Mac Mail missing folders

[haumana]

A few months ago I noticed that a lot the folders I had in Mail were missing. I didn't think too much of it, and just motored along thinking that I must have nested them in a different folder or clicked on some kind of setting.

Well, now I'm in need to reference an old email. I used the search box, and it's able to pull the email, but tells me that it's sitting in one of the missing folders.

Does anyone know how I go about recovering those missing folders?


Mac Pro | 10.5.8 | Mail 3.6 (936)

 

[Duff-Man]

Duff-Man says...have you tried rebuilding the mailbox (selecting it and then choosing "rebuild" from the mailbox menu)? Or, do you see the "missing" folders if you look in your ~/library/mail folder? You may need to dig around a bit depending on how many mail accounts you have set up and how many local mail folders you made. You should see folders for each mail account and in there you'll see "inbox.mbox" etc etc etc. If you see your missing folders in the mail library then you can also try just importing them back into mail.....oh yeah!

 

[tinypaws]

On My Mac folders missing

I've got a similar problem, and found this discussion thread while trying to find some information on it.

I had to reinstall my system software, upgraded from Leopard to Snow Leopard in the process, and now I've lost my "On My Mac" folder and subfolders. I had to do the backup manually, by finding the .plist file and Mail folders in the library of my previous system and dragging them over. All the settings for my mail accounts (set up as IMAP accounts) was imported. I had trouble with deleting messages from one of them, but the rest have been fine.

I had dragged some messages from my IMAP account mailboxes into my On My Mac folders to organize and save them. But now everything that was in there has just disappeared.

I've tried rebuilding the mailboxes, I didn't really think it would restore the folders, but I tried just in case because I saw that being recommended a lot. And thank you Duff-Man, because you're the only one who actually gave an accurate account of where to find that Rebuild command!

Any ideas how I can restore these folders?

 

[shassler]

Rebuild each folder - worked for me!

I was trying to stop duplicate messages and had removed the mail.plist file. When that didn't help, I put the old one back but was missing all my messages in the "on my mac" folders where I like to sort/store messages. Oddly enough it looked like the messages were there since from, subject, date, time and attachment info still showed up but clicking on a message brought up a blank window. I tried using the emix to mbox converter and importing but wasn't getting most of the messages back. Then I found this thread, individually selected each folder under "on my mac" and selected Mail > Rebuild (at the bottom of this menu) and that worked. Yay!

Thanks so much for your info! Saved my messages and tons of time.

Sharon

 

[x-aviatrix]

disappearing mailboxes

What does one do to rebuild a mailbox when the names aren't there to select?
Thanks for any help

 

[snkinghorn]

malboxes disappear

How do you get your mailboxes back when they just aren't there anymore?

 

[Raialso]

Missing Mailboxes

Go to the heading MAILBOXES and below this to the heading ON MY MAC. Place your cursor over until SHOW appears to the left. Click on SHOW and the boxes will reappear on your screen.

 

[Eggers]

Missing Mailboxes

Go to the heading MAILBOXES and below this to the heading ON MY MAC. Place your cursor over until SHOW appears to the left. Click on SHOW and the boxes will reappear on your screen.

 

[Eggers]

Perfect, thank you @Raialso

 

[CharlyDel]

I did the OS X El Capitan 10.11.6 update and one of my file (the one i'm using most) as is located "on my mac" disappeared. In the library, in V3, mailboxes disappeared too... HELP... I'm desperate

 

[arvind08]

Missing Mailboxes

Go to the heading MAILBOXES and below this to the heading ON MY MAC. Place your cursor over until SHOW appears to the left. Click on SHOW and the boxes will reappear on your screen.

Thanks for your brilliant and simple solution. It worked for me and I'm glad I did not go through rebuild etc!

 

[wheard]

what if the "on my mac" folder is missing too?

 

[cocostine]

Cheryl- did you ever uncover how to fix this? My V3 folder has disappeared all together! I am desperate as well. Thanks in advance!

 

[StrangeLoopy]

what if the "on my mac" folder is missing too?

To wheard: this is my question, too, after upgrading a friend's Mac straight from Yosemite to High Sierra. All the folders seem to be there in "V5" but I see no "On My Mac" entry under Mailboxes! Did you figure that out?