, sent, etc..)/messages and select them there. (long way, but good to know) ;)
 
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Soulwar, I haven't tried that, I will when I get home tonight.
 
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I did the rebuild command and all those messages are now gone, they dont even show up...plus i dont see anywhere where I set Mail to delete any messages after a certain amount of time....

ugh this is terrible I am missing so much email now...this is not good at all, so only email from 3/10/2008 and newer is showing....wheres my last years worth of email?!!?!?!? ugh!
 
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Josh_MacMan
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No one else has any other input? I have a hard time believing at least a years worth of email just disappeared. I'm afraid to even use Mail anymore.
 
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Did you follow the path I posted and see if they are still there?
Maybe post all your mail settings and see if we can't find the problem. If everything is set properly, something may have become corrupted.
 
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I did check the path and the only emails listed are the ones in mail, so all the missing emails are also missing from that folder as well...
 
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I have the exact same problem. But for me its all mails except the ones i recieved today. I can see the topic etc, but i can't see the message it self. And i really really need to read one of the mails.

Has anyone, i haven't really tried anything yet as i don't want to lose the mails completely.
 
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How do you access your mails, via POP or IMAP?
Which provider?
 
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Josh_MacMan
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It's POP and it's through my website host. Mail was set up to just download all the emails and set not to leave any on the server.
 
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It's POP and it's through my website host. Mail was set up to just download all the emails and set not to leave any on the server.
Hmm weird...

Oh well, just restore them from your Time machine backup!
 
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Yeah, that is my problem as well. I started using Time Machine and then went back to doing regular full backups of my HD, and by the time I realized the problem my backup had the same issue because I overwrite my backups after a certain amount of time. Now I am using Time Machine again as I figure'd it would have saved me from this issue.

It just bothers me that this has happened in the first place and I cannot figure out why. I work in IT and I am very diligent when it comes to taking care of my computers and usually when someone says "something disappeared" it is usually user error, however in my case I am almost completely sure I did nothing wrong to cause this.
 
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Ok, heres an update on something I did just after posting this, I imported everything from mail to entourage (which I never used) and everything is fine, so why is mail not showing my older emails properly...
Can you re-import from that?
 
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Haven't got one :/
Then consider this your warning ;)

Seriously, if there's anything you'd miss on your Mac, backup. I've had two primary harddrives fail on me spontaneously in about 5 years. Not too bad considering how much I use my computers but my backups saved me both times.
 
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Well, here is what I did before, I imported all the email from Mail into entourage and it seemed fine in entourage, all the mail was there and readable.

While looking for answers I decided to use the rebuild command in Mail and all those blank emails disappeared from Mail completely, afterward I opened entourage and those same email were gone from there also, how the two are related I have no idea and other than importing I figure'd all the mail was in a pst file or something in entourage and totally seperate from mail, how would running rebuild effect the emails in entourage too??

It just seems totally F$ked up.

Bottom line is something got screwed up big time and my lost emails are nowhere to be found.
 
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While looking for answers I decided to use the rebuild command in Mail and all those blank emails disappeared from Mail completely, afterward I opened entourage and those same email were gone from there also, how the two are related I have no idea and other than importing I figure'd all the mail was in a pst file or something in entourage and totally seperate from mail, how would running rebuild effect the emails in entourage too??
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=25812
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Mail/3.0/en/10047.html
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Mail/3.0/en/9958.html

 
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Are you sure your account isn't IMAP?

Seeing as how both apps are messed up, I sure does sound as though this is a server-side issue.
 

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