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gajehgae Author

Level 1

13 points

Reinstall OS and only restore mail.

Hello. I bought a M1 14" MBP - love it - but think I made a mistake in migrating from my old MBP. Everything works fine BUT I notice there is a lot of junk leftover from software I don't use. I suspect - with no proof to back it up - that a clean install of the OS would provide better performance.

I have good backups with Time Machine. What I'd like to do is wipe the disk and reinstall the OS so the MBP is starting like-new, then only reinstall the mail from the backup. Then I'll reinstall the apps I need/use and finally my docs.

Suggestions on how best to only restore my mail? Thanks.

MacBook Pro 14″, macOS 12.1

Posted on Dec 17, 2021 2:47 PM

Top-ranking reply

a brody

Level 10

84,077 points

Posted on Dec 17, 2021 3:45 PM

If you were storing everything IMAP or Exchange your email would be visible when visiting the webmail version of your email host.

Anything stored "On My Mac" is handled by Users -> yourname -> Library -> Mail and Mail Downloads when it comes to Mac OS X Mail. Copying those two folders to your desktop and then using Mail menu's import functionality allows you to import the entire folder from the backup copy.

AppDelete by Reggie Answorth lets you remove unwanted software

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Reinstall OS and only restore mail.

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