Can somebody who sent me an email make its text disappear la
Can somebody who sent me an email make its text disappear la
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steveatesh

Original Poster:

5,368 posts

194 months

Friday 23rd July 2021
quotequote all
Strange one but cutting a long story short I had some email correspondence with my accountant about my company accounts getting right to the deadline for submission, I received three emails from him about this at the time the emails were dated 4/7/21.

The emails were there a week later, the communications continued by phone (I was way) and then the submission date past and he has dropped me right in it with Company House, something which i told him about via phone.

Anyway, I have returned home and wanted to print out his emails, and whilst they are in my inbox the text (if it is there) can not be read, nor can any of his previous emails either.


Its as if somehow he has been able to remove the text from his emails, something which i thought impossible. Assuming it is impossible, what are the possible avenues i can go down to recover his emails or at least the content and headers? I am using Apple MaiI on an iMac running Big Sur, I have tried Time machine but apparently the Time machine recovery of emails was broken by Apple in Dec 2019 according to forums.

Any help/advice appreciated (apart from getting a new accountant!).

Editied to add I have tried rebooting the computer.


sparkyhx

4,200 posts

234 months

Friday 23rd July 2021
quotequote all
apparently yes.

https://www.popsci.com/send-self-destructing-messa...

First ask for them to resend, If reluctant then possibly consider a GDPR request to your accountant

then if they don't do that the next step is the law


Edited by sparkyhx on Friday 23 July 15:46

steveatesh

Original Poster:

5,368 posts

194 months

Friday 23rd July 2021
quotequote all
sparkyhx said:
That looks like exactly what has happened. Everyday is a school day. Thanks Sparky

budgie smuggler

6,070 posts

189 months

Friday 23rd July 2021
quotequote all
steveatesh said:
That looks like exactly what has happened. Everyday is a school day. Thanks Sparky
Which of those services was it?

steveatesh

Original Poster:

5,368 posts

194 months

Friday 23rd July 2021
quotequote all
budgie smuggler said:
Which of those services was it?
Well the symptoms are exactly like the gmail write up, the email is still there and i can see the first few words in the email but not the body of the text. When i open the email there is simply no text there to see. Although his email address is btinternet so not sure how that would work with Gmail thinking about it.

TonyRPH

13,546 posts

198 months

Friday 23rd July 2021
quotequote all
steveatesh said:
Well the symptoms are exactly like the gmail write up, the email is still there and i can see the first few words in the email but not the body of the text. When i open the email there is simply no text there to see. Although his email address is btinternet so not sure how that would work with Gmail thinking about it.
Are you using a web based email service like Hotmail / Gmail?

Either way, you should be able to view the source of the email which *may* show the text (amongst other code).


The_Jackal

4,854 posts

227 months

Friday 23rd July 2021
quotequote all
So you both use Gmail to send emails? And he used confidential mode?
At the end of the day if your accountant is sending you self destructing emails (there would be no honest reason why he should need to communicate with you in that way), you need to report him to the authorities and get him barred or whatever they do to crooked accountants.

I think there is more to this.

steveatesh

Original Poster:

5,368 posts

194 months

Friday 23rd July 2021
quotequote all
TonyRPH said:
Are you using a web based email service like Hotmail / Gmail?

Either way, you should be able to view the source of the email which *may* show the text (amongst other code).
No, not for the business account anyway. That’s one of the reasons the gmail write up might not be correct as above.

steveatesh

Original Poster:

5,368 posts

194 months

Friday 23rd July 2021
quotequote all
The_Jackal said:
So you both use Gmail to send emails? And he used confidential mode?
At the end of the day if your accountant is sending you self destructing emails (there would be no honest reason why he should need to communicate with you in that way), you need to report him to the authorities and get him barred or whatever they do to crooked accountants.

I think there is more to this.
No, I don’t use gmail so that’s not it when I read the write up Sparky provided earlier, although the symptoms are the same.

I have no reason why the accountant has not submitted the accounts, we have worked togther for ten years but I do wonder if he’s had some kind of episode….even the day before the deadline passed he could have submitted them when I reminded him again, but he chose to tell me they were submitted already, something that patently wasn’t true.

I am thinking this may be something more to do with my iMac, I will be spending a lot of time tomorrow trying to sort it out. It just seemed too much coincidence but with hindsight he has no reason at all to use self destructing emails.

Thanks for your help.

Ham_and_Jam

3,720 posts

127 months

Friday 23rd July 2021
quotequote all
Do you have the email account set up on your phone.

Quite often if I cant find an email, I’ll use the search on my phone and can see it there.

Might be worth checking to see if you can view the contents that way.

TonyRPH

13,546 posts

198 months

Friday 23rd July 2021
quotequote all
steveatesh said:
No, I don’t use gmail so that’s not it when I read the write up Sparky provided earlier, although the symptoms are the same.

I have no reason why the accountant has not submitted the accounts, we have worked togther for ten years but I do wonder if he’s had some kind of episode….even the day before the deadline passed he could have submitted them when I reminded him again, but he chose to tell me they were submitted already, something that patently wasn’t true.

I am thinking this may be something more to do with my iMac, I will be spending a lot of time tomorrow trying to sort it out. It just seemed too much coincidence but with hindsight he has no reason at all to use self destructing emails.

Thanks for your help.
On the Mac, you can view the source of the email, and then save it.

If you save it with a .html extension (if it doesn't do that by default) you should be able to view it in the web browser. This might show the full email, if the Apple mail client is having a problem rendering the html.

Instructions here: https://www.lifewire.com/view-message-source-os-x-...


steveatesh

Original Poster:

5,368 posts

194 months

Friday 23rd July 2021
quotequote all
Ham_and_Jam said:
Do you have the email account set up on your phone.

Quite often if I cant find an email, I’ll use the search on my phone and can see it there.

Might be worth checking to see if you can view the contents that way.
Sadly I delete emails on the phone when I know they’re on the Mac….might change that!

steveatesh

Original Poster:

5,368 posts

194 months

Friday 23rd July 2021
quotequote all
TonyRPH said:
On the Mac, you can view the source of the email, and then save it.

If you save it with a .html extension (if it doesn't do that by default) you should be able to view it in the web browser. This might show the full email, if the Apple mail client is having a problem rendering the html.

Instructions here: https://www.lifewire.com/view-message-source-os-x-...
Cheers Tony