Apple Mail OS X 10.10.5 flushed all my e-mail accounts!?

[m4v3r1ck]

Hi all,

Yesterday, I woke up my for weeks sleeping Mac Pro 5.1 (2012) and was - to say at least - very shocked to find that my Apple Mail application on Mac OS X 10.10.5 was completely empty!

ALL MAILBOXES ARE GONE! Resulting that I need to re-enter all my mail-accounts.

1. Could anyone please help me to regain my e-mail accounts and all e-mails. This is the very first time - using Apple Mac OS X 10 - happening to me.

2. What may be the root-cause of this absurd misfortune?

Thanks in advance for your help, much appreciated!

Cheers!

 

[sultanoflondon]

Too little information to understand much from this...

First thing you should confirm is that the emails in your account(s) haven't been wiped, because if so, this could be a much bigger problem for you.

Do you have a Time Machine backup, or similar? If so, use that to go back in time and see whether you can see what when wrong and when. You might be able to restore from here.

Or, if it isn't much bother, just reenter the accounts into Mail?

It's vaguely possible that Mail crashed, your Mac rebooted (which is why Mail is still open, because i's in your list of Login Items?) and then something went wrong along the way resulting in your accounts being wiped.

 

[m4v3r1ck]

Too little information to understand much from this...

First thing you should confirm is that the emails in your account(s) haven't been wiped, because if so, this could be a much bigger problem for you.

Thank you for your prompt reply! Much appreciated

Because I always have a fall-back scenario - Thunderbird - I can confirm that all my e-mails are still on all the iMAP Servers at all my e-mail providers.

Do you have a Time Machine backup, or similar? If so, use that to go back in time and see whether you can see what when wrong and when. You might be able to restore from here.

I also have a very tight and strict Back-up Scheme, so restoring from a Carbon Copy Clone is no issue at all! But I still would very much like to investigate issues like this, so that perhaps a very useful Q+A can be added to the Mac Rumors Forums!

Or, if it isn't much bother, just reenter the accounts into Mail?

My very last-resort-option imho.

It's vaguely possible that Mail crashed, your Mac rebooted (which is why Mail is still open, because i's in your list of Login Items?) and then something went wrong along the way resulting in your accounts being wiped.

Thanks again for your time and quick response!

I cheers with you for that!

 

[organicCPU]

Exploring files in these locations could give a hint of what has happened or what is still present:
~/Library/Containers/com.apple.mail
~/Library/Containers/com.apple.mail/Data/Library/Preferences/com.apple.mail.plist
~/Library/Mail
~/Library/Application Support/CrashReporter/Mail_*

Are you sure that Mail isn't just in progress rebuilding its IMAP accounts for whatever reason? Even normal syncing can take some time for five weeks of pending emails.
Often the best solution for fixing problems with IMAP accounts is to delete them and set them up again.
Each different client accessing the same IMAP account can cause problems for the other clients due to some incompatible or unintended setting as you're working directly on the server. Accessing and configuring the IMAP accounts with the webmail browser client provided by your hosting service can sometimes help, too.

 

[m4v3r1ck]

Thank you! Much appreciated for your help and directions.

Exploring files in these locations could give a hint of what has happened or what is still present:
~/Library/Containers/com.apple.mail
~/Library/Containers/com.apple.mail/Data/Library/Preferences/com.apple.mail.plist
~/Library/Mail
~/Library/Application Support/CrashReporter/Mail_*

Will investigate this later!

Are you sure that Mail isn't just in progress rebuilding its IMAP accounts for whatever reason? Even normal syncing can take some time for five weeks of pending emails.
Often the best solution for fixing problems with IMAP accounts is to delete them and set them up again.
Each different client accessing the same IMAP account can cause problems for the other clients due to some incompatible or unintended setting as you're working directly on the server. Accessing and configuring the IMAP accounts with the webmail browser client provided by your hosting service can sometimes help, too.

The current status when I open the Mail Application on my Mac OS X 10.10.5 is that I have to re-enter ALL mailboxes. Not good...

Thanks again for your reply!

 

[BrianBaughn]

I don’t think anything would be easier than re-adding IMAP email accounts and letting Mail do its thing. If there are any “On My Mac” folders that’s a different story.