I'm using an iMac with High Sierra and Time Machine. I want to delete old emails backed up with Time Machine but there is no menu item to do that (the icons for menu items are greyed out). Is there a way to delete specific email folders that were backed up with Time Machine?
IMAC (RETINA 5K, 27-INCH, LATE 2015), macOS High Sierra (10.13.3)
Do you want to delete all of your email messages from Time Machine? If so go to your User/Home/Library/Mail folder and select the folder named V5. Enter time machine and Control (right) - click on the V5 folder and select Delete All Backups of "V5". Then click the OK button. You can then cancel out of Time Machine and it will continue with the deletion of all backups of the V5 folder.
You also may have a V2 folder which was used before a certain system upgrade. You can delete it also if so inclined.
Do you want to delete all of your email messages from Time Machine? If so go to your User/Home/Library/Mail folder and select the folder named V5. Enter time machine and Control (right) - click on the V5 folder and select Delete All Backups of "V5". Then click the OK button. You can then cancel out of Time Machine and it will continue with the deletion of all backups of the V5 folder.
You also may have a V2 folder which was used before a certain system upgrade. You can delete it also if so inclined.
Thanks so much Old Toad.
I don't want to delete all my backed up emails, just certain folders of emails. Based on your lead, it looks like I could click on V5, then the folder with the name and file name .mbx I want to delete and go through the process you suggested to delete al backups of " ". Am I correct?
I don't know. I've not tried it and don't know what the relationship is between the Mail setup and individual email files in the V5 folder.
How to delete emails using Time Machine
