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mail, getting it back

Hello all,


My wife owns a 13" Macbook Pro (13-inch, early 2011), original operating system Snow Leopard 10.6.8.

She recently converted to El Capitan 10.11.2, did not like the sluggish performance at all and wanted to go back to Snow Leopard.


Before I reinstalled Snow Leopard I bought a Lacie HD and backed everything up (time machine) from El Capitan. Unfortunately I do not have a backup from the original Snow Leopard.


I have been unable to get her calendar back and her (8000+) emails. The calendar is not all that important, the emails are.


All her emails (*.emlx) are still on the HD, I can see and access them all (in finder). However, I cannot get them back in her current mailboxes. Tried tricking, dragging, copying, pasting, renaming boxes and reinstalling, rebuilding, import mailboxes, migration assistant, new boxes, downloaded emlx to mbox converter, nothing worked. Talked for over two hours with two Apple persons yesterday (one a mail expert from Chicago), they had suggestions, took control of the MacBook (remote advisor) but did not achieve anything either.


Does anybody know how to get mail back from El Capitan into Snow Leopard mail boxes? I guess this is a fairly new brain-teaser. Help would be greatly appreciated!!


ps I am new to this, my apologies if my posting is in the wrong community

MacBook Pro

Posted on Apr 7, 2016 11:02 AM

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Apr 7, 2016 12:05 PM in response to Pablo2Pablo2

Restoring messages from Time Machine is usually done from an active Mail application and clicking on TM icon in the dock. The mail window will stay active and you can view messages from the time frame selected and you restore from there. However, SL will have to access the TM backup you made in El Capitan.


Have you tried copying the mailboxes back to SL from El Capitan? I don't remember the folder structure of SL, but El Capitan uses the V3 folder. I assume you are storing messages in local accounts. Mailboxes would be with a POP account for main mailboxes and in the Mailboxes folder for other local folders created. If you were using IMAP mailboxes, you should be able to recover messages from the server.


If you can't access through the above method, try navigation the TM backup and go to the mailbox folder to restore. Select the messages (.emlx) within the mailbox and copy them to a desktop folder. Then try Importing Apple Mail and select the files within the desktop folder. If it works, they should be put in a new folder called Import in the sidebar. They will be individual messages and you should be able to drag them where you want to save them.

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Apr 7, 2016 5:52 PM in response to Glenn Leblanc

Hi Glenn, thanks for your response.


If I am in my mail application and open TM I can see the date of my backup from El Capital: Sunday April 3, 2013. Oddly enough the TM inbox window does not show the thousands of lost mail messages, just the recent emails in SL; about 50.


Copying to and fro does not work.

My server deletes messages after one month


I have already experimented with individual files.

Via Spotlight I can drag old messages from the Lacie onto my desktop, open them up with mail and forward them to myself, one at the time. Tedious and time consuming, aargh!


Much obliged,

PWM

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Apr 7, 2016 6:29 PM in response to Glenn Leblanc

Supplementary:

Hi Glenn, I discovered a slightly more expedient way. If I drag an old message from the Lacie HD onto my desktop, open it up with mail I have an option under “Message” to “Move To” or “Copy To” a certain mailbox. This works. Slightly faster than forwarding it to myself and it preserves the original “from” heading.

PWM

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Apr 7, 2016 8:22 PM in response to Pablo2Pablo2

The point is, if you can drag them to the desktop and open them in Mail, you should be able to Import them in the Mail application from the desktop. You can select all the messages at once from the desktop folder and import them into Mail.


Actually, I've just test and was able to use the Import function within Mail. I chose to Import Apple Mail (first in the list) and was able to just navigate to the TM disk and select and import each mailbox I wanted.

This should work for your also. I do understand you are going backwards in OS, so I can't test that myself. But it does work for importing old TM backup files into El Capitan and I don't see any reason why it won't work in your case.

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Apr 10, 2016 7:40 PM in response to Glenn Leblanc

Hello again Glenn. My mail (S.L.) is Version 4.6 (1085).


If I am in mail I can copy and past from any current mailbox into another but I cannot copy and paste an emlx file from the desktop into any folder. The option to copy and paste is there but when I paste nothing materializes in the selected mailbox, not even after rebuilding.


I do not see an option to import individual messages into Mail but I can import mailboxes, something I have tried a week ago. I can drag a mailbox from my Lacie onto my desktop, select “import data from Apple Mail”, pick the mailbox (Alison), view the message ”you can find the imported mailboxes” etc.

The new import mailbox contains “Alison” but alas it is empty. If this was a PC issue I would have resolved it a l-o-n-g time ago.


I am thinking that perhaps something went wrong when I re-installed S.L, maybe I should start all over again with formatting and partitioning.


Thanks for your help!



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Apr 11, 2016 6:13 AM in response to Pablo2Pablo2

You example above should have worked, but I see it didn't. I've had mixed results myself doing this, but it does work for me.

I just did another test be choosing Import Apple Mail and navigating directly to the TM backup drive to the folder Mailboxes (where all local mailboxes are stored). I highlighted the the V2 folder (from my oldest backup) and hit Continue to import everything at once. All local mailboxes as well as each account mailboxes were imported at one time to the sidebar under Import. So you shouldn't even have to do a single mailbox at one time.


If this doesn't work for you, I can't explain why. Maybe it's because you are going backwards from El Capitan to Snow Leopard, but I still think that should work. You should not have to do individual files like you are doing.


Try restarting the computer and test again directly importing the mailbox from Time Machine. Do not look for individual files. The import function should look for all valid mailboxes within the folder (including subfolders within that) and import them. Just choose the V3 folder (this is where El Capitan would have it, it will import everything in Mail for that backup including mailboxes for your accounts as well as local mailboxes you created.

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Apr 14, 2016 11:11 AM in response to Glenn Leblanc

Hello Glenn,

User uploaded fileUser uploaded fileThanks again for all your suggestions. Tried them all plus some tricks from books I borrowed from our local library; no avail.

Limited success when I ran the mac book in safe mode. It actually allowed me to import a file in mbox format, started to import 20,910 items but ended up with only 40 messages.

Much obliged for your time and all the assistance you have given me, you are a peach of a guy. Closing our conversation now, going on holidays.

Regards!

Paul W M

April 14, 2016

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mail, getting it back

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