My brother accidentally disconnected his power cable from his MacBook (his battery was out at the time) and his comuter instantly shut down in the midst of sending an email. Upon restart, it asked him to create an email account in Mail. He entered his usual info and Mail fired up with his account.

However, all his previous emails did not show up. All folders (sent, trash, inbox etc) were empty. The only messages he has are those that have arrived since recreating the account for Mail.

Might his old messages still be on his computer? If so Where? And how can he retrieve them?

I do not know what version of Mail he is using... and no, he does not do backups... he lives 3,000 miles away.

Thanks,
Thom

I am no expert, but did he try to repair permissions?

Cheers

Good suggestion. I'll have him start with that.

Apple mail has an "import Mailboxes" under the File menu, this might help.

It needs to know where those boxes are. ANy suggestions as to where I might find them or what their extension might be?

Click on "Go" in the menu line in the Finder, then hold down the 'option' key and you will see "Library" appear. Select it, then "Mail" and all the emails should be there for each account.

Click on "Go" in the menu line in the Finder, then hold down the 'option' key and you will see "Library" appear. Select it, then "Mail" and all the emails should be there for each account.

Thanks. He did the import but unfortunately there was nothing in those folders. I guess he is snookered.

Repairing Perms didn't do the trick either.

Thanks for the suggestions.

Is his mail server IMAP or POP. If IMAP, they should all still be on the server.

Unfortunately it's POP

Thanks. He did the import but unfortunately there was nothing in those folders. I guess he is snookered.

I can't imagine that the emails are gone.

They must still be on the hard drive, he is just not looking in the right place.

Loosing power and the Mac shutting down can happen without warning on any desk top Mac with no UPS, one has no control over that - happened to me and my tored emails were not affected.

When he checks the accounts in Mail, is his old account gone as well?

The old account was gone after the restart which is why he had to create a new acct.

I can't imagine that the emails are gone.

They must still be on the hard drive, he is just not looking in the right place.

Loosing power and the Mac shutting down can happen without warning on any desk top Mac with no UPS, one has no control over that - happened to me and my tored emails were not affected.

When he checks the accounts in Mail, is his old account gone as well?


I'd tend to agree.

Is there any available option to "rebuild" any of the mailboxes??

But they have a backup right if nothing else works right???

The old account was gone after the restart which is why he had to create a new acct.

My apologies that I missed seeing your later post, but I can't imagine that the POP mailboxes have gone poof, but more likely some sort of directory path goofup occurred.

Launch "EasyFind" or "Find Any File" and do a search. And forget about using Stoplight (aka: Spotlight).

Then maybe use the 'import' or some utility/app to get them back for use.

I'll bet that they are still on the hard drive. ;)

The other thing your brother may want to check is that he didn't accidentally end up in another user account on the Mac that he perhaps didn't even know he had.
Mail doesn't just vanish even if the power is interrupted and the Mac shuts down in the middle of sending an email. That would affect that particular email not all your POP mail.

More excellent suggestions. I'll have him follow up on them.

Thanks