[MlMt] unexpected inbox zero

[Bill Cole]

On 5 Nov 2018, at 4:44, Andrey Ustyuzhanin wrote:

> an update - all the mail is there, but indeed it is just 
> ‘archived’… so two questions:
> - is there any way to pull it back to inbox systematically?

Open the "Archive" mailbox for the account, select all messages (or 
whatever subset you want to pull back,) use "Message->Move To Mailbox" 
or just drag+drop into INBOX for that account. For GMail, this is 
complicated by the fact that it has the "Archive" concept implemented in 
a completely unique way: "All Mail" is the de facto archive but it also 
contains everything else except spam and trash, if viewed in the web 
interface. In MailMate, you need to subscribe to "[GMail]/All Mail" 
where you will see only the messages that are not in any other IMAP 
mailbox, making it usable as the "Archive" mailbox for MailMate.

> - is it possible to understand the reason for such a glitch and avoid 
> it in the future?

If you don't know what caused this, no one else has any hope of guessing 
a specific cause. However, there are basically 3 broad classes of 
possible explanation:

1. Sabotage
    Someone else has obtained access to your mail account(s) and 
intentionally or accidentally archived all of your mail. This is the 
LEAST likely explanation for most people, because nearly all 'hacked' 
email accounts are simply totally stolen outright (i.e. password 
changed) or used very surreptitiously (e.g. used solely for 
authenticating spam relay.)

2. Robotic Misadventure
    If you have rules configured in MailMate or elsewhere (e.g. GMail) 
or other forms of automated manipulation of your email that under some 
circumstances will "Archive" your email, there could be a logical error 
in how that mechanism operates that made it archive all of your mail. 
Review your rules for conditions that accidentally match all messages.

3. Human Error
    Yes, it happens. It is unlikely that you accidentally used the 
default key equivalent (cmd-shift-M) for "Archive" on all of your 
messages, but if you have custom key bindings configured, you may have a 
much more likely accident. There is also the potential for 
software-enabled 'human error' in that some mail clients use the 
"Archive" mailbox in unexpected ways (e.g. as an alternative to "Trash") 
and some (like the GMail web interface) make it the easiest thing to do 
(intentionally or accidentally) right after you've selected some (or 
all) messages.