How to Recover Mailboxes on Mac (Golden Gate, Tahoe, Sequoia, etc.)

Data Recovery

Recover Mails on Mac Quickly

Free Download macOS 10.15 or later

Many Mac users have experienced or are experiencing the issue of disappeared Mac Mailboxes, due to various reasons. Here in this article we will show you 8 different ways to restore Mac mails, according to the situation you are in. All the methods provided in this article are applicable to macOS Golden Gate Beta, Tahoe, Sequoia, Sonoma, and other older versions.

TL;DR — Quick Highlights

• There are various reasons for the issue of disappeared Mac Mailboxes:
• Whenever Mac Mailboxes are disappeared or missing, we should try the built-in options in Mail app to troubleshoot, this including synchronize, rebuild, search from library, re-set preferences, re-index, re-add account, restore from Time Machine backup.
• If you are looking for the simplest way to get disappeared Mac mails back sucessfully, especially when you've deleted local mails On my Mac, Cisdem Data Recovery is the best solution.

Where Is Mail Stored on Mac?

Apple Mail files are typically stored in ~/Library/Mail/ folder on Mac.

Here's how you can find the location of you mails on Mac:

1. Open Finder from Mac Dock, choose Go from Finder menu bar, select Go to Folder.
2. Enter ~/Library/Mail/ in the window, and press Enter.
3. The mails will be stored in a folder with a name start with V character, according to your macOS version. You can browse all the subfolders to check all the mailboxes and mails in the folder.

Why Mac Mailboxes (Folders) Disappeared?

There might be various reasons leading to disappeared Mailboxes on Mac, and basically, the reasons are divided into following categories:

• Mailbox was accidentally moved to another folder, or archived, or hidden
• Mailbox was deleted by mistake
• Email account was removed from Mac Mail
• Mail synchromization failed
• Mail's local database became corrupted
• Mail index corrupted
• macOS upgrading glitches
• Mail settings was changed or improperly configured

How to Recover Mailboxes on Mac?

According to the reasons that cause disappeared Mailboxes on Mac, here we collect 8 ways to get your emails back, from simple built-in options to advanced methods.

Method 1. Show/Unhide Mailboxes

The missing mailboxes may be just for the simple reason that you've hidden or moved to them into an archive. All you need to do is check the archives, and show the mailboxes up from Mail app.

1. Run Mail app on your Mac.
2. Click on the right-pointing curved arrow.
3. Then all the archives and folders in Mail app will show up, check if the mailboxes are back.

Method 2. Synchronize Mails

The missing or disappeared Mac Mail Mailboxes or folders may be just caused by sync problems, all the mails are kept update to date in the original mail account but not synchronized in Mail app. 

1. Launch Mail app on your Mac.
2. Go to Mailbox > Synchronize “XXX”.
3. After the sync, check if the disappeared mailboxes are restored in Mail app.

Method 3. Rebuild Mailboxes

There is a Rebuild feature in Mac Mail, which is designed to recreate the mailboxes' index or database information, so the mails and mailboxes (folders) can be properly recognized and displayed. Rebuilding mailboxes is useful when the underlying email data exists but not showing up.

1. Launch Mail app on your Mac.
2. Go to Mailbox > Rebuild.
3. Then check if the mailboxes are back.​

Method 4. Re-set Mail Preferences 

Here’s another scenario. When opening Mail, you find that all the folders previously associated with your iCloud or Gmail account are not showing. When you select “Get Account Info”, they are all listed. They just don’t display in the Mailbox. If it’s your case, you can go to "Preferences" and change the settings. By doing so, you will restore the Mail folders successfully.

1. Open the Mail app on your Mac.
2. From the top menu bar, select Mail > Preferences.
3. Go to the Accounts tab, unselect the "Enable this account" option.
4. Wait for 5-10 seconds, then select “Enable this account” again.
5. Mail will start connecting, then check if the disappeared mail folders are back to Mailboxes.

Method 5. Re-index Mail

On the Apple discussions forum, there are a number of threads about Mac Mail mailboxes disappearing. With situation like this, you can try re-indexing the mailboxes to do email recovery on Mac by following the instructions below.

1. Quit Mail app if it is running on your Mac.
2. Go to Apple Menu > Go > Go to Folder.
3. Input ~/Library/Mail/ and click Go to find the Mail folder location.
4. Then go to MailData folder, find the files with name starting with Envelope Index, save a copy for the files in a safe place first.
5. Then select them all and move to Bin.
6. Finally launch Mail app and wait for the reindexing until you see the disappeared mail folders back in your Apple Mail Mailboxes.

Method 6. Re-Add Mail Account

Sometimes when our social media or Mail account runs into errors, we will log out and re-login to fix the problem, and most of the time, it solves the problem magically. To fix “Apple Mailboxes Disappeared”, we can also use this workaround, delete the account first, then re-add and re-load mails in Apple Mail app.

1. Run Apple Mail app, go to Mail > Accounts.
2. Choose the mail account you use to manage mails in Mail app. Click “-“ to remove the account.
3. Click “OK” to delete the account.
4. Quit Mail app and launch it again, you will be asked to choose a Mail account provider, input the account name and password.
5. Select Mail to use with this account and click Done.
6. Now, you will see all the mails and mail folders appearing again in the Mail Mailboxes.

Method 7. Recover Missing Mailboxes from Time Machine Backup

Many Mac users back up their Macs with Time Machine. If you are one of them and you have lost Mail messages recently, especially when you've saved the mails on your Mac, then you can restore Mail from Time Machine. 

1. Connect your Time Machine backup drive to your Mac.
2. Open Finder on your Mac. Enter Time Machine.
3. From the top menu bar, select Go > Go to Folder. Enter ~/Library/Mail/.
4. Find the folder starting with V. Open it. Apart from the folder MailData, there are several folders with long names. Browse them one by one to find the mailboxes (.mbox) you want to restore.
5. Restore them to desktop. Exit Time Machine.
6. Open Mail app, go to File > Import Mailboxes...
7. From the Import interface, choose Apple Mail > Continue.
8. Then navigate to the mailboxes files (.mbox) you just restored from Time Machine backup, and click Choose. 
9. Import the mailboxes, once done, Mail app will notify you where to find the restored mailboxes.

Method 8. Restore Disappeared or Deleted Mac Mailboxes with Cisdem

Not all Mac users back up their Macs with Time Machine. Also, sometimes, restoring Mac Mail files from Time Machine just doesn’t work. Is there a universal way to restore the disappeared Apple Mail folders?

Cisdem Data Recovery for Mac is an easy-to-use and powerful app to recover lost, deleted or formatted photos, videos, documents and other types of files on Mac, including Mac Mailbox emlx files. It can also recover data from external hard drive, SD card, USB flash drive, digital cameras, iPods, etc. If some important data, say Mac Mail mailboxes, have disappeared, don’t panic. This app will be able to recover them efficiently. A free trial is available for all Mac users.

Compared with restoring Mac Mail folder from Time Machine, it’s a lot easier to restore deleted or lost Mail using Cisdem Data Recovery. Below are the steps.

1. Download and install Cisdem Data Recovery on your Mac. Launch it.
   Free Download macOS 10.15 or later
2. Choose the location where you want to recover the mail files.
3. Click on Search for lost files and go to Type > Emails, check the mail files or use the filter tool to quickly search a mail file.
4. Select the wanted mail files and click Recover to get them all back to your Mac. 
5. Open Mail app and go to File > Import Mailboxes, follow the instructions to finish restoring mailboxes on Mac.

Summary

Mac mail folders get disppeared under different situations, therefore the solutions to recover missing mail folders vary. You can simply show up the button, synchronize mails, rebuild mailboxes, log out and into the account to find the missing mail folders, or tweak the settings, reindex to fix the issue. Also, you can use Time Machine backup, even advanced data recovering tool to retrieve the lost mails.