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

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

Nov 20, 2017 7:34 PM in response to bambule

Thank you very much. Last question, I have on an old macbook (10.6 version) some are mail important to me. Can I copy the folder to my new iMac in the same way?

Luis

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Manual Mail Migration