Hello Simon, What I think happened is that your mail preferences file(s) got corrupted. A check of the Apple Support archives showed that this can happen when you run out of free space for Mail to use in its temporary housekeeping when your mailbox is very large and/or your disk is very full. You haven't actually lost any mail and nothing is overwritten in your mailbox, but the information that is normally set under rules and accounts (including the tabs for account information, mailbox behavior, and advanced tabs) of the mail preferences menu may not being correctly read because it was overwritten when it was loaded into a temporary directory.
Your mail is stored under your user account in the Library/Mail folder. This is also where the individual preference files for your rules and mailboxes are set up (with files like MessageRules.plists, etc. under a Mailboxes folder). You can take the precaution of moving a copy of the entire folder to another disk or copying it to the Desktop (if you have room) if you like. You can also check the size of the folder in Finder. Start from your home directory (e.g. Command- Shift-H), then use the Command-Shift-G (Go to folder) shortcut and type in or copy and paste: Library/Mail Command-Up Arrow will take you up a folder level, but with the Mail folder selected, and Get Info (Command-I) can let you check the the size with item chooser menu (for "size"). You can close the Get Info window (Command-W) when done. Item chooser menu (for "available") will also tell you how much free space is left on your hard drive. When individual mailboxes get very large (meaning more than 2 GB under Tiger) you can sometimes appear to have lost the contents of your mailboxes even when the messages are still there. I don't know whether this is still a problem under Leopard. Can you check your available disk space? If you have space on your hard drive I would take the precaution of making a copy of your Mail folder someplace else. It's probably not terrible if you can't do this. Another thing, if you have been running for a while, and especially with several processes, you may simply have run out of space in your temporary registers. Mail (and all other apps) use temporary space to store preferences and files that you read. It's also possible that simply saving the folder, quitting mail, and restarting your computer will bring things up correctly. If not, the next step would be to copy over preference files again. Let me know how much space is available to you. Sorry that the typing and searching has taken so long. Cheers, Esther I'm pasting in the forum response of on the Apple Discussion support site that was made to someone who thought he had lost all his mail. He recovered everything, by the way. Here's the exchange: <original post> Hello, I just went to open my mail and was asked if I'd like to see new features in mail. I selected not now and the next thing I know my whole mail box had changed. I no longer have any of my mailboxes nor do I have any of my messages that were in my inbox. I also seem to have lost all of my sent mail. The whole thing looks brand new like I haven't used it. I have messages that were in my mac account but that's it. I checked in the preferences and my accounts don't show up. Can someone help me with this? Have I lost five years of business e- mails and correspondence? <end original post> <reply> This can happen if you run short of temporary free space for Mail to use for its housekeeping tasks, or with a laptop if those tasks are not allowed to be completed before shutdown, or forced sleep. How much free space do you have on your hard drive, or if partitioned, on the boot partition? The preference file gets corrupted or overwritten, and the account info that is entered/found at Mail Preferences/Accounts/Account Information (and under the Mailbox Behaviors and Advanced tabs) is lost -- OSX and Mail will not overwrite the actual message data. Check for the Mail folder at Home/Library/Mail and make a duplicate and drag the resulting copy to the Desktop for temporary backup. Set the accounts back up in Mail Preferences, after being sure to DECLINE when prompted to import anything. Mail should than rediscover the existing account folders. <end reply> On May 27, 2009, at 6:05 AM, Simon Cavendish wrote: > > Dear Listers, > > I have just noticed much to my horror that some of my mailboxes have > disappeared. I have for instant created a mailbox called > macvisionaries and in it macvisionaries archive to which I would > direct by creatting a rule or move by hand respectively my e-mails > from the group. They are now gone. Some other mailboxes which I had > created in order to move messages for keeps have disappeared as well. > I don't remember having done anything "cruel" to my mailboxes. Can I > retrieve them? Could I restore them from my backup on time mahcine, if > so, how? And if I haven't got the mailbox called ""macvisionaries" and > the associated rule continues to try and send e-mails from the group > to it, how will I receive any answers from you? Could anyone send any > s o s messages to my private e-mail address please? I seem to have > lost in this way all records of my private important purchase-related > e-mails. > > Hope help is at hand. > > With best wishes > > Simon > > > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "MacVisionaries" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
