The mailboxes I created have disappeared

[jor122]

My wife was working on a spreadsheet this afternoon when she looked at Mail and discovered that all of the mailboxes that we had created over the years had disappeared. The basic mailboxes provided by the Mail app: Inbox, Drafts, Sent, Junk, Trash etc. are still present and populated.

How do I get them back? I tried Time Machine but the missing mailboxes do not appear there either, no matter how far back I go. I installed High Sierra recently. I'm using pop-3 and my mail service is thru Earthlink. We download from 4 different Earthlink accts as well as an iCloud acct and a Google acct. We have had this setup for years wo/problems. Some of those mailboxes are very important and would be a hardship to lose so I need to restore them. They must be somewhere in my system but I don't know how to find them or get them returned properly to Mail.

Any help will be greatly appreciated.

 

[chscag]

Which view is your Wife using for Mail? There is the "classic" view and the standard view. (Check preferences, "view") It's possible that the mailboxes that are gone are still there but are being hidden from view.

Trying to recover Mail or Mail Boxes using Time Machine works a bit differently than an ordinary restore. You must first enter the Mail App and keep it open while opening Time Machine and choosing a date for recovery. If you don't do it that way, nothing will show up from Mail or Mail Boxes.

 

[jor122]

Got it!

Thank you so much chscag. I tried changing the view to classic but it did not reveal my mailboxes. When I tried Time Machine again the missing mailboxes were still absent. But the way the Time Machine displayed the available mailboxes it revealed that the subtitled "On My Mac" contained files and I could click on the word "show". So I did and all of the missing mailboxes were revealed. I closed Time Machine and went back to Mail and sure enough the "On My Mac" was hiding my mailboxes and unless I rolled over the OMM words I didn't know that there was something to see. So problem solved.
But if you hadn't directed me to try Time Machine again I doubt I would have found the solution.
It feels good that it was such a simple fix.
Thanks again.

 

[chscag]

Good to hear that you solved it. I might make a suggestion for you and your wife with regard to mail:

There are several good programs (inexpensive) that can categorize and archive your mail separate from the Apple Mail application. This protects valuable information that is stored in mail boxes and other mail folders. Most of us (myself included) can not afford to lose stored mail.

Another suggestion is to use a different form of backup. I use Carbon Copy Cloner in addition to Time Machine to make backups. Cloning software is very fast and provides an easy way to recover lost data during an emergency.

 

[jor122]

Another suggestion is to use a different form of backup. I use Carbon Copy Cloner in addition to Time Machine to make backups. Cloning software is very fast and provides an easy way to recover lost data during an emergency.

Good to know. I have CCC but I thought it was a disk clone used to restore an entire disk volume. I didn't know that I can access individual files within the cloned Volume. That's why I went to Time Machine to try to solve this problem. I have heard a lot of complaints about TM so I hooked up an external drive w/CCC. I need to look into how to get at files on CCC.
Thanks again,