Developer Warned Users Not To Update To macOS Catalina To Avoid Losing Apple Mail Messages

A serious warning was recently told by Michael Tsai, the developer of plug-in for Apple Mail on Mac, SpamSieve, and EagleFiler, to macOS Catalina users. In a blog post, the developer stated that users could experience possible data loss when they upgrade to macOS Catalina 10.15.0 build. He has heard from other users that updating the Apple mail’s data store from macOS Mojave to macOS Catalina might appear successful, but on a closer look, it turns out a huge number of messages are either incomplete or entirely missing, claimed Tsai.

The developer also shared that several users claimed to have lost the content of their messages when they move emails between mailboxes either via AppleScript or drag and drop can sometimes result in a header but without any content. If the messages were moved to a server mailbox, other devices view the messages as deleted, Tsai explained. Eventually, this syncs back to the first Mac, where the messages disappear too.

Tsai warned that these problems are malicious because users will not know that they are already affected unless they discovered it on their mailboxes. Because the data is synced to the server, these issues can also spread to other devices and computers, the developer added. Depending on backups is also tough since Apple Mail data is always changing, and there is no quick and easy way to merge recovered data with the messages received since the last backup took place.

Although there is still a risk, it is a good practice to create backups. However, the developer stated that Apple Support seems to be erroneously telling users that lost Mail data in macOS Catalina could not be recovered from a Time Machine backup made using macOS Mojave. At the moment, it is not yet clear if these issues are caused by Mail bugs or other factors like issues on the Mac or with the server. On Friday, the Cupertino-based tech giant released to developers the beta version of macOS Catalina 10.15.1.

However, it is not yet clear if this latest build fixes the bugs in the Mail app. Michael Tsai advised users who are dependent on Apple Mail to hold off updating to macOS Catalina at the moment.