HT201250: Use Time Machine to back up or restore your Mac
Learn about Use Time Machine to back up or restore your Mac
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Helpful answers
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Aug 22, 2016 9:49 AM in response to Suebee1951by Eric Root,Make Mail the primary window on the computer and then enter Time Machine. That should allow you to see/restore it. If that doesn't work, go to Finder and select your user/home folder. With that Finder window as the front window, either select Finder/View/Show View options or go command - J. When the View options opens, check ’Show Library Folder’. That should make your user library folder visible in your user/home folder. Select Library/Mail. Enter Time Machine and go to the desired date. Control - click the folder and restore it to your Desktop. Exit Time Machine. You can then import the e-mails into Mail.
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Aug 22, 2016 10:36 AM in response to Suebee1951by Joseph_S.,Hello Suebee1951,
Thanks for using Apple Support Communities.
I see that you would like to find mail from over a year ago, but you can't find mail using Time Machine. And you have also just recently deleted the mail. I understand the importance of needing access to all of your past emails. Let's see how we can get this issue resolved.
To answer your question, if you were signed into that email account in your Macs Mail app when you backed up, it is possible to view old email messages using Time Machine. First, go to System Preferences > Time Machine and make sure the option to "Show Time Machine in menu bar" is checked. Next, open up your Mail app. With Mail as the main app open on your screen, select the Time Machine icon from the menu bar in the upper-right corner of your screen and select "Enter Time Machine". You will then be able to view your old messages and restore them if you choose to do so.
If you cannot restore mail from Time Machine, I would recommend logging into your Email Service Provider's (ESP) webmail client, and see if the messages are listed there. If your ESP uses an Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP) server for mail, your messages should still be stored on their server. Since you deleted the mail recently, it may be possible that the email messages are still saved in a folder within your email account allocated to deleted messages. If you're using the Mail app on your Mac, this folder would be named "Trash". If you're looking for this folder using your ESP's webmail online, the folder may have a different name. If you have further questions regarding this, please reach out to your email provider directly.
Best Regards.
