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How do I stop Mail in Big Sur from deleting old messages?

D

dandeco

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Dec 5, 2008
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Brockton, MA
I noticed that on my new M1 MacBook Air, the Mail application will automatically delete messages that are two weeks old or greater from the inbox. Is there a way I can change the settings so this doesn't happen? I like to keep old messages available if I need to look things up (receipts and the like), and it's set up that way on my 2012 quad-core Mac Mini, but I am having trouble trying to achieve this on my MacBook Air.
This is with my Comcast account with an IMAP ingoing server and SMTP outgoing server.
 
Check Mail > Preferences > Rules. I don't think what you're describing is any default behaviour - it sounds more like a rule someone/something has setup.
 
Stephen.R said:
Check Mail > Preferences > Rules. I don't think what you're describing is any default behaviour - it sounds more like a rule someone/something has setup.
Click to expand...
Yeah; all I see as a rule is News From Apple. I'm betting this may have something to do with a behavior from the Mail app on my iPhone SE, since they are linked via iCloud and all.
 
See screen shot
Erase Mail Pref.jpg
 
Going to ask a dumb question: have you verified that the emails are in the trash vs might have a filter of "view unread only" set on the inbox?
 
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Do you do same mail on another machine - a Phone or a PC? what vendor mail? If IMAP then deleting on one system will delete on all - rule on another system. Just looking for facts
 
CTHarrryH said:
Do you do same mail on another machine - a Phone or a PC? what vendor mail? If IMAP then deleting on one system will delete on all - rule on another system. Just looking for facts
Click to expand...
Yeah, I have the same email in use on my quad-core i7 Mac Mini desktop and my iPhone SE. I'm betting this deleting rule is something on the iPhone...
 
NoBoMac said:
Going to ask a dumb question: have you verified that the emails are in the trash vs might have a filter of "view unread only" set on the inbox?
Click to expand...
Just thought it wise to highlight this question again.

It may also help to avoid the 20 questions approach if you include some redacted screenshots of the issue at hand and of your settings, both on Apple devices that are working ok for you and the problem Big Sur machine.

It does sound fixable and if you are using IMAP on your devices then mail being 'deleted' on one machine would be replicated on the others. As apparently not the case then it is highly unlikely that these emails are truly being 'deleted'.
 
Do you access your mails from anywhere else? Comcast still supports POP3, so if you have one device somewhere that uses that it could be removing messages from the server.

I've no idea what Comcast is, but googling shows that emails are deleted from the Trash folder after 14 days. I know you said yours were in the inbox, but that's a bit of a coincidence. To quickly rule that out, maybe this helps:

Recover deleted emails — Xfinity Email help

Learn how to recover a deleted email.
www.xfinity.com www.xfinity.com
 
sgtaylor5 said:
I hope not, but it may be this: mail-data-loss-in-macos-10-15
The bug, or set of bugs, isn't fixed yet: I'd use another mail program in Big Sur.
Click to expand...
Not sure an unsourced and rather dated blog about the move from Mojave to Catalina is relevant here or justifies a recommendation to completely stop using the Mail application in Big Sur.

Apple Mail or indeed any mail program is at the mercy of multiple user settings, account conflicts and the various mail servers they connect to. I see many supposed 'Mail' issues that turn out to be either a device or account setting issue and/or server issue.

I am struggling to recall a genuine Mail issue, no matter how convinced the end user is that they are suffering from a software bug. I'm not blaming the end-users here either, as there is a layer of non-standardised complexity behind even a 'simple' setup.
 
adrianlondon said:
Do you access your mails from anywhere else? Comcast still supports POP3, so if you have one device somewhere that uses that it could be removing messages from the server.

I've no idea what Comcast is, but googling shows that emails are deleted from the Trash folder after 14 days. I know you said yours were in the inbox, but that's a bit of a coincidence. To quickly rule that out, maybe this helps:

Recover deleted emails — Xfinity Email help

Learn how to recover a deleted email.
www.xfinity.com www.xfinity.com
Click to expand...
That's very likely. I know my 2012 quad-core i7 Mac Mini does not have this problem with Mail on Catalina, so I do often use that to look back at old emails and such.
 
RobbieTT said:
Not sure an unsourced and rather dated blog about the move from Mojave to Catalina is relevant here or justifies a recommendation to completely stop using the Mail application in Big Sur.

Apple Mail or indeed any mail program is at the mercy of multiple user settings, account conflicts and the various mail servers they connect to. I see many supposed 'Mail' issues that turn out to be either a device or account setting issue and/or server issue.

I am struggling to recall a genuine Mail issue, no matter how convinced the end user is that they are suffering from a software bug. I'm not blaming the end-users here either, as there is a layer of non-standardised complexity behind even a 'simple' setup.
Click to expand...
The blog is hosted by Michael Tsai, who is a long-running highly-regarded macOS developer. He writes a program that stores email for offline search, and another one to greatly enhance spam detection. That's why he was getting reports from his customers about mail loss in Catalina. He wanted to make sure his programs weren't causing the mail loss. The reason the blog entry is dated is that no one has come up with a fix yet, not even in Big Sur, nor has anyone seen any correlation between any cause and the effect. One thing is sure, though; his main correspondents in the thread have each totally lost multiple gigabytes of mail, whatever is happening.

I was just being cautious, that's all, with the view that it was something for the OP to think about. I certainly agree that with software, your experiences may vary, one user to another, and there are tons of differing configurations to deal with.

I'm not a developer, but I have been working around computers since the late 80's. I've read a lot of discussions by programmers and developers in my travels, and beyond a web browser I can't think of designing a more complex software than an email program. So many edge cases to deal with.
 
dandeco said:
I noticed that on my new M1 MacBook Air, the Mail application will automatically delete messages that are two weeks old or greater from the inbox. Is there a way I can change the settings so this doesn't happen? I like to keep old messages available if I need to look things up (receipts and the like), and it's set up that way on my 2012 quad-core Mac Mini, but I am having trouble trying to achieve this on my MacBook Air.
This is with my Comcast account with an IMAP ingoing server and SMTP outgoing server.
Click to expand...
Was this issue ever solved? Ive had the same problem on my new M1 MacBook Pro for months. Meanwhile on my old MacBook, the same emails in the same accounts remain in the inbox and are not deleted after two weeks.
 
iplagitr said:
Was this issue ever solved? Ive had the same problem on my new M1 MacBook Pro for months. Meanwhile on my old MacBook, the same emails in the same accounts remain in the inbox and are not deleted after two weeks.
Click to expand...
Yep. I think a software update may have fixed it, or maybe the settings I played around with on my iPhone.
 
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