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Importing old Apple.Mail data

Due to various and persisting problems, I had to reinstall 10.8.2.


Before this step, I created an image of the old system volume on another external disc.


The clean install worked just fine.


No I try to import old messages / folders from the old Apple.Mail. As last time, this step doesn't work as expected...


I get folders named A368644-7d6ds7s88 and so on. Not even a bit the old folder structure.


Could someone provide hints how to do this the right way?

Posted on Mar 9, 2013 2:45 PM

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16 replies

Mar 9, 2013 3:30 PM in response to seaside

This is what I did:


- Shut down iMac with internal system disc A.

- Started 10.8.2 recovery system

- Copied iMac's system disc A to an external disc B as an image using Disc Util

- Erased system disc A as HFS / journaled

- Run a clean install on A


Now, I need to restore the state of Apple.Mail from the image on B to the new Apple.Mail an A.


Mar 9, 2013 6:18 PM in response to WZZZ

;-)


Yes, I tried rebuilding the mailboxes using menu command.


Furthermore, I forced a rebuild by deleting the Envelopes file in the MailData folder in the Library.


Some years ago, I had the exact same problem. Can't remember what I did. Probably fixed all folders by manually...


I'm even willing to write an application to rearrange the structure of folders. Unfortunately, I don't know much regarding Apple.Mail's internal file system structure.

Mar 10, 2013 2:47 PM in response to WZZZ

Due to other reasons, I tried to not use migration assistant to import a user of the old system.


Do return to normal-operation mode, I ran migration assistant. While Apple.Mail's import feature failed, migration assistant managed to setup the old user with a fully identical mail configuration.


While I still would be happt to learn how to fix the above mentioned Apple.Mail problem, I'm going to use the imported user.


PS: Since I created on the new system a case-sensitive HFS+ system volume, certain apps failed to install. Using iPartition, I was able to convert vom case-sensitive to non-case-senstive in 15 minutes.


May this conversion be somehow harmful? While the system works right now, may it render problems sometime later?


iPartition was even able to create a bootable recovery system on a thumb drive with iPartition included in the list of applications. Nice!


PS: One reason, why I tried to not use migration assistant: It created a new ACL Group for an application - which isn't any longer present on the new system.

Mar 10, 2013 3:25 PM in response to seaside

My attention was just now directed at this thread, and not fully caught up. But I know from 10.7 forward, there is some kind of problem with simply copying a Mail Folder to another user on the same computer, or from another Mac. When I mentioned this at the Apple store when I bought my rMBP, they seemed to know about it, and recommended that I connect to my existing Mac via Target Disk Mode, and move the Mail assets, rather than copying via the Finder to other disc drives (that worked, btw). This probably explains the success with Migration Assistant.


I will have to review some things I wrote back then, but there is some permissioning, or something complicating a simply copy transfer in the latest OSX/Mail.


I will review what you encountered, and see if I have any specific suggestions.


Ernie

Importing old Apple.Mail data

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