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Gametes · Apr 30, 2003, 10:10 AM

I hadn't gotten any email in 2 days. I use mail, so all my inboxes are unified. So I started to look into them all individually, and all my accounts had lots of email in their inboxes... except my .mac, which had 0.

0!

I didn't delete them. What happened? Should I call apple? Do they automatically clear out your box if any mail is older than 6 months? What the heck?!

Gul Banana · Apr 30, 2003, 10:13 AM

Originally posted by Gametes:
What happened? Should I call apple? Do they automatically clear out your box if any mail is older than 6 months? What the heck?!

Don't know, yes, probably not, call them to find out.

gorickey · Apr 30, 2003, 11:43 AM

I'm sure you have a backup, right....right....right??!!

Scifience · Apr 30, 2003, 11:46 AM

If Apple did do something, you should get a year of free .Mac to make up for it.

dfiler · Apr 30, 2003, 12:29 PM

Apple deleted your inbox?

Heheh.
An... interesting... way of describing the problem.

But this is the internet, so I guess its par for the course.
Gotta vent somewhere right?

I hated it when firestone crashed my car.

Gametes · Apr 30, 2003, 01:59 PM

It's more like Firestone crashing your car while it's in storage at their garage.

Anyway, after some sleuthing I found that my inbox is still 1.2MB inside the ~/Library/Mail folder, but Mail seems unable to read it. I think the index got corrupted. Anybody have any suggestions about how to fix the file?

anoetic · Apr 30, 2003, 02:09 PM

Did you leave the mail on the server or is it only on your harddrive? If it's on the server did you go to www.mac.com to view it on the web?

Gametes · Apr 30, 2003, 02:11 PM

Ya this is weird. I looked on mac.com and it's not there either, and my settings are to leave it on the server. I never use any other client.

anoetic · Apr 30, 2003, 02:22 PM

You could try creating a new profile in mail and see if it finds anything on the .mac server for the username. Make sure You backup what you have now first though.

SMacTech · Apr 30, 2003, 03:17 PM

Have you tried rebuild Mailbox ?

gorickey · Apr 30, 2003, 03:30 PM

Originally posted by SMacTech:
Have you tried rebuild Mailbox ?

That's what he needs help with I believe in doing that....

Krusty · Apr 30, 2003, 07:57 PM

Fix the file ? there is actually an import "Wizard" in mail. Go thru its steps, readding the 1.2 mb file you have. It will now be in an "imports" section along with your normal mailboxes. Open up the new mailbox, select all messages and copy back to your .mac inbox.

Krusty · Apr 30, 2003, 08:05 PM

P.S. .. not to be a prick, but backing up mailboxes is so ridiculously easy (just drag from mail to where ever you want to save a backup) that you would be foolish not to do it on a regular basis. Even if you don't burn it to CD, you can simply make a copy of everything somewhere else on your hard drive). Makes this sort of problem easily fixable

Gametes · Apr 30, 2003, 08:28 PM

Krusty, I tried that in the first 5 seconds. Mail says there's no valid mailboxes found. Hence my thinking the box is corrupted.

I tried rebuilding it. No go.

And as for the whole backup argument: So? Ya this could have been avoided if I backed up. But I don't want to waste all those resources in time and space. All I'm asking is, what can I do now? Apparently nothing.

WombatPredator · May 1, 2003, 05:18 PM

Originally posted by Gametes:
And as for the whole backup argument: So? Ya this could have been avoided if I backed up. But I don't want to waste all those resources in time and space.

It would have been a waste of neither time nor space. You current situation is proof of that.

Gametes · May 2, 2003, 12:16 PM

No, it's still a waste. I'd rather be in this situation than backup all the time.

WombatPredator · May 2, 2003, 12:44 PM

Originally posted by Gametes:
No, it's still a waste. I'd rather be in this situation than backup all the time.

Fair enough. Since losing data is not an issue for you, why don't you delete whatever is left of the old mailbox, create a brand new one and be done with this problem? It's space and time efficient.