Imported mailboxes empty

I have tried to import my mailboxes from one computer (all macs running mail) to another, but for one account this was completely unsuccessful. The folders all appear, but are all empty. Is it because I am trying to import mail from 2.0 to 1.3? In another account, all mailboxes were successfully imported except the inbox. In this case, I was restoring after replacing the hard drive, so I was importing into the same version of Mail.

There is no straightforward way to transfer your mail from Mail 2.x to Mail 1.x. The mailbox format used by Mail changed drastically in Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger). Mail 2.x knows about the old format and can import or convert in place mailboxes created by Mail 1.x, but Mail 1.x obviously knows nothing about the new format used by Mail 2.x.
Although .mbox packages appear to be files in Mac OS X 10.3, they’re actually folders just like in Mac OS X 10.4. If you’re currently running Mac OS X 10.3, ctrl-click on an .mbox package and choose Show Package Contents from the contextual menu to see the files it contains.
For each mailbox, Mail 1.x stores all the messages in a single file in standard mbox format (the mbox file within the .mbox folder/package), whereas Mail 2.x stores messages in individual .emlx files within a Messages folder that Mail 1.x knows nothing about.
The only way to transfer Mail 2.x mailboxes to Mail 1.x is by first exporting or converting them to a (standard mbox) format that Mail 1.x understands, then importing them in Mail 1.x.
Selected messages can be exported to standard mbox format by doing File > Save As in Mail and choosing Raw Message Source from the Format popup menu. Standard mbox files can be imported into most mail clients. In particular, they can be imported back into Mail doing File > Import Mailboxes and choosing Other / Standard mbox as the data format.
Andreas Amann’s Mail Scripts has an Archive Messages script that you may find useful for this.
Alternatively, you may use emlx to mbox Converter or Emailchemy to convert the .emlx files to standard mbox format.
Also, pay attention to the instructions that Mail displays when choosing a data format in File > Import Mailboxes. Mail wants you to select the folder that contains the mailboxes to be imported, not the mailboxes themselves. This allows you to import all the exported mailboxes at once.

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