Manual Mail Migration

Hi,

Does anyone know how to manually migrate email from another computer via target mode or external clone to a new mac running El Capitan - WITHOUT using Apple's migration assistant?

I've done this for years for clients and can't figure it out in El Capitan. I used to move these files/folders:

User - Library - Mail Folder

User - Library - Containers - com.apple.mail - data - Library - Mail Downloads

User - Library - Containers - com.apple.mail - data - Library - Preferences - com.apple.mail.plist

This always worked moving to Mavericks or Yosemite Macs... but not El Capitan.

Any thoughts on what to move?

When I did this for a client - it said migrating mail when launched... but then only showed the iCloud account - even though I moved 13GB of various IMAP and POP3 accounts, local folders, etc. Also - none of the actual email accounts appeared in mail preferences - just iCloud.

Thanks!

Sam

iMac (27-inch, Late 2012), OS X Yosemite (10.10.1)

Posted on Oct 29, 2015 9:42 PM

48 replies

Dec 8, 2016 12:09 AM in response to apple_mikey

Awesome! Your solution worked!

Had I client with 4GB mail across 5 pop accounts, 4 were domain email providers with odd settings. This guy had a very corrupted system generally, Library folders filled with remnants of old apps.

I used carbon copy cloner selecting only those folders to an external drive. From 10.11.6.

Wiped and fresh installed Sierra, created temp account then dragged his user folder back (only containing those items) created a new user account of the same name and password, logged in, all accounts working and getting new mail. Brilliant.

So it works from 10.11.6 to 10.12.1 in my testing.

Diponti

Level 1

10 points

Dec 8, 2016 5:34 AM in response to NYC2LA

You'll get lots of files within lots of files and you'll have to recreate accounts an manually move mails to them. No thank you.

I's possible to migrate from Mac to Mac. All answers were given.

Problems occur if you forget .../Accounts (folder) and if permissions are wrong.

Easiest way to get permissions right is by creating a user account with exactly the same user/account name

Jul 10, 2017 3:52 PM in response to kenyatta4

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Manual Mail Migration