How to retrieve a deleted folder of emails

DonnaH

Well-Known Member
Afternoon All: Well, I never learn!! Again the kid got to the mac (he is quick and sneaky) this time I think he deleted a folder from the side bar in my email. I figure he seen the name of his school and thought "lets dump this one" I checked the trash and he appears to have emptied that too. It has all the emails from his special needs teachers etc so I would really like to find it if at all possible. I do have a Time Machine backup and I think it was just in the last couple days but I don't know where to look in TM, can't seem to find the window? with email page? I don't know I'm lost. Donna
 

chas_m

Well-Known Member
1. Open Mail. Make sure the place on the left side where that folder would have been is visible.
2. In the menu bar of your Mac on the right side, you will see the Time Machine icon (a circular arrow), click that and choose “Enter Time Machine.”
3. You’ll now see your Mail Window in front of other windows in a star field with a timeline on the right side of the screen.
4. Use the timeline to go back to a point just before you think the trashing happened (if you are using Time Macine normally, you should have hourly backups).
5. Click on that date/time, and the main windows should move. Now see if the missing folder has “returned.”
6. If so, click the “restore” button. If not, go a little further back in time until you see it, then restore.
7. Don’t worry about the email that has come in since then; once the restore is done, have the program check for mail again, and all of the most recent mail will come back to all of the other folders.
 

DonnaH

Well-Known Member
Got to the part where I should click on the timeline and that should move the windows but nothing moves. So I looked and it says the last backup was just awhile ago today so I don't know what's up. Donna
 

DaveWT

Well-Known Member
When you are in Time Machine (step 3 in the reply from Chas, above) you should see a number of bars up the right side of the screen. The one at the bottom is the most recent backup. What Chas is suggesting is you just move up that time line on the right side. As your cursor hits each bar, it should turn to red and the date corresponding to that backup should appear there. When you get back up the column of bars to a date when you are sure your folder is still there, click on that red bar. All the windows in the center should sort of roll forward until it gets to that date. Then click on the restore button at the bottom.
 

DonnaH

Well-Known Member
Ok that is what I thought and have seen previously. Problem is it's not doin it in the mail program now. When I just open TM itself and go to the the timeline marks they expand and show me the dates etc, click and the window moves. But when I open mail first, the side bar shows the folders and mailboxes etc, I choose the folder that held the one that's lost, then go to menubar and enter TM, up comes the window but it's blank except for a message that says click to restore, the red timeline on the right doesn't do anything when I click on it, and the restore button on the window is greyed out.
 

chas_m

Well-Known Member
Are you OPENING the folder where the deleted one was before going into time machine? It sounds like you had folders inside a folder.
 

DonnaH

Well-Known Member
I have no idea what I'm doing! In the side bar I have a "folder" named Ben, I added a couple different sections to cover his therapy, remote lessons, and his school emails from this year. The folder Ben has an arrow beside it and when I click on it 3 more with those titles show up below, each of those have the same folder icon beside them once opened thru Ben. Anyway, I open the original Ben, two of the others show up but not the third one. That's the one thats gone. I believe I did open Ben then followed your instructions but once TM opens the mail window comes up , I make sure it's on Ben, but all it shows is a blank window that says click to restore. Clicking the time one dosn't move anything, and the restore button is greyed out.
 

DaveWT

Well-Known Member
Any chance the missing mailbox isn't deleted at all but instead got dragged into a nearby mailbox. Do any of the mailboxes (folders) inside the Ben mailbox (folder) have an arrow to the left of them? That would imply there is another mailbox (folder) inside that one. Or possibly some other mailbox (folder) even nearby Ben but not inside it has an arrow to the left where you don't expect another mailbox (folder) inside it?
 

DonnaH

Well-Known Member
I did look at some of the surrounding mailboxes but didn't see anything. BUT I will look deeper and farther afield, maybe he stuck it somewhere else away from the original. Who knows? Just so you don't think I am a complete klutz I do have a password on this thing, but sometimes I leave the machine for a moment to do something, and he takes advantage of that and swoops in, he knows more about this than me and he experiments with stuff. Most times he can get things back to normal but this time I think he is choosing to "forget" as he does not like that folder, it's school after all. lol Thanks Chas and Dave for the help again
 

chas_m

Well-Known Member
if you do a search for any of the emails that you know were in the missing folder and still come up blank, there is a way to dig around inside the Time Machine backups directly but it’s a bit of a pain.
 
Top