How to recover mail and mail accounts from TimeMachine MANUALLY OS X Sierra

Question

How to recover mail and mail accounts from TimeMachine MANUALLY OS X Sierra

OK I just went and reformatted my late 2009 iMac due to some really bad locking up and rebooting issues. I updated from Yosemite to Sierra and apparently some - a lot, of files were corrupted causing this issue. Plus it seems to be running hot so I installed the fan control app and other things, but it's still running hot.

Anyway, I do NOT want to pull in everything from my last time machine backup because I'm trying to figure out if this old machine needs to be rolled back to Yosemite because it just can't handle Sierra or if it was just a "dirty" install of Sierra.

In the meantime I need a few things but for some reason this blasted thing is not cooperating. My mail - I have like 10 email accounts and I really would like to bring them in but it's just not happening with TM. It's giving me an error saying it's needed by Mac OS when I uses the "recover" button.

So then I tried the migration assistant and I had to stop that because it would not let me pick and choose which applications I want to bring over. I only want the mail for now.

So I looked online and found a few things and I tried to drag the saved folders that have anything to do with mail from my external drive to the new set up to no avail. I'm SURE I'm missing a step or folder or what have you.

Anyone have a guide how to bring my mail back in without having to manually set each account up again? When I hit send here, I'm going to reboot the computer and hope that brings the mail in. I don't know how to do it otherwise other than the steps I took above.

all help / suggestions are appreciated!

iMac (27-inch Late 2009), Mac OS X (10.6.8)

Posted on Feb 22, 2017 12:52 PM

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Answer 1

Feb 22, 2017 4:53 PM in response to Drew Reece

OK you're absolutely not understanding me. I probably should have been more clear so lemme try again.

I do NOT want to migrate everything right now. It's imperative to only use the basics to troubleshoot my issues.

I only want mail and iTunes for now since those things I cannot recover from the cloud right now.

I want iTunes so I can sync my phone and ALL my music and stuff is gone from there unless I migrate everything.

You see, when I updated to Sierra, the computer was fine for a couple months but I noticed it was lagging some. Then about 3 weeks ago it started getting really bad and last week was impossible to work with because it kept locking up and rebooting itself. Crash reports showed all kinds of issues when it came back. I made a thread about it here:

iMac randomly locking up and rebooting

So after two days working with those guys on this issue, and two days of not crashing now the fan control is in my tech finally shows up and I tell him it looks like we're doing OK and she crashes on me again. So I decided that since I have everything backed up with TM and I made a redundant manual backup of my home folder and it's contents, the applications folder and other things I can think of, I wiped the drive and reformatted.

What I want to do is let this thing work with the minimal compliment of things to see if this is just a problem with this old machine using Sierra or not. I want to do it this way through the weekend and monitor it. IF all goes well and it doesn't crash, I want to bring in everything that was saved and let it work a couple days and see if it crashes again or not.

If it crashes BEFORE I migrate my saved stuff, I will assume that this machine is too old for Sierra and I'll roll back to Yosemite. case closed.

Now if I stick with Sierra and migrate my stuff in and it crashes, I will have to get more creative in how I save important info and manually bring things back in one item at a time (lol like having to deal with a windows computer).

Obviously one cannot do all this at the same time.
I was just hoping I can recover the info in iTunes and my mail until the above happens (which will take a week at least).

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Answer 2

Drew Reece

Level 6

10,684 points

Feb 23, 2017 4:36 AM in response to Twitchin Kitten

You have multiple problems…

Terminal is not required to show hidden files, it should just be a setting to see your user Library…

http://www.macworld.com/article/2057221/how-to-view-the-library-folder-in-maveri cks.html

You can't just search for files called mail & copy them, Spotlight will hide certain locations from searches. I believe that includes your user Library. Some files are irrelevant to copy (like caches), you really need to explain what you are copying of you expect us to help here. As I initially explained, the fastest way to setup mail is to enter the account details, it is normally stored on the email server these days.

The symptoms point towards issues larger than just the software, it could easily be failing hardware. I recommend you take it to an Apple Store for diagnosis. You can consider hardware tests but they do not fix anything, just indicate what may be the issue via cryptic messages.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201257

I'd also recommend you avoid leaving it on overnight, it seems to be crashing and the power manager is running the fans on full as a fail safe measure.

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Answer 3

Drew Reece

Level 6

10,684 points

Feb 22, 2017 1:03 PM in response to Twitchin Kitten

Mail.app is the system application - that does not contain your email it only allows you to view it. You don;t want to restore that as the installed one is 'known good'.

Many email services use IMAP - that means the email is generally kept on the server. In that case the best solution is to recreate the account & allow your Mac to synchronise with that server. If you are unsure check your email provider, they may have webmail (e.g. iCloud.com for iCloud accounts). Login & check if the mail looks complete, if so setup the account in the Mail app.

Otherwise you can consider migrating the supporting files within your user account, they will be inside the hidden user Library. I'd suggest you wait for specific instructions on that as I do not have a 10.12 mail account to restore from Time machine as a test - there are multiple folders to restore mail completely.

An easier option may be to use Migration Assistant - that can import just your user data, leaving the applications & other data on alone.

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Answer 4

Feb 22, 2017 1:13 PM in response to Drew Reece

Then TM is pretty much useless to me. It won't even recover iTunes for the same reasons. Great. All my stuff is gone.

I also brought in files manually to corresponding locations and nothing happened. I may have to do this all over again and bring all my stuff in from the TM backup in full and THEN get more picky on how things are saved so I can reformat AGAIN and see what happens.

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Answer 5

Drew Reece

Level 6

10,684 points

Feb 22, 2017 1:37 PM in response to Twitchin Kitten

Twitchin Kitten wrote:

Then TM is pretty much useless to me. It won't even recover iTunes for the same reasons. Great. All my stuff is gone.

Sorry I disagree.

If your Time Machine backup was working correctly then all your data still exists - you just need to restore it correctly to use it.

The easiest option is to use Migration Assistant as I described - that is how Apple intend you to use it. It takes a few clicks, some time to copy & then your user account should be restored.

You may not be understanding that your user data is separate to the applications - Applications & their supporting data can cause system wide issues, user data is less likely to cause problems. Migration Assistant has options to restore each part - Applications (with supporting files), user data, or 'other data' (generally other files on disk).

The second option is to manually restore the files you need, so for iTunes that would be the ~/Music/iTunes folder, it's preferences (inside ~/Library/Preferences), and the mobile backups (assuming you use iOS devices). Mail has preferences and folders for the mail data. Obviously you need to know exactly what files you need & you also need to know how to restore them (normally quitting the application is enough to allow you to replace them).

To be able to test your issue (I am assuming that is your overall aim is to check the OS can handle your data) I would restore all you user data to a new user account. Login as that user & allow it time to sync new data & index. If the account works you know the Mac is OK with the contents of your home folder. If the Mac is not OK, login as another user & compare. That way you have isolated the potential issue. You have already isolated the applications as they have not been reinstalled.

I'd like to help but you appear to be assuming the worst & trying to do several things at once - troubleshooting your OS, restoring data, possibly reverting to Yosemite. It makes it difficult to suggest appropriate action.

Think about what you want to focus on, otherwise I'd suggest a trip to an Apple store, they may help you find the data you want to restore, manually restoring selective data from any backup is an involved process.

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Answer 6

Drew Reece

Level 6

10,684 points

Feb 22, 2017 6:55 PM in response to Twitchin Kitten

Twitchin Kitten wrote:

Obviously one cannot do all this at the same time.

Actually you can.

A user account is 'self contained' once you logout it is very unlikely that the account will alter anything on the Mac - it is not running apps etc. The data on disk is practically harmless (assuming you have no malware that has spread to the system).

The simplest answer is to migrate the entire user data to a new account that is a perfectly valid way to manage the problem you are trying to solve. You can still use another account if you suspect the migrated one is causing the issue. Using a new user account is a simple & quick test often suggested here.

If you still insist on migrating by hand it would help if you indicated what files you already tried to move back.

To restore in Time Machine you must use the 'Browse Time Machine' item from its menu, navigate to the desired location & restore the files/ folders back to the same place. Quit any apps that you are restoring or it can fail.

iTunes has data in your Music folder, depending on your preferences it is probably ~/Music/iTunes

The preferences will be inside ~/Library/Preferences/ (restore the multiple com.apple.itunes… files). Also restore ~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/ if you want any iOS backups within iTunes.

~/Library is hidden by default, so open that via Finder > Go > Go to folder…, enter ~/Library as the location.

You will need to re-sign to the store to reauthorise your apps & purchased files as that is not restored via this method.

Open iTunes to see if it worked when copying completes.

I don't have info on Mail, so you can look at guides…

https://www.lifewire.com/transfer-apple-mail-to-new-mac-2260915

I think the data location is ~/Library/Mail/

You probably need to take Contacts into consideration too.

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Answer 7

Feb 23, 2017 4:04 AM in response to Drew Reece

Drew Reece wrote:

Twitchin Kitten wrote:

Obviously one cannot do all this at the same time.

Actually you can.

A user account is 'self contained' once you logout it is very unlikely that the account will alter anything on the Mac - it is not running apps etc. The data on disk is practically harmless (assuming you have no malware that has spread to the system).

The simplest answer is to migrate the entire user data to a new account that is a perfectly valid way to manage the problem you are trying to solve. You can still use another account if you suspect the migrated one is causing the issue. Using a new user account is a simple & quick test often suggested here.

If you still insist on migrating by hand it would help if you indicated what files you already tried to move back.

To restore in Time Machine you must use the 'Browse Time Machine' item from its menu, navigate to the desired location & restore the files/ folders back to the same place. Quit any apps that you are restoring or it can fail.

iTunes has data in your Music folder, depending on your preferences it is probably ~/Music/iTunes

The preferences will be inside ~/Library/Preferences/ (restore the multiple com.apple.itunes… files). Also restore ~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/ if you want any iOS backups within iTunes.

~/Library is hidden by default, so open that via Finder > Go > Go to folder…, enter ~/Library as the location.

You will need to re-sign to the store to reauthorise your apps & purchased files as that is not restored via this method.

Open iTunes to see if it worked when copying completes.

I don't have info on Mail, so you can look at guides…

https://www.lifewire.com/transfer-apple-mail-to-new-mac-2260915

I think the data location is ~/Library/Mail/

You probably need to take Contacts into consideration too.

OK now this makes sense. Thanks.

I was able to open Terminal and run a command to show the hidden files and folders. So Library is easily accessible.

I ran a search for "mail" and copied everything I could find on my backup to the corresponding folders but that did nothing. I'll figure something out on that later. I'm sure it's the user data like you said, but I had done this in the past and IF I remember correctly, it was way easier and just a matter of copying the files over. I may have simply missed something.

My biggest concern right now is this thing is still not running smoothly. She's old. I would like to get another year out of her before forcing myself to buy a new one.

When I woke up this morning, the screen was dark but the fans were going full tilt. It was cold to the touch I'm sure thanks to the fans, but if this was sleeping as it should have been overnight, those fans wouldn't have cause to run. What used to be a nice, quiet machine is now so very loud! Rolling back to Yosemite may be the answer. I'll know in a couple days. I'd do what you suggest in the above, but my time this week has me occupied more out of the house and off the computer than on so I should be OK with the couple of main mail accounts on my phone. I'm backing up the phone to the cloud for now for safekeeping too.

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Answer 8

Feb 23, 2017 6:50 AM in response to Drew Reece

I may have to bring it in. I cannot get the diagnostics thing to work according to the link you provided. Apparently its' not built in anymore according to this that I found:

https://github.com/upekkha/AppleHardwareTest

So I find my model and all that good stuff, and of course my iMac isn't on the 'regular' list but on the very bottom in the "bundle". I download the bundle and follow instructions and there we go.... incompatible.

Mine is iMac11,1 / Mac-F2268DAE

So when I have time to for a couple hour drive to an Apple Store I'll have to bring this in.

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