Need help locating a missing email on Apple Mail

Question

Not sure how this has happened, but maybe I deleted it... Im trying to find an email I sent back in May. Im using Apple Mail on Ventura. Ive searched various ways inside of Mail, but can only find the response from the recipient which does show my original email minus the attachment I had sent.

Id like to be able to find my original sent email, but am stumped as to why its not showing anywhere.

Is there by chance a folder , .eml , or similar where. I can look using Finder? I know the date & time it was sent. In a bind and on a deadline :(

Thank you for any help.

Here is a screen shot of my external location. I dont see a mail folder in the library.

looked here too - dont see it. Cant figure out what im doing wrong.

Answer 1

This is indexed by "Core Spotlight" which only provides the index to the Mail application. This is not indexed by the file searching Spotlight and so .eml files can't be found using Finder search.

Two ways forward, both using Find Any File (FAF).

Firstly the .eml might be still be in your ~/Library/Mail folder. If so a search like this may find it.

The "inside: Mail" was an interpretation of where I told it to look: ~/Library/Mail. For "Text content" use something you know should be in a few messages as well as the missing one.

If that fails to find the missing email (maybe because you deleted the message) tell FAF to search inside a Time Machine (or other backup) location. Use Finder to locate the Mail folder inside an old backup (late May perhaps) and drag and drop onto FAF's "Find Items".

That will be somewhat slower if your backup is on a hard disk!