Sent mssags in mail not visible 1

[amberlynn]

Hello.
I am a PC tech with no Mac experience.
I have a client with a Mac running OS X V 10.2.8.
Their mail program is 1.2.5 (v553).

Here's the issue.
They are trying to clean out the mail folders.
The sent folder contains 1850 messages, but none of them are visible.
Sometimes it says 'updating color on msg 1850 of 1850' - sometimes it doesn't say anything, but no matter what I do, we can't see those message to deleted them.
I've tried rebuilding - makes no difference.

I have googled this, and found quite a few references to this issue, but no solutions that worked for me.

Any suggestions??

Thanks!
Amber

 

[twiSSt]

What kind of account is it - POP, IMAP? Can you log into the account via webmail?

Twist

===========================================
Everything will be OK in the end.
If it's not OK, then it's not the end

 

[spamjim]

It has been a while since I have looked at 10.2 but you should search the system for .mbox files.

These are likely found in the user's home folder.

You might need to temporarily turn on all file visibility:

http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/14722

Beware that if you are trying to securely delete the data for a future user of the system, you should look at a file shredding tool as deleted files on Mac can be restored/recovered just as easily on Windows.

 

[amberlynn]

The account is a POP account.
I can log in via webmail, but because the messages weren't sent in webmail, there are no messages to delete there.

I searched the computer for .mbox files, and found plenty.
Are you suggesting I delete the Sent Messages.mbox file?

Thanks,
Amber

 

[spamjim]

You can use a plain text editor to look at and edit the contents of an .mbox file. Verify the contents before trashing it. There may also be other index files in the same directory named 'Sent Messages.xxxx'. If you want to kill that sent mailbox, backup those files and then delete them from the user's folder. If things look better in Apple Mail after the removal, you can delete your backup.

Of course, do this all when Apple Mail is not running.

If your intent to clean out the mail folder is simply because those 1850 messages do not display in Mail, you might try a recovery trick to hang on to those messages. Use a text editor and scroll to the bottom of the mbox file. Delete the last week's worth of mail (where a rogue message may have sent things wacky) and then try opening Mail to see if the other messages re-appear.

 

[SYQUEST]

There is a feature in OS 10 called Secure Empty Trash, but I don't recall if it is available in 10.2.8. I know it is in 10.3.x and later.

Secure Empty Trash completely removes files when used. I even made a shortcut for it on all my system partitions.

....JIM....