Q: Manual Mail Migration

This is tricky, but I just figured it out. I'm surprised Apple doesn't have good documentation on this. The trick lies in TWO things - migrating both your Apple Mail Items AND the Internet Account Items. Before Yosemite, your email accounts were all contained in the Apple Mail folders. However, now they have been separated so if you JUST manually migrate the Apple Mail stuff, without the Internet Accounts, then Mail will open and you'll just get your a nakedn iCloud Inbox that will start to load your most recent emails. Also, it helps to copy the Keychain folder over so you don't have to re-enter all your passwords (in Mail or other places as well).

These are the files you need to copy over from your user's Library folder:

for Internet Accounts

.../Accounts (folder)

for Mail

.../Mail (folder)

.../Mail Downloads (folder)

.../Containers/com.apple.mail (folder)

.../Preferences/com.apple.accounts.plist (file)

.../Preferences/com.apple.accountsd.plist (file)

.../Preferences/com.apple.mail-shared.plist (file)

.../Preferences/com.apple.MailMigratorService.plist (file)

.../SyncedPreferences/com.apple.mail-com.apple.mail.vipsenders.plist (file)

.../SyncedPreferences/com.apple.mail.plist (file)

for Keychain

.../Keychains (folder)

I arrived at this with a fair amount of trial and error. I had backed up my old user folder (all the folders, including the Library folder) with both Time Machine and a manual copy. I played around with these on a separate, dummy user account (so I could delete it and have my nice, pristine, clean install still there once I figured it out). Finally, let me also say - BAD on you Apple for making this so complicated. Email software is one of those things that should remain elegant, even at the architecture level. Quit complicating things.

Not sure about those files. I went with the broadest possible brush, so if you don't have them, them might not be relevant. Let me know how it goes! I really am surprised there isn't more documentation about this. Migration Assistant is a piece of garbage. New system - manual recreation is the way to go.

Probably won't work for Mavericks to Elcap. From Mavericks to Yosemite, they changed the email structure, and then from Yosemite to El Cap, they changed it again. Geez. Sorry - I don't have a Mav system to try it on.

UPDATE: If you follow my solution above, you may find that your emails all transfer but that searching is isn't working properly. This is because mail needs to re-index the imported mail folders. To do so, go to .../Library/Mail/V3/MailData/ and delete all files starting with "Envelope index". There are probably 3-5 of them. Then launch mail again and it will start reimporting all your mail all over, but this time, it will build a full index of all your messages as you do so, so the search function works properly (ie: doesn't ignore certain emails or all emails beyond a certain date). Hope this helps.

Sadly, this didn't work for me either...

I'm have a bear of a time. I recently upgraded my "old" MBP to El Capitan, and then got a "new" MBP that I decided to do a fresh install.

I haven't been able to switch to the new computer because I can't figure out how to get my email switched over.

This is really driving me crazy, and I can not believe there aren't "real" instructions somewhere on how to do this.

Do i need to copy of keychain if i am using Icloud Keychain, as this should sync up the new computer automatically i assume with the relevant passwords?

Sidetracking here a bit but all documentations seem to suggest Migration tools for things like contacts  etc . But whats wrong with using icloud sync ? 

This is great! Thank you.

This went from being so easy to - WHAT!! This should have taken 2 minutes. 3 senior Apple techs, not a clue. So it looks like you're the MAN. Very cool.

Jeffrey

Thank you ! Your ~/Library/Accounts/ tip solved my problem of being unable to restore mail.all after a clean El Capitan re-install.

I've been trying to transfer Mail from one desktop machine with El Cap to my MBook Air also running El Cap.  Total nighmare.

Done as suggested above manually moving the files across including the ~/library/accounts folder.  The only accounts that appear in Mail are those that were there prior to the move even though I've overwritten all the previous information.  Or at least I thought I had.  I think the mailboxes are there but Mail is not recognising them. 

I've even tried setting up 'new' mailboxes but for some reason the mail server doesn't recognise the password even though it is correct since it's the same one I use on the Desktop.

Has anyone any other ideas as this is really driving me crazy.  Other posters are right - it really shouldn't be this difficult.

Given that so many people appear to be having difficulty migrating Mail from one machine to another, I would have thought that an Applescript/Automator Guru could knock up a small app to make the process as simple as possible.

It might mean that you have to re-input your passwords for each account but it would at least simplify the process.

Hi,

I don't suppose you have any advice for someone moving mail from Mountain Lion to a brand new MacBook Air running El Capitan? I haven't been able to access my Time Machine backups from the new computer so far, and it sounds like importing from those might not work anyway. Setting up my accounts and rules from scratch on the new machine wouldn't be a problem, just a hassle. But I have a lot of mailboxes on the Mountain Lion Macbook that I'd like to transfer over to the new El Capitan machine if possible, and I'm not sure how to proceed. Sorry to bug you, and I wish Apple had some official help available for this.