Help! All my emails are gone!

[Itv]

Hi all,
First of all let me just say I am not a computer expert. I used to keep on top of some apple updates in the past but as they made so many changes to their OS recently I lost track. All i know Mavericks screwed up mail app and gmail big time! I always had funny things happening with my mail app, like tones of duplicated messages, erasing emails just to see them immediately pop back onto the screen, and all of a sudden millions of emails from the past being downloaded... really erratic behaviour of mail.

Two days ago I have lost almost ALL my messages from my gmail and @me account from the past 10 years or more and after some initial research I learned it is likely to do with the Mavericks OS - MAYBE??

I am very confused and don't really know what happened but here is the story:

Setup:
macbook pro
10.9.3
mail app with 2 account - gmail and @me.com
under "on my mac" list on the left i have set up separate folders for filing emails by subject or by sender.
i use mail on my iPhone and iPad

the other day i was cleaning my inbox from old and unwanted emails, i do that from time to time, just search by subject, then select them all and hit delete. After that I am always double checking in the bin folder and will delete from there as well if everything i see is indeed what i wanted to get rid off.
This is not a new thing, i do that aloft, always good.
2 days ago i do the same thing and everything disappeared from everywhere in my email app. everything!!
All of a sudden i am left with something like 40 messages in my inbox. (i had years and years of mail) NO WAY i have deleted all the emails all the way back to 2007 or what ever...this would have taken me hours to do.
I know i have selected some but not everything.
The other wired thing is that some random messages did stay in one of the "on my mac" folder. just 4 messages, where there once used to be many.
all the other folders are completely empty.

nothing in archive, only some messages.

my draft folder also looks wired... it shows 23 drafts with only two email just duplicated lots of time..
i never really saved these emails as drafts, these are 2 random emails..

i must add that in the last few days i have been staying at a friends house and hooked up to their wi-fi network. I have no idea if this has anything to do with this problem but I am trying to think of everything. I also changed my gmail password yesterday just incase my account has been compromised but that was after this happened so still need to recover these emails.

I already followed google step-by-step instruction of how to find your emails and found nothing. its a BIG black hole...
I checked IMAP is enabled in the google setting on the gmail web-site
I sent a form to google to enquire about the missing emails and got an automatic message that they can not recover any messages and any further email on the same subject will not be reviewed. ("Because there's unfortunately no more we can do to try to recover these messages, we won't be able to respond to future inquiries."....) Lovely people.

Now, the strangest thing is that every time i open the mail app i see under "mail activity" thousands of messages being uploaded..where the two grey bars are...but still nothing when mail finish opening up. where are these going and where are they coming from?

What is going on? how do i get my emails back? literally, a big chunk of my life has just completely vanished. this is insane!
Please heeeeeeeelp!!!

 

[katewes]

Although it's implied from your post, I thought I'd ask this ... when you go into Gmail via the webmail interface, and inside webmail you click ALL MAIL, do you see all your emails there? Or is everything wiped out from ALL MAIL aside from the 40 or so emails you said that were remaining?

A second question: in Gmail, when you log in via the webmail, what is the storage of your Gmail? Is it down to virtually zero GB, or does it still indicate several GB of storage equivalent to the amount of emails you had before?

 

[Fishrrman]

This is why one keeps backups.

It's also why I've -always- preferred POP over IMAP -- I save the emails on my own computer, and keep them properly backed up.

Go forth, and learn...

 

[Itv]

Although it's implied from your post, I thought I'd ask this ... when you go into Gmail via the webmail interface, and inside webmail you click ALL MAIL, do you see all your emails there? Or is everything wiped out from ALL MAIL aside from the 40 or so emails you said that were remaining?

A second question: in Gmail, when you log in via the webmail, what is the storage of your Gmail? Is it down to virtually zero GB, or does it still indicate several GB of storage equivalent to the amount of emails you had before?

So since I posted my question few hours ago I was playing around a bit and turning on and off my mail app, and pocking in Gmail web interface and I have no idea how but 321 messages came back. they were all in very different and random folders. for exp. I had 300+ in my draft folder and some back to my Gmail inbox. also mainly conversations so not necessarily 300 + individual email. there were also a few in ALL MAIL and I immediately selected all and transfer to inbox to grab them. so now my inbox total show 321 and same in all mail.
also strange is that I have few messages from 2012 nothing in the middle or before and then 2014 last few days.

with regards to storage, my gmail shows 1.06 GB used out of 15GB (7%).. I think this is a good sign, no???
still, my folders (or labels I think they are called) where I will file emails by sender or topic are mostly empty. lost a lot of stuff there.

bottom line, there is some positive activity in my gmail account within the last two hours and I am very thankful for having few more hundreds emails back but where the hell is my 10 years communication vanished to?

thanks for your help.

----------

This is why one keeps backups.

It's also why I've -always- preferred POP over IMAP -- I save the emails on my own computer, and keep them properly backed up.

Go forth, and learn...

my computer is regularly backed up on Time Capsule daily viw Wi-Fi but the last few days I am at a friends house as I am leaving the county and disconnected my backup on Monday the 7th. (last back up)
do you think when the time capsule is back on and linked to my computer I will get these email back?
and how?
and if I go to time machine now.. where and how can I check if all my emails over the years have been saved there?

 

[Lenoxus]

I don't see the word "trash" on this page. I assume you looked in the Gmail trash? (In the browser, not the client — despite Fishrrman's good point about backups, I'm guessing it would be "safer" to use the browser for confirming your email's existence or nonexistence.)

 

[Itv]

I don't see the word "trash" on this page. I assume you looked in the Gmail trash? (In the browser, not the client — despite Fishrrman's good point about backups, I'm guessing it would be "safer" to use the browser for confirming your email's existence or nonexistence.)

looked in trash.. in fact, I don't have trash , I have bin.

 

[TheAppleFairy]

looked in trash.. in fact, I don't have trash , I have bin.

Bin?

Edit: okay, looks like bin is trash for UK users?