Time Machine not working with Apple Mail

If you're running Catalina the email files should be in a folder titled A7 which is located in your Users/Home/Library/Application Support/Mail folder:

Go there in Time Machine and restore the entire A7 folder to the Desktop. Then you can go thru the various mailbox folders to find via QuickLook the emails you're interested in.

Thank you Luis, that worked, I retrieved the V7 folder and put in on the desktop.

Now when I click through the folder structure I get to various folders called Messages. But when I open there is no content in there. See screenshot.

Any ideas where the messages are?

Hi Mr Toad, can you please help me find the Mail folder so I can retrieve a deleted email? I updated to Catalina.

If I go PowerbookHD/Users/Home there is no Mail folder shown.

If I go PowerbookHD/Library there is no Mail folder either.

I have looked following these paths in Time Machine but there it is the same. No Mail folder found.

I searched using the Search function for V7. But no folder was found.

What am I missing here?

There IS a Library folder inside your home folder, but it is usually hidden.

You can reach it in several ways:

a) Hold down option key and from the Go menu in Finder choose Library

b) Press command-shift-G and type ~/Library

c) You can make Library visible in the Finder preferences

d) In Terminal, type

open ~/Library

etc.

I went through all the messages but could not find the ones I was looking for on the IMac's drive.

I now would like to look through the V7 folder in a backup on an external hard drive, created with Time Machine. But here again the Library folder is not shown in my CBL Home folder. And when I do cms+shift+G it does not affect the CBL Home folder on the backup but bounces back to the

That's why I thought if only I could make the Library folder visible in the ext. drive where the backups are, I can access a V7 folder from a time in the past that still had the email I am looking for

cms789 wrote:

did that but the time line just shows NOW and doesn't not allow to go back in time.

Can you go to ANY folder in Finder then enter Time Machine and go back? It sounds like your Time Machine has not been backing up because I can find V7 folder in my ~/Library from back in March

When I connect my Ext drive with the backups and enter Time Machine I can go back in time to older backups.

The problem I have retrieving old emails was that in my User Home folder the Library folder was not being shown.

Luis showed me to use cmd+shift+G to make the Library folder visible on my iMac.

But this command does not work with the User Home folder on the ext drive using Time Machine, it seems?

Okay, all good now. I managed to open the Library folder on the ext drive with the backups using Time Machine. I copied an older version of the V7 folder and hope to find the email I am looking for.

So support case closed!

Thank you everybody for their help and patience!

You'll need to navigate to your User/Home/Library/Mail/V7 folder (while in Time Machine) and locate and restore the mailbox you need:

It can't be done from within Mail.

I followed this path but there is no Library folder in the user Home folder.

There is an Application Support folder in the Library but there is no Mail folder in there.

I see the same thing. Not able to navigate Time Machine from Mail.

If you set the mailbox sit on the Desktop for a day it should be indexed by Spotlight and then you can search for a name or phrase that would be in the emails of interest.