Accidentally deleted all mail in inbox!

[ksb43]

Hi. My boss accidentally deleted all the messages in his inbox in Apple Mail and since it syncs with the server (mediatemple), they're all gone from the webmail too. Is there anyway to recover these files? I sent a support request to mediatemple to see if they have backups that they can recover too.

We have a tape backup system here at work that backs up his user account. Would there be a specific file to look for that might contain the old messages?

Thanks!

 

[lindahl22]

Hi. My boss accidentally deleted all the messages in his inbox in Apple Mail and since it syncs with the server (mediatemple), they're all gone from the webmail too. Is there anyway to recover these files? I sent a support request to mediatemple to see if they have backups that they can recover too.

We have a tape backup system here at work that backs up his user account. Would there be a specific file to look for that might contain the old messages?

Thanks!

Do you use TimeMachine? Do you have any archive email system (copy all mail to Archive folder, forward all mail to gmail)?

If you have no backups, then check Mail's Trash can, and also check Mac OS's Trash can, that might help you, and thats all I can think of.

Also find a way to backup your email, use gmail 🙂 and DropBox is a great free way to backup 2GB of important files

 

[ksb43]

We don't use time machine we use retrospect. Its an old tape backup system. I checked the Mail Trash can, but somehow he managed to delete all of message from his inbox and the trash. The emails don't go into the OS Trash I don't think.

Is there a specific file that Mail would store the emails in that I can look for in the backups? I definitely need to find a way to back up the emails better. I just didn't expect anyone to delete them all!

 

[ksb43]

I'm thinking that the files would be in Library>Mail>POP-username>INBOX.mbox however, those files are also conveniently corrupt on the backup. I get the error Bad Backup Set Header. I don't even know what the point is of having a backup when all the files are corrupt. The only other option I have is to try to get it off last weeks tapes which are currently at home.

With Retrospect 5, when you get that Bad Backup Set error, am I right to assume theres a communication problem involving the tapes or the tape deck? Will external hard drives work with Retrospect 5 and if so, would that eliminate the errors and the constant freezing that occurs?

Thanks.

 

[Tumbleweed666]

I'm thinking that the files would be in Library>Mail>POP-username>INBOX.mbox however, those files are also conveniently corrupt on the backup. I get the error Bad Backup Set Header. I don't even know what the point is of having a backup when all the files are corrupt. The only other option I have is to try to get it off last weeks tapes which are currently at home.

With Retrospect 5, when you get that Bad Backup Set error, am I right to assume theres a communication problem involving the tapes or the tape deck? Will external hard drives work with Retrospect 5 and if so, would that eliminate the errors and the constant freezing that occurs?

Thanks.

Its quite possible the errors are a natural consequence of having mail open when you backup. You could test this theory easily. Or some other configuration error.

One more lesson learned, don't just make backups, test you can restore from them.