Emails Disappeared After Organizing Folders & Mass Deleting - Mac Mail App

[djbuddy]

MacBook Pro Retina 15"
Mavericks 10.9.5

I was reorganizing emails, creating new folders, moving emails from one account to another. A lot of emails are missing including both emails that I transferred to other boxes and emails that I didn't even touch.

Here's some examples of actions I did:
- Moved a whole folder of emails from my yahoo account to my gmail account (and vice versa)
- Moved a whole folder of emails on my gmail account to another folder in the same gmail account
- Deleted drafts

Main Issues:
- Emails are missing from folders that I did not touch
- Some emails are findable, but the contents do not match the subject (emails are mixed and matched)
- The missing emails are also missing when I try to access them in their respective accounts on a browser
- The emails are completely gone, even when I use the search function on the mail app.

I've tried:
- restarting the mail app
- get all new mail
- synchronize all accounts
- rebuilding the mailbox

Again is stress that mail in folders that were not touched are missing as well.

Thanks in advance for you help.

 

[maflynn]

Why were you moving emails from one provider to another? I think that might caused the issue and the mass deletes did just that, started removing everything even though you were not touching every folder as you mentioned.

If they're missing when you log in via the browser then they may very well be gone. Have you tried contacting yahoo/google support to see if there's any backups they can pull your emails from?

 

[BrianBaughn]

Yes, moving emails from one account to another is two requests...one to delete and another to add. If the second goes haywire you can imagine the result.

I've done this sort of thing several times and this kind of mail reorganization has to be monitored closely as errors occur frequently. You should be using the "Copy To" command first, then verify that the copy was successful before deleting the source. Copying in small batches (50 or so emails at a time) is the way to go. If the process gets stopped before it's complete it's hard to determine what has actually been copied since the emails don't seem to be copied in any particular order.

 

[hyhybt]

And what about the mail in folders that weren't touched also being missing?

 

[BrianBaughn]

And what about the mail in folders that weren't touched also being missing?

I'm wondering which server those were on.

 

[MCAsan]

Are the accounts using POP3 or IMAP? If POP3 and you lose the emails on your client, they are likely gone. If IMAP and the email server(s) did not see a delete command from your client, they servers may still have your folders of emails that they can synch onto your client. One of the many reasons to always use IMAP if there is a choice.

 

[djbuddy]

Yes, moving emails from one account to another is two requests...one to delete and another to add. If the second goes haywire you can imagine the result.

I've done this sort of thing several times and this kind of mail reorganization has to be monitored closely as errors occur frequently. You should be using the "Copy To" command first, then verify that the copy was successful before deleting the source. Copying in small batches (50 or so emails at a time) is the way to go. If the process gets stopped before it's complete it's hard to determine what has actually been copied since the emails don't seem to be copied in any particular order.

Great advice, thank you.