My gmail inbox appears to be wiped out.

July 24, 2013 12:31 PM

A few days ago I had 24,000 messages in my inbox; today I have 55. What happened to them?

When I search for old emails by the person's name, I can find them, but old emails are no longer in my inbox. I do use filters, but not for messages from people I know. A few days ago I downloaded Dropbox, which seems to have prompted the Mail program on my Mac to import all of my gmail (which I allowed by accident), but the old 24K emails are not on Mail either.
Two questions: 1. Why are these messages not in my inbox on gmail -- and not in the trash or any other folder/filter either -- but they can be found when I search for them by the senders'/recipients' names? 2. I'd actually like to get rid of Mail unless there is a reason to keep it. Are there any benefits to keeping it?

posted by quixotictic to Computers & Internet (8 answers total)

Did you archive them all by mistake? Archived stuff is searchable but (AFAIK) not generally visible.
posted by jquinby at 12:34 PM on July 24, 2013

Archived mail is put in the All Mail folder. Did you look in there?
posted by Rock Steady at 12:35 PM on July 24, 2013

Try clicking "All Mail". If you can find them via search, I suspect that they were "archived" (which just means that their inbox tag was removed). This may also be related to the new "Main/Social/Promotion" dynamic they introduced. Do you have three tabs at the top of the inbox area?
posted by milqman at 12:35 PM on July 24, 2013 [1 favorite]

Gmail started automatically sorting and labeling emais within the last couple of weeks. Maybe they're being sorted into the new tabs at the top of your inbox screen?
posted by goggie at 12:39 PM on July 24, 2013 [8 favorites]

which seems to have prompted the Mail program on my Mac to import all of my gmail (which I allowed by accident)

If you set up your Mac's mail program to download all of your Gmail through the POP protocol, and Gmail is set to delete emails after POP downloads, then your email has been deleted.
posted by dobi at 12:48 PM on July 24, 2013

Response by poster: OK, I feel silly. I clicked on "All Mail" on gmail, and all of my old messages are there. I had turned off that new tab thing when it first appeared last week, as I have issues with gmail making these changes for me. (New stuff, yuck!) Thank you.
posted by quixotictic at 12:56 PM on July 24, 2013

If you like, you can go back to the old look easily. Click the settings icon (looks like a little gear in upper right corner) and from the drop-down menu, click "configure inbox." It will offer you some choices, one of which is "Deselect all categories to go back to your old inbox."
posted by Elsa at 1:16 PM on July 24, 2013 [1 favorite]

Yes, switching back to the old look happened RIGHT AWAY when I woke up to those tabs...life was then peaceful again.

admits to having a panic attack when I read "24,000 messages in my inbox"
posted by HuronBob at 2:35 PM on July 24, 2013 [5 favorites]