how do i retrieve emails from a portable hard drive back onto my iMac?
How do I retrieve emails from a portable hard drive and put them back on to my iMac computer after they were deleted?
How did you put them on the portable hard drive?
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6 replies
I plugged the portable hard drive into my computer and Time Machine automatically did the back up. Was I supposed to do more?
I guess I'm just assuming that the emails are ON the portable hard drive. I've never had a reason to check 😟
Do you want to retrieve all of the emails in Time Machine and replace what you currently have in Mail? If so go to your User/Home/LIbrary folder and select Mail. Enter Time Machine and go back in time to the date you want to restore. Select the Mail folder and restore.
To be on the safe side I'd select the option to keep both of the Mail folders until you're sure you have what you want.
Hello Old Toad,
Thank you very much for your help!! I am not too tech savvy, so I have a silly question. Where is the User/Home/Library folder you referred to? Also, I usually just plug the portable hard drive in and leave it alone. It backs up data automatically. When I plug it in now, to retrieve the emails, it's going to automatically start a new back up. Won't that lose the emails I'm trying to recover?
Thanks again, I'm so grateful for your assistance!
NOTE: In Lion, Mountain Lion, Mavericks and Yosemite the Home/Library folder is invisible. To make it permanently visible enter the following in the Terminal application window: chflags nohidden ~/Library and press the Return key - 10.7: Un-hide the User Library folder.
For Mavericks and Yosemite you can go to your Home folder and use the View ➙ Show View Options menu to bring up this window:
how do i retrieve emails from a portable hard drive back onto my iMac?