Recover Deleted Mailbox in Mail.app

[churkl]

Working and Not Working

So, I read this thread and I am not going to comment on it.

I have done exactly what the first person did, which was OPS, i deleted my pop account form my mail and now Messages GONE. I took the advise by getting Data Rescue II and so far I am able to recover tons of .mbox files. I assume this is a good sign. I have try to import a few of them, but all of them seems to not have any message in it. Just wonder if I am doing something wrong on the importing part. Also the .mbox files some are very huge, such as 100MB. So are these mailboxes, or mail messages? If they are mailboxes, then I dont think i have done it correctly.

Thank for the help. Also, its MACRUMORS's forum not APPLE GENIUS.

 

[Pixelgun]

Also the .mbox files some are very huge, such as 100MB. So are these mailboxes, or mail messages? If they are mailboxes, then I dont think i have done it correctly.

When I used Data Rescue II to recover my deleted mail I didn't find any .mbox files, I found folders with titles starting with "Apple Mail". But if you are finding .mbox files that might be better. .mbox files are essentially folders containing e-mail messages in the form of .emlx files. The .mbox should contain an info.plist file and a messages folder and inside that folder should be .emlx files. You can try importing the .mbox with Mail.app like I did...

Then I just used Mail.app to import that mailbox {or .mbox} (File>Import Mailboxes...) which resulted in a new folder icon under the On My Mac section in the left hand margin of the the mail window. Finally to get all my messages back into the right place (I had recreated the lost account with the same name) I just opened the imported inbox selected all the messages and dragged and dropped them into the inbox for the account where they needed to be. Voila!

 

[wamwaz]

Hello?

Is this on? How did I get here? John? John Blue, are you out there!?
Why is everyone so MEAN to me!?

Hilarious.

Big kudos to everyone who posts on forums and is civil and generous and -- even if they're a bit snarky sometimes -- tries to solve all our collective problems.

btw - Data Rescue worked for me:
Booted the problem computer in Target mode (connect via firewire to another machine and hold down T when starting up)
Scan problem HD with Data Rec. [edit] running on the master computer. Obviously.
Locate deleted email account in: HD>Users>yourname>Library>Mail>account in question
Recover (Data Rescue button called "Recover" - that's for you JBlue)
Then open in Mail.

 

[dcorlan]

Thanks!

Just wanted to thank all of you for this thread; in the end it was SaSaSushi's (obvious, in retrospect) advice for using Time Machine that recovered my mail. Maybe it's silly to join a forum just to post a thank-you note, but I was really afraid for a minute there that I'd lost all of my mail.

I would have bought data recovery software if I had another computer to install it on- but I didn't want to risk overwriting my lost mail.

Three cheers for regular backups!

 

[SaSaSushi]

Just wanted to thank all of you for this thread; in the end it was SaSaSushi's (obvious, in retrospect) advice for using Time Machine that recovered my mail. Maybe it's silly to join a forum just to post a thank-you note, but I was really afraid for a minute there that I'd lost all of my mail.

Wow, I'm glad I continued my subscription to this thread so I was able to catch this. I'm really happy to hear you were able to get your mail back. Yes, Time Machine can be a lifesaver in terms of critical data. It's saved my bacon on more than a few occasions.

 

[laurent128]

dear all,

About 3 days ago, i changed my mail server from pop 3 to imap on my MAIL software.
SO I create a new mail box (imap) and then i deleted my Pop3 account. I had over 12,000 email and they were all gone (about 8 BG). This was a complete disaster in my business.

I bought the DATA RESCUE and I installed the software on my Imac. I took out the hard disk of my note book (where i lost all my email) and plugged on my iMac with a USB cable.

Then I scanned the deleted file with DATA Rescue and I could finally recover ALL MY EMAIL

I can say that this software saved my business !

 

[organiccat]

help with lost account.

i have read through the previous threads. but i don't read a solution
i would appreciate advice on the following. N.B i am not very computer literate.

i appear to lost two accounts by accident whilst adding a new one ( i think i left it open.. ) anyway last week realised i delelted them.

tired to contact my trusted Mac advisor ( brother) but he is not available.. so trying to work this out 1st time on my own.. so nervous.

i have time machine.. it was backed up a week earlier

i only want to save the account information emails from Time Machine and Accept to have those saved to date saved on time machine.. rather than try to find all up to date.

do i need to reinstall my email account details ?
or will time machine know to do that as well
when i go into time machine i can't really find my mail data.
i would have thought if i searched by date the last backups date would include emails.. ( because they constantly change )
the only mail i can find has 2007 date so i assume that is application not the data.

i have tried searching under library.

how do i install just the account data off time machine. i am nervous that i will back up and Update all data from Time machine . whereas i only want the emails

i have used my laptop and accessing new emails from server since then and got later back ups on time machine. een very active.. just not had the time to stop and work out what to do . thinking the accounts may magically appear as quickly as they disappeared.

simple step by step help appreciated. thanks catriona

 

[SaSaSushi]

Make sure Mail is open and on the screen and then click the Time Machine icon. This will show all of the mail that is backed up by Time Machine. Click on the mailbox that you want to recover mail from on the left and then you can use the Timeline on the right to go back as far in time as you like. It sounds like you just want to restore all of the mail in the deleted mailboxes so just choose the most recent backup and click the restore button.

do i need to reinstall my email account details ?
or will time machine know to do that as well

Time Machine will simply restore all of the mail that was in that mailbox to a Recovered Mail folder in Mail. You will still need to set up the account again in Mail. Then you can drag back in the deleted messages.

when i go into time machine i can't really find my mail data.
i would have thought if i searched by date the last backups date would include emails.. ( because they constantly change )
the only mail i can find has 2007 date so i assume that is application not the data.

It sounds to me like you were trying to use Time Machine without having Apple Mail as the application open and in focus. See above.

 

[taker25]

This is the most stupid feature of mac mail. One of my mailboxes got somehow corrupted recently. No matter what I did, I just could not access my server.

One of the "genius" guys recommended me to rename the account and create a new one with the old parameters. I did that and 1 year of emails are now gone.

I am suing the local apple store for their stupid advise (which I have in an email) and switching back to PC as my main business machine.

 

[BlackSwanOps]

I use time machine, so just right clicked on the desired pop mailbox within the library folder from a day earlier and clicked restore. no problem. recovered everything. I'm not sure how it is done without backup.

 

[saud143]

data rescue not detecting my mails

hello mac people,
i did exactly the same mistake as everybody here, i had one pop account in mail and fortunately i copied the inbox but forgot to copy the sent mails, drafts and i removed the account from mail with that all the mails got deleted.
then i added the exchange account in mail with same username and password.
I bought Data Rescue 3, installed and scanned on my Macbook Pro with Expert Mode Enabled , Deep Scanned ,Deleted files scanned but it did not find any emlx or mbox data of my pop account, although it did recover all the mails of previous pop account configured long time ago than the one i want.
I then connected another IMAC to my Macbook Pro with firewire cable and installed Data Rescue on IMAC , scanned my Mabook's Hard disk as external drive, used Deep Scan and Deleted Scan but still it didnt get any mails of my most recent pop account configured and again it recovered all the rest of data and mails of previous account.

IS THERE ANY OTHER WAY ALSO SINCE I HAVE OVERWRITTEN IT WITH EXCHANGE ACCOUNT , IS THAT A PROBLEM .

Please Help....

Thanks

 

[martinwinlow]

Use Windows XP Partition to Recover Deleted Emails

Hi,

Unfortunately I, too, have fallen foul of Apple's misguided (IMO) decision to make it so easy to delete all your emails when deleting an account. They should really include some bells and whistles, flashing screens etc to make it very clear what you are about to do is SERIOUS... rather than 3 little words in normal text 'and all emails', in my case 10 years worth of emails, many migrated over from my dark years as a Windows user.

Anyway, just wondering whether it is possible or easy to use my existing XP partition on the afflicted iMac to recover my lost Mac Mail emails? This may seem obvious to some but I just want to make sure it is possible before I waste time trying or worse, make it harder to get my emails back.

If it is, would anyone care to suggest a suitable program (ideally free or shareware)?

I'm using another 'puter to post this, BTW.

Thanks for your help. MW

 

[alfie-m3739]

1st post here, mainly due to the same issue: unlike outlook, deleting account setting, as we now know DELETES EVERYTHING to do with the account.

Well, I managed to get everything back within about 20 minutes, and would have been quicker had I not been working on the mac remotely over a poor connection.


***Before you get too excited, this method only works if you have an up to date/recent time machine backup... If you don't YOU SHOULD!!!!!***

Time machine is probably the easiest backup software you will ever use, and its bullet proof.

Anyway the solution:

All credit goes to: http://raffyjohn.com/2008/01/29/restoring-apple-mail-and-your-emails-from-time-machine/

The How-To

1. Before loading Time Machine, open the Finder and navigate to Home Folder (username) -> Library. In there will be a folder name “Mail”. Rename it to “Mail (default)” (Select the folder then hit the Return key to rename).
2. Mount your Time Machine Backup Drive (ahem, plug it in).
3. Control + Click the Time Machine Application and chose “Browse Other Time Machine disks…”. This, of course, brings up the historical view of your backups.
4. Also restore ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.mail.plist
5. Go back to your most recent backup (2nd window back) and navigate to Home Folder (username) -> Library. Select the “Mail” folder and click the restore button (bottom right).
6. Once the restore is completed, open Apple Mail and you will be presented with an import wizard (below). Simply follow through the prompts and you will be good to go.
   

Again, this really does stress the importance of backing up your data, Time machine is free and is bundled with you Max iOS software, all you need is another disk to backup to, which for £50 is half the price of the Data rescue 3 software that people have suggested above.