How do you recover Mail's "On My Mac" Mailbox files from a Time Machine Backup?

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Level 1

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How do you recover Mail's "On My Mac" Mailbox files from a Time Machine Backup?

I've been using Time Machine to Backup my iMac to address permission issues it needed to be completely deleted and rebuilt. As part of the recovery only select files were restored as many were obsolete.

However I need to restore my Mail's "On My Mac" Mailbox files from my Time Machine Backup, how do I do it?

Option (Go) Library works for the current Library system to see mailboxes but not for Time Machine backups.

iMac 27″ 5K, macOS 13.0

Posted on Nov 4, 2022 9:55 PM

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Answer 1

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Tesserax

Level 10

151,779 points

Nov 5, 2022 2:44 PM in response to KawikaP

Ok, thanks for your patience. I got back to my Ventura Mac, and I followed these steps. See if they will work for you.

If running, close the Apple Mail app.
Open a new Finder window. (Finder > File > New Finder Window)
To view hidden files, use <cmd><shift><period>. When done with these steps, just use this key combination to get out of "hidden" view.
Select your Time Machine backup drive from Finder.
Open: Backups.backupdb > Your Mac's Name > The backup folder with the date you want to restore from > Macintosh HD - Data > Users > Your User Name > Library > Mail > V10
Copy (NOT move) the entire V10 folder somewhere on your Mac, preferably somewhere not syncing with a cloud service, for example Downloads.
Open the V10 folder you just copied to the Downloads folder. You’ll see a bunch of alphanumeric folders ... one for each email account and for "On My Mac." Open each one until you find the mailboxes in the account you’re looking for. Note where you located it.
Open the Mail app.
Choose File > Import Mailboxes, navigate to that location. In the example, Downloads > V10 > Alphanumeric folder > the appropriate On My Mac mailbox.
Choose “Import as Apple Mail”.
Next, in the Mail app, you’ll see a new “Import” folder, maybe with another sub folder. Your mail should be in there.

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Answer 2

Tesserax

Level 10

151,779 points

Nov 6, 2022 9:42 AM in response to KawikaP

I not sure you followed my steps correctly, or that I didn't make them clear enough.

You will not need to use the Time Machine interface at all for this process.

At step 2, you should have opened a new Finder window.
In step 3, you would "reveal" your Mac's "hidden" files by using the key combination.
In step 4, you should find your LaCie drive in the left-side of the Finder's window. You would then select it.
In step 5, after you selected the LaCie, you should be able to follow the directory path to the V10 folder.

FYI, there are two Library folders on your Mac. One is the system folder, the other is in your user folder. It the latter one you want.

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Answer 3

Tesserax

Level 10

151,779 points

Nov 4, 2022 10:21 PM in response to KawikaP

Give the following a try:

From the menubar Finder > Go > Go to Folder, and then enter: ~/Library/Mail/V10/ , and then press the <enter> key. (Note: V10 is specific to macOS Ventura)
With that Finder window open, Enter Time Machine and browse the map(s) similar to: XXXXXXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXXXXXXXXXX
In those map(s), there can be more then one, you should be able to find your [OnMyMac].mbox and restore it.

The X'es are random numbers and letters and [OnMyMac] is the name of your mailbox. So the complete path where the mailbox would be something like: ~/Library/Mail/V9/XXXXXXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXXXXXXXXXX/[OnMyMac].mbox

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Answer 4

KawikaP Author

Level 1

8 points

Nov 5, 2022 8:41 AM in response to Tesserax

Thank You, however I need a little more information. Here is the path to the Library including the spaces as shown. How would you enter this in the "Go to Folder" entry:

/LaCie@snap-1643/2022-10-26-143905.backup/Macintosh HD - Data/Library/Mail/V10

As when I enter this is doesn't want to go probably due to too much information or the spaces. When I enter ~/Library/Mail/V10/ it takes me to my current hard drive instead of the external hard drive.

Appreciate the help!

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Answer 5

Tesserax

Level 10

151,779 points

Nov 5, 2022 8:59 AM in response to KawikaP

You don't need to point to the LaCie drive. Just do so to the location on your Mac, and leave the Finder window open at that location on your Mac's Desktop. Then open the Time Machine interface and it should open a series of windows of that location to choose your "On My Mac" mailbox folder that you want to restore from.

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Answer 6

KawikaP Author

Level 1

8 points

Nov 5, 2022 9:22 AM in response to Tesserax

I followed the steps you mentioned and I can see in the Finder Window that all of the hidden files are visible. That's what I want in the end. I then go to Applications and run Time Machine then go to the backup to the Library folder however the hidden files are not visible.

What am I doing wrong?

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Answer 7

Tesserax

Level 10

151,779 points

Nov 5, 2022 9:24 AM in response to KawikaP

Not sure you are doing anything wrong. Unfortunately, I'm not at the location where my Mac, running macOS Ventura is, so I can't verify that I can reproduce what you are seeing. I should be later today. However, if someone is available here, that is running Ventura on their Mac, hopefully, they can chime in to help you, until I can.

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Answer 8

KawikaP Author

Level 1

8 points

Nov 6, 2022 8:33 AM in response to Tesserax

Hello and thank you for the update. Below are my results based on the above steps:

1) Execute steps 1, 2 & 3 then go to the backup drive I'm looking for.

2) I open Time Machine then <Use Previous Disk><LaCie><Go to directory with the latest backup><Hidden files outside of the Library are showing><Library><No hidden files are showing in the Library directory, just the normal 61 like the example I mentioned in step 4 below.>

3) When I Executed step 3 <cmd><shift><period> above lots of hidden files appear but none of them in the Library of Time Machine.

4) As a test, I opened a new Finder window and used <GO><OPTIONS><LIBRARY> the number of files on my iMac goes from 61 to 85 which is exactly what I want. I can see all of the Mail sub-folders and Safari with the favorites plus others. I'm just not able to get this done on the external drive using Finder or through Time Machine.

Thoughts?

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Answer 9

KawikaP Author

Level 1

8 points

Nov 6, 2022 3:02 PM in response to Tesserax

THANK YOU!!!

I was not aware that there are 2 Library folders (One System and one User - Both usually hidden). After reviewing your earlier steps 1 to 11 I see that I got lost at step 5 (yes I own it) because when I printed out the instructions the Users > Your User Name part was a little truncated so I went to the System Library file instead of the User Library where I found the needed files and I'm importing the mailboxes and my Safari favorites files now.

Thank You so very much!

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Answer 10

Tesserax

Level 10

151,779 points

Nov 6, 2022 5:29 PM in response to KawikaP

Excellent! You're very welcome! I'm glad you got it worked out.

I still don't know why Apple decided, starting in macOS Catalina, to remove the ability to restore the Mail app via the Time Machine (TM) interface. It was far easier that way ... but, at least, TM still does back it up, but you can only restore mail via the Finder. More interestingly, they left the TM restore process intact for all of their other apps. Go figure!

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