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Need help restoring an e-mail from time machine backup

Hi!


I can't retrace how it happened but I lost an important e-mail from Mail. I'd like to retrieve it from a time machine backup. However, when I go to Mail->Enter Time Machine, time machine goes straight to "Desktop", which is empty. So there is no mailbox for me to restore. What am I doing wrong?


I also tried to use to "rebuild" the mailbox, to no avail.


(I did use the search functionality and also an Internet search but couldn't find anything. Apologies if this has been answered before.)


Thanks fore the help!

MacBook Pro 13″, macOS 12.4

Posted on May 21, 2022 5:50 AM

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Posted on May 21, 2022 6:02 AM

You have to drill down into the files. Here is screenshot of where the messages are located

Path is ~users>your user>Library>Mail>V9 [V9 is for Monterey, there are so lesser V numbers with a few messages on my Mac)>an alphanumeric character>a listmail account like Gmail>another alphanumeric character>Data>0>1>Messages


Note that the individual mail messages file names are just alphanumeric characters. Also for mine, the file date is not necessarily the date of the mail message. When you click on a mail message it does open in the Mail app.. For me not all messages seem to be in the backup.

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

May 21, 2022 6:02 AM in response to Counterpart77

You have to drill down into the files. Here is screenshot of where the messages are located

Path is ~users>your user>Library>Mail>V9 [V9 is for Monterey, there are so lesser V numbers with a few messages on my Mac)>an alphanumeric character>a listmail account like Gmail>another alphanumeric character>Data>0>1>Messages


Note that the individual mail messages file names are just alphanumeric characters. Also for mine, the file date is not necessarily the date of the mail message. When you click on a mail message it does open in the Mail app.. For me not all messages seem to be in the backup.

May 21, 2022 6:46 AM in response to lllaass

Thank you for your fast response. I did go ahead and restore the entire mail folder within "library" from my backup from beginning of May. Mail then went ahead and imported all the mails on launch. Somehow the e-mail is still lost even though I looked at it just this week. 🤷🏻‍♂️ I give up. Now I'm doubting myself whether maybe I received the mail after the backup. Thanks for the help though!

Need help restoring an e-mail from time machine backup

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