no mail after using migration assistant

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Level 1

8 points

no mail after using migration assistant

Hi - after a migration from El Capitan on an old machine to Big Sur on a New (Intel) everything works beautifully except that there is no old mail in the Mail window. In Mail Preferences all the accounts are there and /users/<user>/Library/Mail/v8 has a lot of content (15GB) but the Mail window Only has Inbox, VIPs, Sent, Flagged & Drafts with no content in any of them. I turned all the accounts off before migrating so that none would get lost in the transition.

What do I need to do to get the mail to show please.

Mac mini, macOS 11.6

Posted on Oct 17, 2021 7:26 AM

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Answer 1

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leroydouglas

Community+ 2024

Level 10

188,484 points

Oct 17, 2021 7:47 AM in response to renowden

renowden wrote:

Hi - after a migration from El Capitan on an old machine to Big Sur on a New (Intel) everything works beautifully except that there is no old mail in the Mail window. In Mail Preferences all the accounts are there and /users/<user>/Library/Mail/v8 has a lot of content (15GB) but the Mail window Only has Inbox, VIPs, Sent, Flagged & Drafts with no content in any of them. I turned all the accounts off before migrating so that none would get lost in the transition.

What do I need to do to get the mail to show please.

See if there is anything here:

How to Move Your Apple Mail to a New Mac - Lifewire

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Answer 2

renowden Author

Level 1

8 points

Oct 17, 2021 12:47 PM in response to leroydouglas

Thanks - I haven't seen that page before.

Option 1 was not relevant as I had tried Migration Assistant and that hadn't worked.

Option 2 I didn't do the keychain part as I wasn't bothered about reconnecting the accounts as I can do that manually and, anyway, there was no First Aid option on my machines.

I found the mail folder took a fresh copy.

The Preferences com.apple.mail.plist didn't exist on either machine.

Having done that and started the mail app it went through upgrading, cleaning up, identifying conversations and optimising.

On completion I now have "On My Mac with all my original folders with all their nesting etc. In Library/Mail there is now V8 instead of V3.

BUT none of the folders have any content though Get Info on the V8 folder still shows at 16GB.

So a little further forward but not a lot! All the mail is there somewhere but I can't see it.

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Answer 3

renowden Author

Level 1

8 points

Oct 18, 2021 1:56 AM in response to leroydouglas

Update - rebuilding the mailboxes individually from Mailbox ==> Rebuild recovered the mail.

Thanks for your help.

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