Ticket Options

Question Profile

Question Details

TICKET ARCHIVE -> Disappearing trash in Mail

poetguy - Feb 22, 2008 - 5:38 am

I want to talk trash. I've noticed of late that when I delete a message from Mail, it vanishes rather than go to the trash. However, if I search for a message that I just deleted, it appears on the search results with a location of Trash Pop Account. But that trash mailbox is empty. I've found nothing in Preferences that looks helpful. What am I missing?

Thanks for your help.

Paul

earthsaver - Feb 22, 2008 - 8:16 am

Try viewing the Trash mailbox and choosing Rebuild from the Mailbox menu.

- Ben

poetguy - Feb 22, 2008 - 10:29 am

Thanks for the speedy reply, Ben. I tried your suggestion, but it didn't help. Here's what happened. When I got no response from rebuilding the trash, I tried to rebuild my sent mailbox and that did a lot of spinning, but it did rebuild it. But when I tried the same thing again with the trash, I didn't even get the spinning indicator. What does work is when I drag a message to the trash rather than deleting it. Those dragged files are where they belong. Here's another thing I noticed: my POP Account trash file box has the triangle next to it, but when I open that mailbox by clicking on the triangle, it flips to point down, but no other message or mailbox are revealed.

1 related question: what exactly happens when you "rebuild" a mailbox?

Do you have any other ideas?

Paul

earthsaver - Feb 22, 2008 - 12:47 pm

There shouldn't be a disclosure triangle for the Trash of a particular email account. The only reason for one would be if you had more than one account, and then there would be two trash mailboxes inside Trash.

So, I wonder what will happen if you go to the Maibox Behaviors section of this account in Mail Preferences. Uncheck Move Deleted Messages to the Trash Mailbox. It's checked, right? If not, that's why, but if it is, then we'll uncheck it for the moment, close Preferences, and save the account. Try deleting a message and see what happens to it. If it stays in the mailbox grayed out, that's correct behavior. If you don't see it at all, choose View > Show Deleted Messages. You can undo the test deletion. Now, return to Preferences and check the box again for the Trash mailbox. Close and save and test message deletion again.

If Trash is still stuck, perhaps we need to take more drastic measures. First, Apple might offer some assistance. Take a look at this article and let me know if anything helps. If not, do you need anything that you previously deleted? If not, try erasing deleted messages (Mailbox menu or Commmand+K).

I'll stop before I go any further for the moment and find out if any of these suggestions help. Meanwhile, when you're in Account preferences, you might also want to rename your email account (Description field under Account Info) to something more descriptive. If you had more than one account, how would you distinguish this one?

poetguy - Feb 23, 2008 - 7:49 am

Hey, Ben
Thanks for taking so much time to respond to my problem. Unfortunately, after going through all of your suggestions, nothing has changed. While no deleted messages were in Trash, they were all in Library>Mail>POP-poetguy>Deleted messages>Messages. I had only 8.5 MB when I started working my way through your directions.
I still have trash (w/ triangle) and On my Mac and POP account (also, still, with the triangle).
When I erased deleted messages, that worked. They disappeared from the drive.
I remained my account from POP account to My Mail, but all did was give me a My Mail trash, still with the triangle.

Whenever I have deleted a message, it has never stayed in the inbox grayed. However, during one of my tests, when I hit Show deleted messages, then it appeared. But not now, even though I have deleted a couple of messages.

So, I've deleted all my deleted messages, changed the name of my email account, my deleted message go to the drive but I cannot get them to appear grayed in the inbox or when I hit Show deleted messages. And, of course, I've quit and restarted a couple of times.

I hope I'm not confusing things for you. I just feel that I'm missing a toggle or some such thing. Any other suggests about things I should try?

Thanks for your time and help.

Paul

earthsaver - Feb 23, 2008 - 3:36 pm

You've introduced one new piece in your last message, Paul: On My Mac. We'll see along the way whether that's relevant.

The only reason deleted messages would show grayed in the Inbox is if Move Deleted Messages to the Trash was not checked. And you're saying nothing appears as a child of Trash when you click the disclosure triangle and On My Mac and POP Account (now My Mail) are separate entities from Trash and from each other.

Are there disclosure triangles next to any other mailboxes in the sidebar? Do you have other mailbox folders in On My Mac?, and if you delete messages from any of them, do they end up in the Trash? What version of Mac OS X are you using?

earthsaver - Feb 24, 2008 - 6:20 pm

I'd like to retain correspondence on macosx.com, so we don't lose any resources that might be helpful to other users in the future. However, feel free to email me screenshots. I, however, am beginning to wonder if a visual consult, through VNC, would be more useful.

I have a couple new ideas. What happens if you import mailboxes (File menu), select Mail for Mac OS X, and then choose your Mail folder in your Library. In the resulting pane, choose only folders named Deleted Messages or Trash. Then, manually drag the imported messages to the My Mail mailbox in Trash. Do they go? Do they stick?

I got to wondering whether any of your email stays on the server. This preference is in the Advanced tab of My Mail's account preferences. How is it set? Does any email stay on the server and for how long, or does it all get removed as soon as it's downloaded? I don't remember why this might matter.

poetguy - Feb 25, 2008 - 8:08 am

I have a couple of jpgs to send but I couldn't drag them. How can I send them to you?

poetguy - Feb 25, 2008 - 8:09 am

I should have said that my jpg could be dragged but not dropped. I took the shots with command-shift-4.

earthsaver - Feb 25, 2008 - 8:59 am

Sorry, I forgot to link up my email.

earthsaver - Feb 27, 2008 - 10:43 am

I'm noticing one potential problem. In ~/Library/Mail/Mailboxes/, the Deleted Messages folder does not have a .mbox extension. I think that's why it's not finding Mail for Mac OS X files. Try adding the extension to the folder and, when you return to import, stop at the Mailboxes folder and select it. Is Deleted Messages a choice? (Clearly Trash won't be a choice because there isn't a mailbox folder of that name.)

The Mac-poetguy folder is associated with a poetguy@mac.com account, which I'm guessing you no longer have, if ever.

The reason messages open in mail when opened directly from the folder in the Finder is that they're recognized as messages there that can be opened in Mail. This is separate from the mailbox/message list interface in Mail that decodes an association with those message files when they are properly associated. Most users shouldn't need to know that, though.