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2+ years worth of emails deleted by Comcast
Between Fri night 12/13 and Saturday, 12/14 - I lost 2 years worth of emails from my comcast inbox both on the xfinity server and my macbook. Fortunately they are still on my phone until it syncs and then those will be lost too. In any case, several years of my emails are gone and 6 hours on the phone with xfinity plus multiple assurances it was fixed did not work. While even the elevated CS people are cheery, they are ignorant and taught to give you scripted lines - I heard it will be fixed but takes 2 hours 3 times. Not fixed. Any ideas or help would be greatly appreciated or I guess i am simply out of luck with my only recourse taking the time to transition to another service and cancel all of my services with Comcast. Thank goodness my business emails are on other services and this was only important personal emails.......
Latoque
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29.5K Messages
4 years ago
If you have an iPhone, is it backed up to iCloud? Are you using the Mail app on the phone?
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Latoque
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29.5K Messages
4 years ago
If you are using Mac Mail on the laptop, do you by chance also use Time Machine to back it up?
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roombank
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7 Messages
4 years ago
Unfortunately it wasn't reconfigured when I got this newer computer so there is no back up on the time capsule - but thanks for the suggestion.
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roombank
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7 Messages
4 years ago
the mail is on my iphone but we can't get it onto the icloud - we called apple and they said that since it's off the xfinity server, we can't get what is on the phone onto the icloud or off the phone. i don't know why it didn't sync to the icloud before i lost it.....i forwarded about 6 mos worth of the important emails to an outlook account my husband created but don't have the time or energy to go through the rest.....i can't believe i spoke to 3 advanced repair people who said they would come back in 2 hours and they didn't....
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Latoque
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4 years ago
OK, I think there is a way to save the emails still on the phone. Bit of a process but bear with me. First question------------
On the Macbook sign into the Comcast webmail account using only Safari or another browser. On the Inbox page in the left folder pane, there is a section labeled "Add mail account". Do you have any external accounts enabled there? Like Yahoo or the Outlook.com account you mentioned upthread?
Its a nice feature that lets you work with other Comcast or non-Comcast email accounts you might have from one location, kind of like a desktop client, but not quite. It has some interesting capabilities, including the ability to move emails from one email account to another. You can move emails from a Comcast account to say, an Outlook.com or Gmail account, etc. Now, you would need to enable such an account on the laptop or a desktop, because neither the Mail app on the phone, nor the mobile version of the webmail have the ability to do that. However, once it's done using the computer, it will be reflected when you open the account on the phone using Safari because of IMAP.
So if you think this is what you want to do post back and we will continue. I have done experiments with this stuff and it works really well. Just understand that doing this will remove the emails from the Comcast account and put them in whatever other account you enable using that feature. However, you can always move them back again at will if you want to. But you will still have the emails and you can do the Inbox, Sent folder or any other folder you want. This may seem a bit intimidating but it's really not hard to do. And you can do it on the phone after the computer end is set up.
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roombank
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7 Messages
4 years ago
HI again - I do have an outlook account set up so I could do what you are describing but don't quite understand how i get the email that are only on my iphone and no longer on the comcast server recovered this way. apple said it couldn't be done but let me know. thx
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Latoque
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4 years ago
Right then. Before we go any further with this, I have been trying to figure out how the emails vanished from the server, yet are still on the phone. So my next question is: are you sure the account is set up in the Mail app on the phone using IMAP? Or is it using POP3? Because if it's POP, that could explain why the messages still appear on the phone.
Next question: On the phone, can you see the emails in all the folders like Inbox, Drafts, Sent and so on? Or is it only the Inbox folder that still has messages in it? Are there any local folders you had created? Remember, I can't see whatever it is you are looking at, so I have to rely on whatever information you provide.
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roombank
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7 Messages
4 years ago
I think its POP - I can see everything on the phone - don't have folders for this account except sent - sent is still on the comcast server and in my macbook too - it's only the inbox that got wiped out.
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Latoque
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4 years ago
Can you clarify-------the Inbox is empty even on the phone, or can you still see those emails?
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roombank
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7 Messages
4 years ago
the inbox on my iphone is intact with all 3000+ emails but once it syncs with the xfinity server i will lose them. the xfinity server and my macbook only have emails since 10/24/19 (they recovered about 3 weeks worth - that's all. at first everything from 12/1 back was gone).
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Latoque
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4 years ago
Very good. Now, do you have the Outlook.com account enabled in the section I discussed earlier? Under "Add mail account" in the webmail interface? If not, do that now and then post back. Once done, does the Outlook account also appear in the Mail app on the phone?
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