email has disappeared

[Indyal]

I recently downloaded Yosemite a few days ago. Yesterday, my email would receive but not send with the account information saying the outgoing server is not connected. I used advice on this forum and other sites which got the email working BUT all the old inbox, sent, junk, and deleted disappeared. My time machine will sometimes show them and sometimes not but never allows the restore function. I can see the old emails under account information as messages on server but the only option is to delete them. Any ideas?

 

[MacInWin]

To restore email, you need to open Mail first, then with Mail still open invoke TM and it will show you the backed up emails. From there you should be able to restore.