All my Gmail has disappeared!!

[rbpeirce]

I use my Gmail mailbox to preserve important stuff. I just discovered the mailbox is empty as is every Gmail sub-mailbox: Drafts, Sent, Junk and Trash. Is there any way to restore it? I have Time Machine and SD! backups but I've never figured out to use them for mail. Everything seems to be buried in a Library/Mail directory.

 

[lclev]

Have you logged into your Gmail account online? Try that and check the trash too.
https://mail.google.com › mail

- Lisa

 

[rbpeirce]

Have you logged into your Gmail account online? Try that and check the trash too.
https://mail.google.com › mail

- Lisa

I did and it is gone from there was well. Google says it can't be recovered. That's why I was hoping it might be in my library somewhen.

 

[MacInWin]

How were you accessing Gmail? If you were using an app, like Apple's Mail, or some other, the messages may be in one of your backups.

 

[Raz0rEdge]

As Jake suggested, if you were accessing your GMail through the Mail app and have Time Machine backups, you might be able to restore the file within Mail back to prior to the deletion (if you know when it happened) and perhaps get access to things.

One thing to keep in mind is that if Mail is using IMAP to stay in sync with the server, even restoring back to an older backup might not work since it might try to update the local contents to match what's on the server and the GMail servers don't have your emails, so they might be deleted (again) from Mail as well.

 

[rbpeirce]

How were you accessing Gmail? If you were using an app, like Apple's Mail, or some other, the messages may be in one of your backups.

That is my hope but I don't know how to find them. Everything might be in a Time Machine backup of ~/Library/Mail but is it and how do I get it?

 

[RadDave]

That is my hope but I don't know how to find them. Everything might be in a Time Machine backup of ~/Library/Mail but is it and how do I get it?

Hello - just do a google search on 'how to restore lost email with time machine' - depending on your macOS/hardware, an AI Overview may be generated outlining how to find and attempt to restore your email from the TM backup - also look at the other hits for any 'Apple Support' responses. But I'm curious how your Gmail account was apparently deleted - might be of interest to others using that service? Anxious to know your results - good luck. Dave

 

[rbpeirce]

Hello - just do a google search on 'how to restore lost email with time machine' - depending on your macOS/hardware, an AI Overview may be generated outlining how to find and attempt to restore your email from the TM backup - also look at the other hits for any 'Apple Support' responses. But I'm curious how your Gmail account was apparently deleted - might be of interest to others using that service? Anxious to know your results - good luck. Dave

None of the instructions I saw allow recovering a specific mailbox, Gmail as of a particular date in this case. You can recover the entire mail system, V10 I think, or specific emails, although I have no idea how you find them.

 

[rbpeirce]

As a test I sent my Gmail mail account a test message. I confirmed it showed up on my machine. Then I went to ~/Library/Mail to see if I could find it. I did locate a directory called [Gmail].mbox/All Mail.mbox. I think it might be in there somewhere but I couldn't find it. Any ideas?

 

[RadDave]

None of the instructions I saw allow recovering a specific mailbox, Gmail as of a particular date in this case. You can recover the entire mail system, V10 I think, or specific emails, although I have no idea how you find them.

Sorry that did not help you - best of luck and hope others will have more suggestions. Dave

 

[rbpeirce]

Being an old Unix guy I was able to use terminal to go to the Gmail directory in a Time Machine backup of V10 and use the find command to locate all the emlx files, five pages! These can be Imported to mail but it is REALLY time-consuming and there is a lot of surprisingly old stuff I've long since deleted and forgotten about.

Does anybody know of a way to import these in bulk?

 

[ferrarr]

there is a lot of surprisingly old stuff I've long since deleted and forgotten about.

Your email provider changed to "Archive", from "Trash", probably.

 

[rbpeirce]

Your email provider changed to "Archive", from "Trash", probably.

That's not the issue. However it happened it is gone and I need to restore it. The data exists in my June 4, 2025 time machine backup. A typical email folder looks like

./0/1/3/Messages/310722.emlx

If I import 310722.emlx I actually get that entry as a sub-folder in the Import folder. I have to go to 310722.emlx and drag-and-drop the email content where I want it.

I'm looking for a way to do some or all of this in bulk. I would at least like to get all the email folders into Import. Then I can relocate their content one-by-one. Better yet would be to get the email content of these folders.

 

[rbpeirce]

I've completed the first step using the following ksh script:

cd /Users/{me}/Desktop/\[Gmail\].mbox/All\ Mail.mbox/2C10F3DA-EB7B-4036-BB2F-204ACE43D595/Data
> ~/Desktop/Import
find . -name *.emlx |
sort > ~/foo
for i in `cat ~/foo`
do
print ${i##*/} >> ~/Desktop/Import
done
rm -f ~/foo

This gives me a list of all the emlx files. It turns out they contain plists that only Mail can decipher so automating the whole process does not appear to be possible.

 

[Jimmysb]

If you are using apple mail and you have imported the mbox, you should, within mail, be able to "drag and drop"

 

[rbpeirce]

If you are using apple mail and you have imported the mbox, you should, within mail, be able to "drag and drop"

Thanks. I didn't think I could do that but I tried it and it worked. It gave me a check list off all the mailboxes in Gmail. I just selected the one I wanted. It ended up ready to go in

Import/Gmail/All Mail

I can clean that up and drag what is left to my Gmail folder!

 

[MacInWin]

Now that you have recovered, stop using mail as a storage depository for "important stuff" as you said in the first post. Mail of any kind is NOT a good place to store anything.

 

[rbpeirce]

Now that you have recovered, stop using mail as a storage depository for "important stuff" as you said in the first post. Mail of any kind is NOT a good place to store anything.

Agree. I only use this for short-term storage of things like hotel confirmations. I delete them when they are no longer current. I use Gmail because I don't have my regular mail connected to my iPhone and I might need to check something on the road. I think I also could use iCloud. Any thoughts on that?

 

[Jimmysb]

Now that you have recovered, stop using mail as a storage depository for "important stuff" as you said in the first post. Mail of any kind is NOT a good place to store anything.

I have mail going back to 1998, archived etc, even imported my Windows mail into my Apple archive. But, important documents are also filed separately.