What are recovered messages on my mac mail

On a Mac, "Recovered Messages" in Mail refers to a folder that stores emails that were previously deleted from your mailbox, but were recovered from the Trash or from a backup.

When you delete an email from your mailbox, it's moved to the Trash folder. If you empty the Trash folder, the emails are permanently deleted. However, if you have Mail set to store deleted messages in the "Recovered Messages" folder, those emails will be moved there instead of being permanently deleted.

The "Recovered Messages" folder is a special folder that's created by Mail to store these recovered emails. It's located in the same mailbox as the original email, and it's usually marked with a red "!" icon to indicate that the emails in this folder were previously deleted.

Here are a few scenarios where you might find recovered messages in your Mac Mail:

  1. Accidental deletion: You might have deleted an email by mistake, and then realized you needed it. In this case, the email would be moved to the "Recovered Messages" folder.
  2. Mail crash or corruption: If Mail crashes or becomes corrupted, it might recover deleted emails from its database and move them to the "Recovered Messages" folder.
  3. Backup recovery: If you have a backup of your Mac, and you restore your Mail data from that backup, any deleted emails that were backed up will be recovered and moved to the "Recovered Messages" folder.

To access the "Recovered Messages" folder in Mail, follow these steps:

  1. Open Mail on your Mac.
  2. Select the mailbox where you think the recovered messages might be located.
  3. Look for the "Recovered Messages" folder in the mailbox list. It might be hidden, so you can use the "Show this many items" dropdown menu to increase the number of items shown in the mailbox list.
  4. Click on the "Recovered Messages" folder to open it and view the recovered emails.

Keep in mind that the "Recovered Messages" folder is not a permanent storage location, and emails in this folder might be deleted if you empty the Trash folder or perform a Mail backup and restore.