Backup of IMAP e-mail on Mac - help needed

[ShawWellPete]

Hi Guys,

I was struggling to connect my ipad to my IMAP e-mail so I stupidly deleted the e-mal account at my ISP and created a new one.

I forgot that this deleted all the e-mails in my inbox on the server and therefore on my computer.

Is there anywhere of restoring the e-mails lost?

I have a time machine backup in the office of the macbook, would the IMAP e-mails be stored on that?

Thanks

Pete

 

[chrisgeary]

IMAP is natively a remote reading protocol, unlike POP3 which by default downloads mail from the server (deleting it) and storing it on your PC.

Depending which email client you used, it may or may not have stored offline copies by default. Try opening your client (but don't connect to the server, so offline mode) and seeing if the mail is there.

Chances are that unless you configured offline mode, you won't have local copies.

 

[ShawWellPete]

Thanks Chris,

Fortunately I remembered that I also occasionally download the emails to my desktop. I disconnected it from the web and opened the mail software and the e-mails up to last week were all there. I copied them all to a directory on the Mac, connected the Internet and then copied them back to the inbox.

Seemed to work!

 

[chrisgeary]

Good work!