HT201250 Will restoring a mailbox with time machine delete new mail?

Question

I recently changed internet service provider and chaned the settings in mail to send/recieve with new provider.  I removed the old account (pop & SMTP) and the items I had saved in my old mailbox disappeared.
I need to recover some items in that mailbox. I was going to use time machine to recover these files and wanted to know if doing this will delete current mailbox (information/settings).
Some additional advice would be really appreciated on how to avoid losing information in the future.
Can anyone help????

Answer 1

Quit Mail.
Go to the FInder, select Go, then GO to Folder. Paste this:
~/Library/Mail/V2/
A finder window will open in your Home Library to the Mail folder.
With that window active, enter TM. Navigate back in time and find the account folder you deleted. Highlight it and click to restore.
Once done, open Mail. The account you deleted should be there with the messages. Create a local folder and move those messages to it. Then, you can once again delete that account from mail.
Messages in a POP accounts are stored on the computer within that account. Creating local mailboxes and moving messages to them will move the messages out of the account. Since local mailboxes are not affected by specific accounts, they won't get deleted when you do delete an account.