Hi Falkryn, thanks for your reply.
After I posted my request last evening, I googled 'aol mails missing' and I saw that there were a few web entries from people who were having some problems with aol mail and it looks as though there has been (or still is) a problem with AoL.
I also noticed that my AoL mail page layout was different in small ways.
I fiddled around and although it showed that I still had 236 new mails, I could only view about twenty. I then noticed on the right hand side of the aol screen that it said 1 of 9 and realised it meant 1 of 9 pages of new emails- tried each numbered page and was able to view all my new mails.
Same with old mails (of which I had 5000 going back to sept 2011 -( when I got a new PC).
So instead of just scrolling down emails lists as before, it's now a matter of working down through the numbered pages so I think there must be something going on with AoL.
I just wish they'd warn their aol mail account holders of possible ongoing problems and save us the stress
of thinking we've lost precious info.
However, thank goodness I now can access old/new Emails again and I hope it stays that way.
After the panic when I thought I'd lost all my old mails, I've now got to find a way, if there is one, of saving all the old mails to a folder in my PC but I don't seem to have a 'Save to PC' folder so that's another puzzle.
Anyway Falkryn, thank you again for your reply.
Cheers
Barbara.