Missing old emails after computer backup

adam86

New Email
Hi all,

I recently had to restore my entire MacBook. I backed up everything, including hundreds of emails. I previously used Apple Mail for 2 mail.com IMAP accounts, and everything was working fine before my backup.

However, now I've restored it all, only emails from the last two weeks are showing in Apple Mail. I've spoken to Apple and they can't find where my old emails have been backed up, either.

When I log into mail.com, my old emails aren't there either - I imagine this could have been the case for a while but I've never had to login to the website since they've always come through to Apple Mail.

Any ideas why my old emails aren't showing in Apple Mail or mail.com? Mail.com do charge a 'premium' fee to use its IMAP service, but I've never had to pay as everything has always worked.

Is it possible that mail.com 'mess' with computer backups so that the server only shares recent emails, therefore making users sign up for premium accounts? Otherwise, where could my old emails be?!

Any help would be massively appreciated!

Thanks.
 

EQ Admin

EQ Forum Admin
Staff member
Were you using pop3 before restoring your MacBook? How did you backup the account?

It's not strange that you can only see 2 weeks of email now in IMAP if you previously had POP3 configured to download a copy of email and remove after 14 days.

If you can't see the email in the mail.com web site then it's not on their server and the only way to get it back will be from your backups.
 

adam86

New Email
Thanks for your reply.

I'm sure I was using IMAP before backing up my MacBook. I backed up via Time Machine, however I've manually restored everything going on Apple's advice.

I did use POP a couple of years ago - I never disconfigured this and think I went straight over to IMAP. Should I have somehow disconfigured POP?

Apple couldn't find any of my old emails in my backups. Why would this be?
 

adam86

New Email
I've gone through all those steps, however annoyingly I'm having the same issue as two of the commenters below the guide (Mark and Rietta) - about my Mail Library not being where it should be.

Aside from trying to restore my old emails through the backup, I have contacted Mail.com and asked if they could restore my emails from their server. I'm still waiting to hear back, or at least hear back from what I can perceive as a human rather than an automated response about signing up for their Premium service.
 

adam86

New Email
Success! I've found all of my old emails!

Turns out they were backed up on my computer after all - this amazing software EasyFind allowed me to search for exact content in the messages. I tried one search and managed to trace the folder where they were all saved.

Massive relief :)
 
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