Another Hiccup with Apple's MacOS Big Sur

A week or so ago, I posted about an issue I have with Apple's update to Mac OS X with Big Sur. Today I ran into another issue that caused a problem. I will admit it is a small problem but one I am sure others may have. In my case, it arose because of a seldom used piece of software.

This all came about because of a problem with Microsoft Teams on the Mac. You used to be able to share your system audio on a video conference call and then the feature disappeared. It still exists on the Windows version and so I thought I might try using Windows running within VirtualBox on my Mac. It is something I set up a few months ago but never really use and so I tried firing it up. I was immediately halted by an error.

The first message I got told me to update to a later version of VirtualBox and so I installed the newer version. That didn't help as the error persisted and so I did a quick Internet search. I copied the entire error into my usual search engine needed to update a preference to allow VirtualBox to run. No it didn't take a lot of effort but annoyed me anyways. It doesn't take too many annoyances to really start hating a product.

With the problem fixed, I started VirtualBox and then loaded my Windows 10 virtual machine. Unfortunately I ran into a completely set of new problems related to Windows and so I will save that for another posting. Ultimately I discovered that I need to be careful before upgrading my computer to the next major version of Apple's new operating system. I won't know how much work it will take to fix little issues like this.

Apple's Email Update for Big Sur Blows

Generally I am a fan of Apple products. This is not because they are technically better than the competition but because they have a more polished look and feel. When you buy something from Apple, it just feels easier to use. On occasion they make a mistake and that happened with the latest update of their operating system. They made certain things more complex than they need to be and it is painful. The latest update to their e-mail program is a prime example.

A few days ago I was going through my e-mail and accidentally deleted a message that I still needed. I opened my trash only to discover that it wasn't there. Wait a second, does this mean that all of the e-mails I deleted got permanently removed from my computer? That is bad as it is easy to delete a group of messages when you only want to delete a single one in the thread. This sent me on a search to solve the problem.

The first thing I did was check my e-mail preferences. I had everything set to copy deleted messages to the trash and then purge the trash of all messages older than a month. I also experimented with deleting a message and then undoing the action. As expected, the deleted message reappeared in my inbox. That means the e-mail program was storing them somewhere and I just needed to find out where.

My next source of help came from an Internet search. I had to go through a number of messages on Apple's support forum but eventually found the culprit. The engineers decided that people might have multiple e-mail accounts and so they created multiple trash bins. When I looked at the trash folder "On My Mac," it didn't contain a single message. I needed to locate the trash bin associated with my e-mail account. Normally I would expect it to show up along with all of the other folders on the left side of my e-mail program. It wasn't there and so I needed to add it. How do you do that? There is a search box on the upper right side of the e-mail program and I searched for "Trash." Sure enough I had 2 trash folders: one on my mac and the other for the domain name for my e-mail. I clicked on the account trash folder and it crashed the e-mail program.

I found the right trash folder but couldn't get to it without crashing my e-mail. I did find a solution though. I simply clicked the "+" icon next next to the "Favorites" section on the left of my e-mail and added "All Trash" to it. Now I have to click on "All Trash" which brings up my 2 trash folders and I can see all of the e-mail I have deleted in the past month.

I don't know why the software developers at Apple went out of their way to complicate something that should be so simple. I wouldn't expect this from a company that generally creates intuitive user interfaces. Apple, you failed me on this one.