Can I Recover Apple Mail (mbox) Email Files?

Can Disk Drill recover mbox data – the files used by Apple’s Mail app?

The short answer is – yes, but only in certain situations. There are limitations because mbox is not actually a file — mbox is a folder where all emails are stored in a plain text format. Since signature Deep Scan is not capable of recovering text files you have to rely on Disk Drill’s other recovery methods. Recovery is possible in the following situations:

1. If your Mac or PC was protected with Recovery Vault or Guaranteed Recovery when the deletion occurred. Folder and plain text file recovery are major benefits of beeing this services enabled.
2. If you are able to launch Disk Drill immediately after deleting the Mail files. Quick Scan or Deep Scan of File System  may be able to recover it in this case. Keep in mind, though, that this information isn’t retained for long. If too much time has passed, this method probably won’t work.
3. If your Mail files were lost because of a missing partition or catalog error, click the universal Search for lost data button next to the disk where your MBOX data was stored. Disk Drill will run all available partition search and rebuild methods. If it finds the missing partition, it will perform a Quick Scan and may be able to recover your MBOX files.