Moving local mailboxes from one Mac to another

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Level 1

88 points

Moving local mailboxes from one Mac to another

I've got a bunch of .mbox mailboxes copied from one Mac (that was using Apple Mail). I copied the files out of the Mailboxes folder, in the ~/Library/Mail folder. I stuck it in the same locaiton on a new Mac. When I opened Mail.app, I saw the entire complicated folder structure, but every folder was empty. I tried rebuilding each folder, but that had no effect.

I then tried doing a more traditional import, but that doesn't work either. It starts importing but eventually Mail crashes before getting very far.

Here's the catch. It's are a ton of emails. Many many many subfolders, many many levels deep. Also the total amount of mail is very large. About 70 GB. So it's not so easy to run through these .mbox files, or even to simply duplicate them.

Is there some more straight forward way to do this the way I originally tried? Just moving the files into the mail storage folder, and having Mail.app "see" the mail? That way, I wouldn't have to import or duplicate the massive bunch of mail.

Posted on Feb 1, 2013 9:08 PM

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Answer 1

Jul 2, 2017 10:04 AM in response to Csound1

Hey Csound1, I am trying to export my mailboxes to my new Mac as well. Silly question...Don't be mad!

Will connecting the two computers via usb work or do I need something more like a Thunderbolt cable?

thanks for your help

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Answer 2

l008com Author

Level 1

88 points

Jul 2, 2017 12:54 PM in response to Wambach20

Firewire or Thunderbolt will work in Target Disk Mode. But the easiest way is to just copy files over the network.

However you probably want to start a new thread, this one is ancient and not quite about the same thing, despite the similar title.

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Answer 3

Eric Root

Level 10

684,027 points

Jul 2, 2017 12:49 PM in response to Wambach20

If the 2 computers have the correct cable connections, try the Target Disk Mode.

Target Disk Mode - Mavericks

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Answer 4

baltwo

Level 9

62,362 points

Feb 2, 2013 1:39 PM in response to l008com

Try this. Delete the ~/Library/Mail/ folder and replace it with the one from the older Mac. Boot into the newer Mac, run Mail, and let it update the Mail. That's all one should have to do. I routinely do that with Snow Leopard's Mail, so I can view it in ML's Mail. Works like gangbusters and no mucking around with copying, exporting, or importing.

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Answer 5

l008com Author

Level 1

88 points

Feb 2, 2013 2:02 PM in response to baltwo

I can't do that. I don't have the whole mail folder from the old Mac, just these specific mailboxes. And the old account was a network account hosted on server that we migrated to a regular account. So the normal account importing techniques weren't options.

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Answer 6

baltwo

Level 9

62,362 points

Feb 2, 2013 2:25 PM in response to l008com

Too bad, since it works well. AFAIK, you're probably up the proverbial creek w/o any paddle.

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Answer 7

l008com Author

Level 1

88 points

Feb 3, 2013 1:20 AM in response to l008com

Surely there is some way I can import or integrate these mailboxes?

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Answer 8

baltwo

Level 9

62,362 points

Feb 3, 2013 2:14 PM in response to l008com

I'll leave that to the Mail mavens, since I still use Eudora for my e-mail.

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Answer 9

Csound1

Level 9

59,973 points

Feb 3, 2013 2:18 PM in response to l008com

If they are standard .mbox files you have been using the right method, open Mail. select 'in mbox format' or Apple Mail (try both) select the file and import it. If this is what you are doing and Mail is crashing either the files are corrupted or Mail isn't working right. Any other Mac around so you can try another installation?

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Answer 10

Feb 7, 2013 8:38 AM in response to l008com

There is a bug when doing “export mailbox” and import mailbox functionality.

Workaround:
> Open Finder and under the “Go” menu, hold down the option key. The “Library” sub-menu will show up.
> Copy the entire “Library > Mail” folder to a USB disk (it will not work if copying to a shared drive for some reason)
> Take the USB disk to the new computer and do an “Import Mailbox” and select the copied Data file. There will be LOTS of folders that come up for import, you can browse through and deselect what you don’t need (e.g. trash or junk mail), OR just import everything and then clean up from your mailbox.
> The imported folders will show up in mail under the “On My Mac” area.

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Answer 11

l008com Author

Level 1

88 points

Feb 7, 2013 8:43 AM in response to mypalbill

Doing this causes mail to crash after a few hours of importing. Remember this is 70 GB of mail data, so it's not like a normal 1 GB mailbox where we can throw it around and try it easily on different machines. The import does scan the folder and show a ton of items in the list like you say. But mail crashes partway through importing.

What about just putting the folders directly into the Mail library like I first tried. Shouldn't that work? They were local "on my mac" mailboxes on both computers, and both computers are running the same version of OS X. Shouldn't copying just the /Mail/V2/Mailboxes/ folder work? Is there a way to make it work? When I try that method, I get all of the mailbox folders and sub folders, but each and every one is empty. And rebuildling the mailbox finishes instantly and has no effect.

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Answer 12

Csound1

Level 9

59,973 points

Feb 7, 2013 8:51 AM in response to mypalbill

mypalbill wrote:

There is a bug when doing “export mailbox” and import mailbox functionality.

This is now the 7th time you have posted this BS in 15 minutes, can you support this assertion? (by the way, the method does not work either)

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Answer 13

l008com Author

Level 1

88 points

Feb 7, 2013 8:53 AM in response to Csound1

I've never seen a "export mailbox" option anywhere so I'm not entirely sure what that even means.

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Answer 14

Csound1

Level 9

59,973 points

Feb 7, 2013 8:56 AM in response to l008com

Right Click on a mailbox and you will see the command.

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Answer 15

l008com Author

Level 1

88 points

Feb 7, 2013 8:56 AM in response to l008com

Disregard, I found it. Not where I expected it. But alas exporting won't work for me anyway because if you'll recall, the real situation is that there were network accounts that got remade as real local accounts because the server was having significant login issues. So we had to kill the server and copy the data directly from the user account folders on the server. But none of this shoudl really effect what I'm trying to do. Ultimately, the mail should be stored in the mail folder in the same way whether it's a network account or a real local account, it should just be stored in a different location: on teh server instead of on the computer.

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