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I removed an mail account from the mail application because it was configured as pop and had to be imap. Now I have lost my mail which was stored locally. I have read about iskysoft data recovery, but that tool has a folder structure which is huge. So I am clicking around in folders to see if there is any mail from 2011 etc.

I am not so familiar with Mac OS X and the mail application. These are times when you would want to have an up-to-date timecapsule backup, but that one is from november 2013 :S

Can you suggest a better mail recovery tool or a manual recovery? Or tell me that this is the right tool and that this will solve all my problems and will put back the lost e-mails in the Mail application.

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I have just read about disk drill. but that is no option for me (I think) because I should have used 'recovery vault' first. before removing the pop3 account. http://help.cleverfiles.com/mailbox-recovery-2/

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  • You said you are unfamiliar with it but are you familiar enough with Time Machine and have that set up? Additionally check your user folder's Library folder (Menu bar > Go > and while holding the alt/option key you should see Library). In the Library folder you should see a folder called Mail. How big is that folder and what is inside of it?
    – Andrew U.
    Commented Jan 9, 2014 at 16:05
  • V2 = 5.6 gb it has to imap folders, one mailboxes and one maildata. iskysoft shows a lot of folders with *.eimx files
    – JP Hellemons
    Commented Jan 9, 2014 at 16:08
  • under Mailboxes is there a folder or mbox called Local or POP...?
    – Andrew U.
    Commented Jan 9, 2014 at 16:08
  • there is outbox.mbox, imported.mbox and deleted messages.mbox
    – JP Hellemons
    Commented Jan 9, 2014 at 16:09
  • And no Time Machine set up?
    – Andrew U.
    Commented Jan 9, 2014 at 16:10

2 Answers 2

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You're going to have a hard time recovering the files and should power off the machine / only mount that drive in read-only mode until you have given up on the idea of data recovery.

I like Data Rescue 3 - but your tool will probably be mostly equivalent.

Look to recover ~/Library/Mail and ~/Library/Mail Downloads files if possible. Ideally you can get the computer friendly - human hostile directory structure back and recover all files with these extensions intact:

  • emlx
  • plist
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According to an apple expert:

it cannot be recovered because it is an Apple Macbook air with an SSD drive which uses trim.

so the only option left was to restore mbox files from the 2 months old timecapsule backup. He took them from the ~/library/mail/v2 etc. folder.

Apple should change mail to allow it to remove the pop3 account and keep the mail and/or if it has to remove the mails, move it to the trash can so it can be restored.

another article about ssd and trim: http://help.cleverfiles.com/can-i-recover-data-if-trim-is-enabled-on-my-ssd-drive/

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