Can't Transfer email from one computer to another

Question

I am trying to transfer email accounts from a 17" Power PC iMac to a 20" Intel iMac. The two computers are connected with a firewire cable. I have archived the mailboxes into the public folder on the 17" iMac and am able to see the 17" public folder from the 20" iMac but they (the mbox files) have a little red minus that looks like a stop sign on top of them. Each one has nothing in it whereas the archived mbox files o the old computer are large files. I gone crazy trying to change all the permissions and I should be able to access everything but can't. Can anyone help me figure this out?
Carol

Answer 1

I think you are going about this all wrong. If you simply want to copy the Mail files from one computer to the other then copy the /Home/Library/Mail/ folder's content from the PPC computer to the /Home/Library/Mail/ folder on the Intel computer. Then locate the /Home/Library/Preferences/com.apple.mail.plist file on the PPC computer and copy it to the same location on the Intel computer.
Do not change any permissions, do not archive anything. After you have copied everything you can launch Mail on the Intel computer. It should then have all your mailboxes as well as your email account information.
If you are trying to move all your essential data from the PPC computer to the Intel one, then you may wish to review the following:
Folders You Can Move to Your new Mac
From the Home folder copy the contents of Documents, Movies, Music, Pictures, and Sites.
In your /Home/Library/ folder:
/Home/Library/Application Support/AddressBook (copy the whole folder)
/Home/Library/Application Support/iCal (copy the whole folder)
Also in /Home/Library/Application Support (copy whatever else you need including folders for any third-party applications)
/Home/Library/Keychains (copy the whole folder)
/Home/Library/Mail (copy the whole folder)
/Home/Library/Preferences/ (copy the whole folder)
/Home /Library/iTunes (copy the whole folder)
/Home /Library/Safari (copy the whole folder)
/Home /Library/Calendars (copy the whole folder)
If you want cookies:
/Home/Library/Cookies/Cookies.plist
/Home/Library/Application Support/WebFoundation/HTTPCookies.plist
For Entourage users:
Entourage is in /Home/Documents/Microsoft User Data
Also in /Home/Library/Preferences/Microsoft
For FireFox:
/Home/Library/Applications Support/FireFox
/Home/Library/Preferences/org.mozilla.firefox.plist
Credit goes Macjack for this information.