Mac Mail - Sent Messages Disappeared?

[VaatiKaiba]

My mom's been using an iMac since last December, and hasn't had any real problem with it until now. A couple of days ago, all her sent messages (except for the most recent sent message and a seemingly random one from 5 May) have all disappeared from the (local) Mac Mailbox. All the sent messages can still be seen on the Gmail server in Mail, but I'm baffled as to how this happened - she didn't get any errors or pop-ups saying that there was a reason this happened.

After a bit of research, I found out that people had been having problems once their mailboxes reached a certain size, but as I said, she got no error and it's kept two of them in there.

Can anyone explain why this might have happened, and how those sent messages can be restored (she had some of them deleted locally and not on the server, and she doesn't want to have to sort through them all...)?

Thanks in advance!

 

[Tumbleweed666]

When I had a Mail folder go missing in Mail, TM did a great job of getting it back.
Failing TM, use the last backup she took.
If she doesn't take backups or use TM, frankly why bother, she'll lose it all one day anyway.

 

[VaatiKaiba]

When I had a Mail folder go missing in Mail, TM did a great job of getting it back.
Failing TM, use the last backup she took.
If she doesn't take backups or use TM, frankly why bother, she'll lose it all one day anyway.

She uses TM, but where would I find the folder to restore?

 

[JediMeister]

Time Machine will not do much of anything if Gmail is set up as an IMAP account, only if it's POP. If it is POP, the folder to restore would likely be inside ~/Library/Mail. Have you looked inside Mail Preferences->Accounts, with the Gmail account selected and gone to the Mailbox Behaviors tab? Is "Store sent messages on server" checked? How about the dropdown menu below that for "Delete sent messages"?

 

[Tumbleweed666]

She uses TM, but where would I find the folder to restore?

Go to Mail
Click on "sent"
Click on "enter Time Machine"

Follow the instructions

 

[VaatiKaiba]

Go to Mail
Click on "sent"
Click on "enter Time Machine"

Follow the instructions

Perfect, thank you very much!