How can I recover my mail boxes saved "on my macbook" pro osx 10.9 from a backup on my external hard drive? There is no folder called "mail" in my library, neither on my external hard drive, neither on my Mac, is this unique to Maverick?
I really need to find those emails stored on my mac because my hotmail has a virus and delete my email everyday (now using gmail)
Thanks
Try Mail->File->Import Mailboxes...
Yeah I did that but it asks me to select a file and that is what I can't find. where were my mailboxes backuped on the external hard drive?
If you open the external drive in Finder (in list mode), what do you see?
Backup - MacBook Pro de Catherine - Latest -Macintosh and then I can choose between Libary, users, app, system
Not sure how you did the backup, but...
Try Mail->File->Import Mailboxes... again, and navigate to your External Drive->Library/Mail and look for the account you want.
What you says is exactly what I found on most forums. but I don't know why but there is no file named Mail in Library neither on my Mac nor my external hard drive. this is really weird, I'll try to go to the genius bar
thnks for your help
Did you use Time Machine to do your backup?
If you use Time Machine then make sure that mail was not excluded from the backup. Here how:
1. From the system manu bar, click on the Apple Logo
2. Select System Perferences
3. Click on Time Machine [ Time Machine settings are display in a window]
4. Click on Options
5. In the retangle (or box) under the word "Exclude" is where the excluded files, folder and applications are located. Make sure Mail is not there.
If Mail is there, than Mail will not be in your backup.
Hope you find this was helpful.
Yes I used Time Machine.
And nothing is excluded, I just doubled check
Here is somethin else.
Bring up your system manu bar. While holding down the Option key on the keyboard, click on Go (but do not release the Option key yet)
While still holding down the Option key select the Library (the Library window will open).
Look for the mail folder and open it. Now open the V2. Do any of those folders look familiar?
I cannot instruct you from here. After you tried everything else and nothing works you might want to look at these folders and see if you mails are still in those folders.
Of course the last best thing you can do is to go to the Apple Store or call Apple support.
Hope you find this helpful.
cath4260 wrote:
Yes I used Time Machine.
Should have said that.
Try this.
Open Mail.
Enter Time Machine.
Select the Mailboxes you want to recover
I'm having exactly the same problem. The word MAIL does not show up in any of the folders in Time Machine's backup folders. And when you enter time machine, there is not way to see what is in the Mail folders.
When you enter Time Machine from the Mail App, you won't see Time Machine backup folders, you'll see the Mail interface and you can navigate back-in-time to recover Mail Mailboxes (or emails)
sorry for being ignorant -- I open mail, then I go to time machine and enter it. I don't see the Mail interface. what am I doing wrong? What I see is my finder. any chance of doing a screen shot of what you mean?
You should see something like this:
In Mail, enter Time Machine from the icon in the Menu Bar:
Recover mail boxes "on my mac" from external hard drive
