Another import Mail problem (Panther to Tiger)

Question

OK, I have 15 email accounts in my Mail, that worked fine, albeit slowly, in Panther (10.3.9).
I just imported everything to a new macbook (10.4.8), and now some of the email accounts are not functioning properly. I get the misleading error message: The message from XXX <[email protected]> concerning “RE: YYY” has not been downloaded from the server. You need to take this account online in order to download it."
I have not taken the new macbook's mail account online.
I have read through dozens of posts here over the past few days, and am disappointed Apple hasn't fixed the import problem from over a year ago.
Anyway, I got both the "old" Panther Mail working, and new Macbook Tiger Mail not working, so willing to "experiement" if anyone wants me to. I have seen various theories on what works and what doesn't. Some of my mailboxes are large, so I suspect that's part of the problem. In addition they were previously imported from Jaguar, and probably from original OSX 10.1, so probably contain some of the vestigial files. I suspect I need to do the fixes/cleanup in 10.3.9, then re-import them...
I also don't rebuild mailboxes because once I did it I lost all my mail (or appeared to), but I was able to recover from backup. I suspect the mbox file was probably still there, so mail was recoverable, but that experience was not one that instilled confidence in me. I'm willing do rebuild this time...
Some info on the 15 accounts I tried to transfer:
1. dan@dc OK, 5271 messages, 152 MB
2. info@pics OK, 54 messages, 315 kB
3. trav IMAP, empty, (probably due to not going online after xfer)
4. web@al OK 3 messages, 2.9 kB
5. web@kais OK, 147 messages, 802 kB
6. class * BAD * 238 messages, 854 kB (160 msg xferred)
7. web@khs OK, 1248 messages, 27.8 MB
8. dan@aa * BAD * 10419 messages, 607 MB (638 msg xferred,)
9. cabin OK, 10245 messages, 39.6 MB
10. news OK, 2712 messages, 4.2 MB
11. web@aa OK, 97 messages, 1011 kB
12. dan1 OK, 2945 messages, 11.7 MB
13. info@dc * BAD * 2023 messages, 50.6 MB (22 msg xferred)
14. dc@dc OK, 895 messages, 14.4 MB
15. info@aa OK, 2484 messages, 39.7 MB
The accounts I use most often are 1, 8, 13, 14, 15.
Frankly, I'm surprised account 6 went bad, due to small size, and last saved received email over a year old. No recent mail received.
All SENT Mailboxes appear to be fine.
I have several archive mailboxes, and they all seem fine, too.
I will do (in Tiger) the standard POP procedure posted multiple times by David Gimeno, unless someone thinks I should be doing the cleanup in Panther first...then re-import, or wants me to be a Guinea Pig and run some "tests"
Another minor thing: Mail in Panther shows how large the file is and the number of messages (below toolbar), while Tiger only shows number of messages (and unread). Any easy way to enable showing how large the mailbox is? I think it should be displayed, especially if Mail chokes on large files.
Also, is there a better, easier to use, less clunky Mail alternative that can handle multiple accounts? Entourage? Eudora? T-bird?
Aloha,
Dan

Answer 1

The real issue here is that the conversion from Mail 1.x to Mail 2.x is broken and it may fail miserably even for mailboxes that Mail 1.x could handle without a hitch. Hence, trying to “fix” any problems you might have in Mail 1.x by upgrading to Mac OS X 10.4 is guaranteed to fail and can only make things worse.
At this point, whether you go back to Mac OS X 10.3 and tidy up your mailboxes there (if that’s still an option), or want to try to fix the problem in place using the procedure I’ll post below again for reference, is up to you. Do what you find easier or more convenient. Whatever you do, be sure you keep a backup of the original ~/Library/Mail folder, so that you can try something else if things don’t work as expected.
And yes, in their infinite wisdom, the powers that be at Apple also decided to remove the status bar from Mail 2.x, and there is currently no way to know the size of a locally stored mailbox in Mail 2.x other than by switching to the Finder and checking the size of the Messages folder within the corresponding *.mbox folder in ~/Library/Mail/.
Before proceeding any further, however, you should verify/repair the disk (not just permissions), as described in the following article, in case there is something amiss in the filesystem that also has a bearing on the problems you’ve experienced:
The Repair functions of Disk Utility: what's it all about?
For a POP account, the following procedure should allow you to fix the Inbox problem. A similar procedure should allow you to fix other mailboxes that might also be affected:
1. Quit Mail if it’s running.
2. Make a backup copy of the ~/Library/Mail folder, just in case something goes wrong while trying to fix the problem. You can do this in the Finder by dragging the folder to the Desktop while holding the Option (Alt) key down, for example. This is where all your mail is stored.
3. Create a new folder on the Desktop and name it however you wish (e.g. Inbox Old). It doesn’t need to have an .mbox extension.
4. In the Finder, go to ~/Library/Mail/POP-username@mailserver/INBOX.mbox/.
5. Move the files mbox and Incoming_Mail out of INBOX.mbox, into the Inbox Old folder just created on the Desktop. These files contain all the messages that were in the mailbox before the upgrade to Tiger, and maybe even some messages that had been deleted. mbox is the most important. Incoming_Mail may or may not be present.
6. Move any strangely-named Messages-T0x... folders to the Desktop (not into the Inbox Old folder). These folders are to be deleted after fixing the problem. They are temporary folders created during an import or an indexing process, and Mail should have deleted them when done. Their presence is a clear indication that something didn’t work as expected. If you’ve been using Mail after the conversion and have already tried to fix the problem by rebuilding the mailbox or something like that, they might contain messages that are neither in Messages proper nor in the mbox file, so keep them around until the problem is fixed.
7. Move everything else within INBOX.mbox, except the Messages folder, to the Trash.
The result of the above should be that INBOX.mbox contains the proper Messages folder only, and the Inbox Old folder on the Desktop contains the mbox and Incoming_Mail (if it exists) files only. Now, proceed as follows:
8. Open Mail.
9. The account’s Inbox should properly display in Mail as many messages as *.emlx files are in ~/Library/Mail/POP-username@mailserver/INBOX.mbox/Messages/. If that’s not the case, select the mailbox in Mail and do Mailbox > Rebuild.
10. In Mail, do File > Import Mailboxes, choose Other as the data format, and follow the instructions to import the Inbox Old folder that’s on the Desktop.
As a result of doing the above, some messages may be duplicated now. Andreas Amann’s Mail Scripts has a Remove Duplicates script that you may find useful.
Do with the imported mail whatever you wish. You may move the messages anywhere you want and get rid of the imported mailboxes afterwards.
If all is well and you don’t miss anything, the files on the Desktop can be deleted, although you may want to keep them for a while, just in case.
Take a look at the following article to learn what you might have done before upgrading to minimize the risk of this happening, and what you may do after fixing the problem to avoid similar issues from happening in the future. DON’T do now what the article suggests, though, as that would make things worse in the current situation:
Overstuffed mailbox is unexpectedly empty
Ask for any clarifications or if you need further assistance.
Note: For those not familiarized with the ~/ notation, it refers to the user’s home folder. That is, ~/Library is the Library folder within the user’s home folder, i.e. /Users/username/Library.