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time machine, using older backup for recovery (Dec 2021)

Hello,

So I've been running time machine for over a year now on my iMac on November 24th I accidentally deleted several mailboxes from the Apple Mail Application. My (2TB) time machine SSD Hard drive was still connected and continued to make backups over the next week. Mail is also stored on a mail server for 30 days so it can also be redownloaded.

In order to restore the deleted mailboxes (and the mail that was in them) I was thinking that I could do a wipe and total recovery of everything (including the OS).

However using the migration assistance I can only recover the most recent time machine backup and not the backup from November 23rd.

For example, if immediately after deleting the mailboxes I had also immediately disconnected the external time machine backup drive (before it had time to write to the time machine backup), I think this procedure would have worked.

I've tried to manually delete the time machine backups in between November 24th to present so that the migration assistant would use the backup from before the mailbox event on the 23rd of November but I was unable to modify the contents of the backup folder on the external hard drive.

Currently, I had another iMac available so I disconnected the time machine backup drive from the primary iMac and did a format and clean install of the OS of the 2nd iMac, but using the migration assistant I don't want to recover the most recent backup (Dec 03rd) but instead a backup from November 23rd on to the 2nd iMac, (Both iMacs have Mojave OS 10.14 & Mail 12.).

So I still have the primary iMac as it was (but recently disconnected from the time machine backup) and I'm really just trying to recover the deleted mailboxes and the mail that was in them but will do what ever it takes.

On another hard drive, I also had a time machine backup of the primary iMac (but it was from June 2021) which I restored on to a MBP and it worked, but mail and files from June to October 2021 would be lost.

Any helpful suggestions or guidance in order to proceed would be appreciated.

Posted on Dec 7, 2021 9:31 AM

Best reply

D.I. Johnson

Level 7

22,355 points

Posted on Dec 7, 2021 9:51 AM

Hello, Who&amp;#39;sYourBuddy.

I believe you're in a pickle.

Firstly, Time Machine backups do not backup email that has not been copied to mailboxes located "On My Mac" in the Mail app. Those emails should remain available on the servers of your email provider. You might sign in to your email provider site using a browser to recover those emails.

Secondly, it is never recommended to manually delete any of the backups from the Time Machine backup drive using the Finder, as it reads you may have done. This is the fastest way to corrupt and make useless any TM backup file.

Third, doing a wipe and reinstall of the OS from backup is the very last thing you should ever have to do to recover lost files, especially if you have access to a decent Time Machine backup.

For your future reference, the proper way to recover files from a Time Machine backup:

Restore items backed up with Time Machine on Mac - Apple Support

I doubt there is much hope for recovery of your email, but hopefully I'm wrong and another user can provide an answer.

Good luck.

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time machine, using older backup for recovery (Dec 2021)

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