Can I move Mail (Lion) files back to Mail (Snow Leopard)?

No simple way. All I can suggest is that you export the Lion versions and see if you can open them in SL.

If your mail is stored on an imap server, you may want to try setting up the account on the different machine, and syncing. I've done this and was able to restore messages that are still on the server.

I have a similar problem: 2 MacBook Pros, one with Snow Leopard and one with Lion. The logic board on the Lion laptop died the day after I installed Lion, but I was able to pull the hard drive and put it in an enclosure so I can access the files. Since I didn't even have 24 hours to experience Lion, I am just now learning that I have no idea where the mail is stored on the hard drive since it's not the same as previous versions.

Can you be more specific about how to export mail from Lion to SL? Would I have to connect the hard drive to a machine running Lion for that to work? Thanks a million!

Are you sure this import worked? I converted to Lion and did a save, which made my bootable backup disk also 100% Lionized. When I tried to go back to Snow leopard, it APPEARED the export from Lion to SL Mail worked, but in fact it did not. I tried multiple times, before giving up and going back to Lion.

I called a senior tech support friend and he said Lion modifies the Mail files so that you cannot go back to SL. He said his experience was exactly like mine.

If you exported Mail files that had been active inside a Lion version of Mail, please state that. I do not want to spend another 5 or 6 hours trying to go backwards and end up in the same place.

Thanks...

I've always thought it's a bad idea to just leave all my mail online or in the mail application. Instead, I regularly save all my important messages as text files, into folders I create for each project to which the mails relate, or other folders called "Friends" etc.

That way, if anything bad happens in whatever email application I'm using or at the server end with my ISP, there's no chance of losing old messages.

Another advantage of saving messages in folders is that you can put everythng else in those folders too, such as images, WP files, PDFs etc - everything that has to do with that particular project or person.

Just a suggestion.

Oh, my…I'm not sure whether to thank you for showing me where the mail is in Lion or not…in some ways I think I might have been better off thinking everything was lost to the ages rather than seeing the way it's "organized" in the Lion Hidden Library. I'm pretty close to abandoning hope. But thank you for helping me out with that!!

And Tom in London, that's a brilliant suggestion. I'm going to get right on that! I really like the idea of having email in a text file so that it's universal. I have so much email from eons past that I will never be able to convert into something readable again.

Thanks for your help, guys!

Hi everyone,

I was able to import my Apple Mail after downgrading from Lion to Snow Leopard.

Here is what I did:

- In Mail, click Mailbox > New Mailbox.

- in the New Mailbox dialog box, select "On My Mac" as the location and give it any "MailboxName" you want. Click OK.

- Now in Finder, open Library > Mail > Mailboxes > MailboxName.mbox. In the MailboxName.mbox folder (where MailboxName is whatever name you gave the mailbox), all you'll see is an info.plist file. Add a folder called "Messages".

- Go to the location where you've backed up all of your email from Lion and drill down to the Messages folder where you have all your .emlx files. Copy all of these .emlx files and paste them into the new Messages folder you've created (i.e., at the Library > Mail > Mailboxes > MailboxName.mbox > Messages location).

- Go back to Mail. If you open the new "MailboxName" folder under "ON MY MAC", you'll see that it is still empty. Snow Leopard Mail can't read the .emlx files from Lion Mail. But we're not done yet. There are some more steps.

- On the Mail File menu, click Import Mailboxes.

- Select Apple Mail and click Continue.

- Browse to Library > Mail > Mailboxes, select "MailboxName.mbox", click Choose, and then click Done.

- Snow Leopard Mail will now import Lion Mail. It creates an "Import" folder in Mail under "ON MY MAC". Expand the Import folder and you'll see a a folder with the "MailboxName" you selected. When you open this you'll see all of your mail items that came from Lion Mail.

- You can repeat the above for each mailbox you want to import.

@DougKW

Is it possible to do this from Lion to Leopard (not Snow Leopard)?

@DougKW

Brilliant, this worked a treat for me. Thanks!!!

You can, in the sense that each mailbox will be superseded by another one at a higher level, and—in order to be good-looking—you must take them one by one and re-make a bearably aesthetic list. Great trouble—