Mailboxes and contents disappeared.

[royalpei]

This morning all of my mailboxes on 'my mac' were there and all of the contents.
Now they are all gone.
All I have is

INBOX
SENT
JUNK
TRASH

I updated to Catalina, has anyone else experienced this?

I have messages and important data going back years.

I tried to use my Time machine,but have no idea where to find these.


I'm sure before you can help there is much info. missing.

HELP!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[chscag]

There is a supplemental update to Catalina which you should download and install. Apple recommends this supplemental update for everyone. One of the bugs in the original Catalina is with the Mail program.

To restore Mail from Time Machine: First open your Mail program and keep it open. Run Time Machine and it will take you right to your Mail. Then restore all your Mail Boxes and data.

 

[royalpei]

There is a supplemental update to Catalina which you should download and install. Apple recommends this supplemental update for everyone. One of the bugs in the original Catalina is with the Mail program.

To restore Mail from Time Machine: First open your Mail program and keep it open. Run Time Machine and it will take you right to your Mail. Then restore all your Mail Boxes and data.

It sounds so easy by will not do it. Any other answer for me? I did install the latest update, but still only the r main boes, None of those I DARE LOOE

 

[RavingMac]

Can you access your mail from any of your other devices?

If so, I recommend opening another email account (gmail for example) and moving your mail to it. That way it will be safe until you get things sorted. I also wouldn’t link that account to mail on your Catalina OS Mac until Apple fixes the problem

 

[ferrarr]

I only access the mail on the server, so it gets copied to my Mac. My Mac acts as the backup, and the originals stay where they are.

 

[MacInWin]

It sounds so easy by will not do it.

What does that mean? Chscag suggested that you open Mail, then with Mail open, enter Time Machine. The resulting TM screen should open into what looks like Mail. There should be a prompt to tell you how to restore mailboxes from any date in the past (where a TM backup was made). So when you do that, what happens? "Will not do it" is not much help.

 

[royalpei]

What does that mean? Chscag suggested that you open Mail, then with Mail open, enter Time Machine. The resulting TM screen should open into what looks like Mail. There should be a prompt to tell you how to restore mailboxes from any date in the past (where a TM backup was made). So when you do that, what happens? "Will not do it" is not much help.

I just cannot find anything inside MAIL on TM.

I WISH!!!!!!!!!!!!! Thats what I was hoping for.ALL OF MY MAIL FOLDERS on MAC are GONE,except the 4 default.
I have never had an issue in the many many years I have been doing it.All my client info is in one folder.Every app. I have ever purchased with all the ways to get my numbers to access if lost.

I could go on and on.
I am devasted.

I cannot put them in GMAIL as I dont have them. My messages now all come in to my inbox, but I need those saved in folders.

- - - Updated - - -

DONE.

- - - Updated - - -

ALL FOLDERS and contents are in neither place.

 

[royalpei]

I did clean yesterday with CLEAN MY MAC, but I dont remember doing anything different than any other month after 3 years.

 

[MacInWin]

I just cannot find anything inside MAIL on TM.

What does that mean? Again, we cannot see your screens or what you are doing so you have to be specific. We know it's important to you, but we can't help unless and until we get the information.

So, when you open TM with Mail open, what shows up on your screen? Describe it in detail. What happens when I open Mail, then enter TM is that the screen goes to the TM view, with the stacked history and the timeline down the side. What is in the window is basically Mail, with all my folders and messages. I can scroll back in time and see the messages change. What you would need to do is get to that screen, then scroll back to beyond where the folders disappeared and bring them back. It's important to actually be IN Mail when you enter TM or all you will see is the same Finder view that TM displays.

- - - Updated - - -

And get rid of clean my Mac. Worst piece of junk ever written. Buggy, useless, bad. If it worked for that long for you, you dodged some bullets. I just hope yesterday you didn't dodge well enough.

 

[IWT]

@royalpei

Just in case you choose to restore from Time Machine.

Open Mail

Click on Time Machine icon on top menu bar and choose Enter Time Machine - as below:



This what you will see - Mail as below:



Now look to your right and you will see a Time Line. Choose a date when you know things were normal. In this case, I chose 3 October 2019:



The picture will scroll back in time to your chosen date:



When everything looks to be there, choose Restore.



And that's pretty much all there is to it. You will be given the choice to Replace or Keep both. Normally one chooses Replace.

This advice is not compulsory;D

But if you want to, that's how.

Ian

 

[MacInWin]

Ian, that was excellent! Just one note to add. See that the prompt says you can select which mailbox to restore. So if your Inbox is ok, but you have lost some other mailboxes you created to hold these critical messages, select those mailboxes and then click restore when you see the critical messages in the display.

 

[IWT]

Good point, Jake. My error. Should have made that clear. Sorry, Royalpei.

Ian

 

[HondaMan983]

On my machine Mail simply quits!
Also, can anyone tell me where the mailboxes "on my Mac" are stored?

 

[MacInWin]

On my machine Mail simply quits!
Also, can anyone tell me where the mailboxes "on my Mac" are stored?

Mail files are stored as system files. Where they are depend on the version of macOS you are running. What is the problem that makes you want to find them?

 

[royalpei]

I would strongly suggest that royalpei get some professional Mac help and hopefully get everything recovered, especially with what seems to be a bit of trouble with the English language.


- Patrick
======

Thanks a lot Patrick, it's not my ENGLISH that is the problem but I'm not good at explaining computers like you guys.Only reason I hate to come on here is the way I am spoken down to. Most everyone is nice, some not so much.Maybe you could either not answer me in the future or try to be polite.
To the rest of you ,THANK YOU.Sorry I am so dumb in explaining things.

 

[chscag]

@royalpei:

I can't speak for Patrick directly, but I'm sure he did not mean anything derogative. Please accept our apology if you took that the wrong way.

Hopefully we can get all your mail back to the way it was before. Member IWT posted some screen shots along with some very good explanations of how to use Time Machine to recover your mail. If you need any more help with this please feel free to ask and I promise we will try our best to assist you.

Regards.

 

[royalpei]

There is a supplemental update to Catalina which you should download and install. Apple recommends this supplemental update for everyone. One of the bugs in the original Catalina is with the Mail program.

To restore Mail from Time Machine: First open your Mail program and keep it open. Run Time Machine and it will take you right to your Mail. Then restore all your Mail Boxes and data.

As soon as I try to open the the time machine while mail is open, it shuts down immediately

 

[MacInWin]

@royapei, I don't think anyone has "spoken down" to you. We simply are trying to get more information about what is going on and why your system is, apparently, not working like our systems do. Which is why I keep asking "What does that mean?" So far, all you have said is, basically, your mail is gone and you can't find it in Time Machine, either because it's not there, or you haven't found it. Ian gave a great series of images for you to see exactly what you need to do to get to any email backup you may have. Did that work to help? Did your system show the same kind of images as his did? Did any of the missing folders show up there? One thing to think about is that the more backups you have and the further you have to go back in time the longer it takes TM to display what it has. That phenomenon is caused by the way TM builds the backup, using lots of links that have to be chased down before it can show you the backup. So when you step back in time in Time Machine, remember to be patient and let it build up the data it needs to show you the data it has.

EDIT: While I was typing you posted this:

As soon as I try to open the the time machine while mail is open, it shuts down immediately

May I ask what the "it" is that shuts down? Mail or Time Machine? Does Time Machine work if you open it NOT in Mail? Do you get any error messages or messages at all? NOTE: I just tried it and when I opened TM with Mail open, when I left TM Mail was closed. I suspect that happened so that TM could write the data into the locations where the Mail is stored without competing with Mail for that same space.

 

[royalpei]

Thanks Ian, but as soon as I open TM while in mail it all disappears.Will not let me see anything to restore. Both programs shut right down.

 

[chscag]

As soon as I try to open the the time machine while mail is open, it shuts down immediately

I'm wondering if your Time Machine backup is corrupt? Normally, with Mail open Time Machine will immediately show the Mail content, folders, and so forth just as Ian pointed out.

There have been some reported problems with the Catalina update with regard to Mail but most were minor and none that I know of involved the losses that you experienced. Also, we can't be sure that "Clean My Mac" did anything to disrupt the Mail app. However, we do not recommend using any kind of cleaner as most are too aggressive with their cleaning.