'Apple Mail' Application Disaster

[Source]

Hi guys,

One of my friends has just seen all of her emails in OSX 'Mail' disappear from before January 6th 2010 all the way back to when she first got her mac 4 years ago.

I suggested it might be possible that she has some kind of feature on which compresses and backs up all of her emails from a certain date? Is that a feature of OSX 'Mail'? (I don't use the app)

She does have Time Machine installed and backing up her stuff - do you guys know whether Time Machine also backs up OSX Mail?

Thanks!

 

[applesupergeek]

Hi guys,

One of my friends has just seen all of her emails in OSX 'Mail' disappear from before January 6th 2010 all the way back to when she first got her mac 4 years ago.

I suggested it might be possible that she has some kind of feature on which compresses and backs up all of her emails from a certain date? Is that a feature of OSX 'Mail'? (I don't use the app)

She does have Time Machine installed and backing up her stuff - do you guys know whether Time Machine also backs up OSX Mail?

Thanks!

Yes time machine backs up mails, but I wouldn't know how to advice you to restore it from it. It should probably involve manually copying the library mail folder and replacing the current one.

This sounds like a server issue though, a provider issue, maybe her mail provider has archived these emails elsewhere and if she is on an imap account sync the mail on the mac got affected too. It's very easy and simple in the future to just do a back up of all the mail in an account or folder, just select back up, and you get a file with everything in it that you can import any time and re-add everything there.

May I also suggest mobileme, and forwarding her address there, then syncing just mobileme to mail.app, it's very robust and you can restore everything from there is something goes wrong. If she owns an iphone she will also appreciate the extra security features in remote find, remote lock, and wipe as well as the comfort of the private and public idisk.

 

[Mal]

Yes, Time Machine backs up Mail. Just launch Mail, then open Time Machine. You'll get the standard Time Machine interface, with the Mail window appearing behind itself for each of the previous backups. Just find the missing messages by hitting the back arrow or choosing a date from the side where you know they existed, select them, and hit Restore (or don't bother selecting them and hit Restore All if you know you want everything).

No manual copying of anything required.

jW

 

[Pomeroy]

Hi guys,

One of my friends has just seen all of her emails in OSX 'Mail' disappear from before January 6th 2010 all the way back to when she first got her mac 4 years ago.

I suggested it might be possible that she has some kind of feature on which compresses and backs up all of her emails from a certain date? Is that a feature of OSX 'Mail'? (I don't use the app)

She does have Time Machine installed and backing up her stuff - do you guys know whether Time Machine also backs up OSX Mail?

Thanks!

From Mail's Help menu

To restore information using Time Machine:

Make sure Mail is the current application.

Click the Time Machine icon in the Dock.

Time Machine displays the current state, indicated as Today (Now), of the selected mailbox in the foreground, with available backups in the background.

Use the arrows or the timeline along the right side of the screen to browse through the available backups.

Select a mailbox, or one or more messages, to restore, and then click Restore.

Restored mailboxes and messages are organized in a Time Machine mailbox in On My Mac in the sidebar.