Apple Starting to Restore MobileMe Email Access, Some Email Lost [Updated]

Apple has finally posted an update regarding the extended MobileMe email outage that has affected approximately 1% of users. Their updated support document reports that they have restored web-access to affected MobileMe accounts. This will allow affected users to see emails that they have received since July 18th, the day the outage started.

As a first step toward restoring service, we restored web access to a portion of your MobileMe Mail account at 10:00 p.m. PDT, July 25. You can now log into me.com, and use the Mail web application to access all the messages you have received since the July 18 service outage. You can also compose, send, and receive new messages as normal. Please note that this interim solution does not provide access to any email messages received or saved before the outage began on July 18.

As Apple details, users still do not have access to emails prior to that date and are unable to access their email from their desktop email clients. This functionality will presumably be restored over time. This temporary web-access is meant to allow users to access their recent mail that has been unavailable.

Apple warns that users should not make changes to their MobileMe password, email aliases, or storage allocation while this temporary solution is in place. Doing so could result in technical errors.

Apple also admits that while the majority of email messages will be fully restored, approximately 10% of messages received between 5:00 a.m. PDT on July 16th and 10:20 a.m. PDT on July 18th have been lost. Additional details can be found in their tech note.

Update: Apple has started posting daily updates about the MobileMe email outage at the request of Steve Jobs.

Steve Jobs has asked me to write a posting every other day or so to let everyone know whats happening with MobileMe, and Im working directly with the MobileMe group to ensure that we keep you really up to date. In the 14 days since we launched, its been a rocky road and we know the pain some people have been suffering. Be assured people here are working 24-7 to improve matters, and were going to favor getting you new info hot off the presses even if we have to post corrections or further updates later.

The writer explains that he or she will be updating again this weekend to report on progress.