How to Recover Mail Messages on macOS 10.15

Audrey Goodwin

2024-04-12 10:55:47 • Filed to: macOS 10.15 • Proven solutions

It’s common for Mac users to mistakenly delete important mails when purging unimportant ones. But you can easily recover deleted emails on macos 10.15 from apple mail because your Mail app stores deleted emails in its Trash folder for an adjustable amount of time. You can also recover messages from a deleted mail account on macos 10.15 in case you mistakenly deleted your mailbox entirely.

For messages that weren’t saved to the Trash or backup folder, you can recover via your Time Machine.

How to Recover A Deleted Email In Mac Mail on macOS 10.15

1: Recover Deleted Emails on macOS 10.15 from Apple Mail

1. Launch the Apple Mail app and then tap the “Trash” button in the source panel (sidebar) on the app window, or click on the folder labeled “Trash”.

2. Click on “View” on the menu bar at the top of the window, and then select “Show Deleted Messages” from the drop-down menu. This brings up deleted messages saved to the Trash folder.

3. Next, select the messages you want to recover, and then tap “Messages” on the menu bar.

4. From the menu that pops up next, click “Undelete” to relocate the message back to your Mail app’s Inbox folder.

This method works only within the time limit for the storage of deleted files in the Trash. If this time frame has elapsed or you deleted your account entirely, try the next method.

2: Recover Messages from Delete Mail Account on macOS 10.15 via Time Machine

Unfortunately, the first method will not bring back your lost mail if you’re wondering “How do I recover permanently deleted emails on macos 10.15”. You always need to backup your mailbox or set the time limit of your Trash storage based on your convenience.

But if you didn’t do so before deleting your messages or account mistakenly, all hope is not lost. You can turn to your Time Machine. If your Time Machine was already set up prior to the loss, you can take the following steps:

1. Activate your Time Machine by launching the Finder and selecting “Time Machine” from the system menu item.

2. Navigate to your Library folder in your Home directory, and then locate the Mail folder in there.

3. Among the list of folders you may see in the Mail folder, you’ll find items with long hexadecimal (base 16) labels starting with ‘V’. The lost messages you’re looking for will be found among them. Go for those that were modified most recently.

4. When you find it, restore the deleted mailbox to the Desktop or another folder, but not to its original location.

5. Quit the Time Machine and launch your Mail app.

6. Go to “File” > “Import Mailboxes”. You’ll find a massive hierarchical list of items in the imported mailbox. Select the Apple Mail folder.

mail app keeps popping up in the background in macos 10.15

7. Click on the box file and then select ‘Choose’ to select all the messages under “Items To Import” at once. Tap “Continue”.

8. Next, you’ll receive a prompt stating that all the selected messages have been moved to a certain folder (which is usually named “Import”). Locate and select the “Imported folder” under the On My Mac column at the left-hand side of the Mailboxes window.

9. Afterwards, you’ll find all your lost messages in the summary column. Now, recreate the deleted mailbox, and then drag and drop the messages from the “Import mailbox” folder to the newly created mailbox (your Mail app will automatically upload the messages if the new mailbox is hosted on an IMAP server).

recover messages from a deleted mail account on macos 10.15