SOS - lost emails

[Sheryl]

Using Mail 8.2 on OSX Yosemite 10.10.5, Macbook Pro

 

My email client is ksc - NOT gmail, hotmail etc

 

History:

Yesterday without warning I stopped being able to send emails. I could still receive them, and my internet connection is working fine. The account appears to be online under mail > mailbox (pulldown). However, when I try to send it does nto go through and the message box for that states the account is offline.

 

When I used connection doctor it shows connecting to the ISP and to the incoming account but unable to connect to the outgoing account (an smtp address).

 

There had been no change to any of my settings and they were all still correct. I had not added any new account nor done anything else I can think of that might have caused this. There had also not been any recent updates.  I did a Bit Defender scan which identified infection with W97m.Downloader.GNW,  W97m.Downloader.GNV and Trojan. ASF.Gen, no idea if that has anything to do with the problem.  I was experiencing a lot of instability using Microsoft Word prior to this problem - kept freezing on my, but that is nto unusual as I was working on a very large file with a lot of things in tracking mode.

 

I tried every imaginable way of dealing t=with the inability to send mail - closing/reopening Mail, deleting and re-entering outgoing server details, checking and unchecking "use SSL", shutting down and restarting computer. Nothing worked so in desperation I deleted the whole account and re-entered it. Did not work so I re-entered it again as an additional account, with some finessing this finally worked and I can now both send and receive. However, lost all emails (my whole life, going back decades) in the process.

 

Now, I do use Time Machine but last backed up March 11 (my bad, I know). So I am laboriously retrieving all those messages. For messages since that time, the past week only was still on my server so I could re-download them.

 

But  all the emails between March 11 - April 18 remain lost.  I have checked  the folder user/library/mail......  but the inbox file is completely empty.

 

I am in the middle of a work assignment and badly need the missing inbox messages.

 

My questions which I have already tried in vain to find a workable answer to online, is:

Is there anyway to retrieve messages from my inbox for the period between last time machine backup and last week? (not on server)

 

I have already tried with my email provider - useless. Told me that if only one week showed then 1 week is all that is there, but could not explain why, insisting that there is no setting on their end that deletes from server after 1 week and that it must be a setting in my email client, which there is not. Back and forth for 30 minutes ending in the "we'll refer your case onward" which as we all know is the kiss of death.

 

I seem to remember reading soemwhere that there is a temporary file Time Machine creates before it backs up on hard disk but I can't find that reference. As I need only 3 weeks of info this might work -- does anyone know?

 

 

 

 

[cheeryble]

Believe you're CM area Sheryl?

 

I have found it efficacious to take my problems to the CMU Apple shop.......behind the students' supermarket (opposite Library?).

I think this particular shop they have time on their hands and are happy to have something to do.

They've solved problems for me in the past.....all no charge.

 

Best of luck

[cheeryble]

Not sure if this might be explanatory and useful:

 

https://www.howtogeek.com/212207/how-to-free-up-space-used-by-time-machines-local-backups-on-your-mac/

 

It speaks of more than freeing up space

[Sheryl]

Thanks but it does not apply to my situation

And no, I am not anywhete near CM nor any Apple shop.

Basically my only chance is if thete is some temporary file Time Machine creates before backing up to fisk (or my server comes up with something but that is highly unlikely).

Sent from my SM-J701F using Thailand Forum - Thaivisa mobile app

[cheeryble]

There;s a computer group here in CM which has some real skills.

Been going for years.

It has an Apple subdivision.

I'lll wring my brain the name of the chairman is on the tip of my tongue but won't quite appear.

He might be able to point you to the best person in the group.....or it may be him.

In fact it might google.

 

Here, it was active just a couple of days ago.

http://chiangmai-geeks.forumotion.net

Big Boss name Bill most helpful.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/cmgeeks/about/

 

I guess it's likely he might know about all the help you give on health, maybe not.

If you feel like contacting him I'd be happy to do an intro for you to get special priority.

Edited April 25, 2018 by cheeryble

[Sheryl]

Thanks I will keep it in mind but for now await arrival on this thread of some of our resident computer wallahs....especially as there is now additionsl hope in that I have discovered all the missing emails (incoming but not alas outgoing) are on my phone.

For some reason I have never been able to straighten out, messages already downloaded on my computer duplicate download onto my phone. Always annoyed me but now proving a life saver.

Now all I need is a way to get the contents of my phone inbox (Samsung email) transferred to my computer inbox (Apple mail). Obviouly I could just forward them but in addition to taking forever (hundreds of emails) the messages would then arrive alll listed as from me rather than original sender making it very hard to locate what I want.

I'm sure there is some way to sync these devices...hopefully someone here can tell me how.

Sent from my SM-J701F using Thailand Forum - Thaivisa mobile app

[KittenKong]

My questions which I have already tried in vain to find a workable answer to online, is:

Is there anyway to retrieve messages from my inbox for the period between last time machine backup and last week? (not on server)
I have already tried with my email provider - useless.

I cant help you with the mail storage on your Apple, but I can tell you why you have had all this trouble and how to avoid it ever happening again.

Your problems apparently all stem from the configuration of one or more of your devices, and the device(s) in question will probably be set up to use POP3 rather than IMAP, and will also be configured to delete mail on the server after 7 days. This is completely the wrong setting to use.

You need to create new accounts on ALL your devices, and all these accounts must use IMAP rather than POP3. That way all your devices will receive all your email, they will all synchronise perfectly for both received and sent mail, and all your mail will also stay on the server indefinitely (assuming that your Thai email provider offers sufficient storage space, which it probably doesnt). You will need to pay particular attention to selecting the correct sent mail folder in the settings on your Mac, as Apple products tend not to respect the norms for this. Apart from that it should all be very simple.

To extract your emails from your phone in a usable format would involve extracting eml from SQLITE, and this is unfortunately beyond the scope of a forum response. There may be an Android tool that can do this, but if so I am not aware of it.

[KittenKong]

For some reason I have never been able to straighten out, messages already downloaded on my computer duplicate download onto my phone. Always annoyed me but now proving a life saver.

This is how email is supposed to work, when correctly configured.

If you dont want to re-read messages on one or more of your devices, set them to show only unread messages. They will still be there but will not be displayed.

[Sheryl]

5 hours ago, KittenKong said:

I cant help you with the mail storage on your Apple, but I can tell you why you have had all this trouble and how to avoid it ever happening again.

 

Your problems apparently all stem from the configuration of one or more of your devices, and the device(s) in question will probably be set up to use POP3 rather than IMAP, and will also be configured to delete mail on the server after 7 days. This is completely the wrong setting to use.

You need to create new accounts on ALL your devices, and all these accounts must use IMAP rather than POP3. ..

Yes, all my accounts are set up as POP3. But I was of the impression this is a server feature, is that not the case? The server provided settings specified  POP3. So the same settings  will work just as well if I select IMAP?

 

There is no  configuration to delete messages from the server after 7 days. The box "delete from server" after downloading is unchecked, always has been. So I think it must be something on the server side. Server denied it when I called them but I don't rate the IQ of the person I spoke with very highly.

[KittenKong]

KSC's website, being Thai, is not a masterpiece of clarity. But their website does mention IMAP without giving any more details that I could find. It would be very rare these days for an email server not to offer an IMAP connection, though some of the cheapest and worst providers may not offer it as it requires a lot more resources than POP3 does.

They should be able to tell you what the IMAP settings are if you ask them, and commonly the server names are often exactly the same for both POP3 and IMAP, with the only change being the port used to connect by. Port numbers for IMAP connections are generally standard.

All that said, and knowing what Thai providers can be like, I think that your best bet would be to create a new Gmail account and set it to poll your POP3 mail regularly.

This is how to get Gmail to poll a POP3 server:
https://www.lifewire.com/how-to-collect-mail-from-other-pop-accounts-in-gmail-1172076

This is how to set up Gmail as an IMAP service:
https://www.lifewire.com/what-are-the-gmail-imap-settings-1170852

That way all your incoming mail on the KSC server will automatically be collected by your Gmail account, and you can use all your devices to read and send via IMAP and that account.
The instructions in the first link also explain how to make it appear that you are sending from a KSC address if you must, though for various reasons it would probably be a better idea just to use the new Gmail address as your own and forget about the KSC one. Your correspondents will progressively switch to using the Gmail address by default over time, and any messages sent to your old KSC account will continue to be collected by the Gmail account indefinitely. For neatness you should, of course, alter your personal details in other online accounts (banks, forums, shopping etc) to reflect the new email address, but you dont have to.

As you have an Android phone you will have set up a Google account for it, and that could be the email address you use. Or you can create another.

Just be sure that when you set up the mail accounts on your devices that you use IMAP as the connection method to the Gmail servers, as shown.

Edited April 27, 2018 by KittenKong

[KittenKong]

There is no configuration to delete messages from the server after 7 days. The box "delete from server" after downloading is unchecked, always has been. So I think it must be something on the server side. Server denied it when I called them but I don't rate the IQ of the person I spoke with very highly.

That would be unusual but not unheard of with low quality providers.
Bear in mind that you need to check the settings on all your devices as if any one of them is set to use POP3 and to delete messages after x days, then it will have the same undesirable affect on all of them and an the server.
The delete after x days is a very common setting to find on POP3 accounts in email clients, and offhand I cant think of any that dont have it. It is usually to be found in the "advanced" settings.

Either way, IMAP is the answer to your problem and I would do it via Gmail. Other free email services are available (Outlook.com for example, previously known as Hotmail) but Gmail seems to be the best to me.

[Sheryl]

Thanks. I'll consider it. I assume I can just carry one with existing email address and accounts and use the gmail one just to collect emails in case of future problem?

 

I know where the "delete from server" setting is but on neither devise is it set to delete ever. On the computer, delete from server option is unchecked. On my phone the option reads "never".  Also, I do not recall having only 7 days worth on the server in the past, though what was there was not infinite.

 

My best guess is that the server deletes old to make way for new after a certain amount of storage space is used up and this just happened to coincide with 7 days in this instance.  As I am working on a complex assignment have gotten very high volume of messages many with large attachments recently.

[johng]

I don't use OSX  but there should be an (several) "offline mail clients"  available if you use one you can set it to keep a permanent copy of every e-mail and reply on your  MAC  and leave a copy on the server

(for as long as they keep it)  them make a backup of  your local copy everyday.

[Sheryl]

Ok, thanks but I would like now to get back to the problem of the past emails already lost.

 

I have forwarded manually all that were on my phone but that is only the recent past.

 

I have located earlier emails  in Time Machine but can't seem to restore them. I select, click "restore" and it says it is restoring but then the emails are nowhere to be found. From what I have read they should now be in a new mailbox called "recovered"  but no such mailbox shows in Mail, nto do I find it anywhere using Finder.

 

Anyone know what I am doing wrong here?

[KittenKong]

I assume I can just carry one with existing email address and accounts and use the gmail one just to collect emails in case of future problem?

Yes, but it would be far better to use Gmail IMAP as your main server as their equipment is robust. Also your sent mail will not appear on Gmail servers unless you use the Gmail servers to send from, so you would not have a backup of your sent mail. Not unless you modify some account settings anyway.

I would not hesitate to switch servers.

[KittenKong]

My best guess is that the server deletes old to make way for new after a certain amount of storage space is used up and this just happened to coincide with 7 days in this instance. As I am working on a complex assignment have gotten very high volume of messages many with large attachments recently.

That is possible and is one of the downsides of using small companies: you dont always know what they are doing. Gmail offers 15Gb as standard and you can buy more for a low price. This is probably more than your current server gives you.

[KittenKong]

I have located earlier emails in Time Machine but can't seem to restore them. I select, click "restore" and it says it is restoring but then the emails are nowhere to be found. From what I have read they should now be in a new mailbox called "recovered" but no such mailbox shows in Mail, nto do I find it anywhere using Finder.

My knowledge of Apple products is limited as I really dont like them.
However I suspect that you may have previously deleted the account in Mail, which would probably have deleted the corresponding folder tree in the library. Subsequently you would have created a new account with a new folder tree, but the restore from Time Machine would probably go to the earlier tree which probably would not show up in Mail automatically as Mail sees no corresponding account settings for it. That does not explain why Finder doesnt show them though as the emails should be somewhere in ~/Library/Mail/ or in some subfolder thereof.

It may be possible to import emails and folders directly from the Time Machine backup into Mail via some built-in tool in Mail, rather than restoring them. Doing it that way would rebuild the indexes and should work. But I think you will have to find someone who knows more about Mail who could say whether that is possible.

[Sheryl]

Turned out I just needed to close and reopen Mail. So solved. But thanks

 

Unfortunately I seriously hate gmail and related attempts by google to take over my life.  Hence staying with ksc though I'd switch to another commercial  non-google-affiliated server if I found a good one.

[KittenKong]

Hence staying with ksc though I'd switch to another commercial non-google-affiliated server if I found a good one.

PolarisMail. USD12 per year. Highly recommended by me.

[Sheryl]

Good to know, I'll look into it, thanks.