Moving mail from Snow Leopard running on an external disk

I have been operating my computer with Snow Leopard on an external Hard Drive for quite some time and downloaded Mountain Lion onto my internal disk so I could play with it before making the big plunge. I have not set up the Mail program on Mountain Lion but now want to move my mail setup from Snow Leopard.
How do I do that? Will I be able to keep my folders etc.?

Though you have not provided the model number of the MBP, I suspect that the given unit came with an OS newer than 10.5. A MBP will not run an older version OS than the original.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2186
Ciao.

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Copying and Moving Mail from Snow Leopard to Lion

Hello
What is the best way to move mail data from a Snow Leopard machine to a Lion machine?
My mail data is presently on my iMac which is running Snow Leopard. I want to copy and move this mail to my new MacBook Air that came installed with Lion (not an upgrade from Snow Leopard).
In the past, it was just a matter of copying the "mail" folder in the library and the plist and pasting them in the same location on the new machine. However, I have read that this does not work any more.
What is the best way to do this?
Looking forward to some guidance.
Cheers!
Darren
Tokyo

Hi ozdazza,
I have managed to solve the problem and move all my emails from my old mac running 10.5.8 to my new mac running 10.7.2 with the following steps. Please note that in order for these to work, you need to have copy of your old email accounts either at your new mac desktop or in your time machine (or any external HD connected to your new mac)
1- In my new mac, I created email accounts similar to the ones in my old mac (names and setting),
2- I copied my old emails (one email account at a time so I do not get confused) and placed it on my new mac desktop. Please note that inbox messages in OS 10.5.X are stored in user/library/mail/pop.file/inbox.mbox. And outbox messages are stores in user/library/mail/pop.file/outbox.mbox and so forth. For copying messages in your inbox the file you should copy to your desktop is the inbox.mbox NOT the mail file or NOT the pop file.
3- Open your mail app in your new mac and chose “import mailboxes” under file menu.
4- Chose import data from “Apple Mail” which is the first choice.
5- Chose the inbox.mbox file to be imported.
6- After the importing process finish, you will see all your messages in a new folder called “Import” in your mailboxes column within your new mail app.
7- Now click on that import box to display all your messages in the middle column in your email app.
8- Highlight all the messages by clicking comm+A
9- Drag all the highlighted messages to your newly created inbox.
10- After the drag&drop process finished, you can delete the import box.
Above process can be done with the sent.mbox as well, but in such process you use the sent.mbox for old email account and drag its messages (step 9) to the sent file in your new email account box.
I had managed to move or transfer 3 emails account each one with 2 boxes (inbox and sentbox) with a total size of over 8GB in only less than 10 minutes.
The key problem in all my previous import attempts is that I was importing the wrong file and trying to place it in the wrong place.
I hope above process works well for you as it did for me.

How do I move all my mail from Snow Leopard to Lion?

How do I move all my mail from Snow Leopard to Lion?

alphiza wrote:
How do I move all my mail from Snow Leopard to Lion?
Did you update over Snow Leopard or clean install. Have you got your latest backup of Snow Leopard?
Pete

Transfer Mail from Snow Leopard to Lion

I have a new iMac and I want to transfer my Apple Mail from my older Mac Book Pro running Snow Leopard to it. I've zipped up the Mail folder that was under Library and I found out how to access the hidden Library on my iMac. I see mail has changed a bit in Lion and before I unzip my mail folder into /Library/Mail, I want to make sure I won't screw anything up.
Any suggestions or warnings?
Thanks.
- Dan

I suspect Migration Assistant of migrating some possibly corrupt files from a previous system, which in turn has evolved into frequent and persistent SBODs in my current system. Not that I can prove any of that, but in an effort to improve my performance, I'm working on (finally!) upgrading from Snow Leopard to Lion (I know, just in time for Mountain Lion, right?). Rather than use Migration Assistant, I'm piecemealing the transition, moving a little at a time to see if I can figure out why my current system has gotten bogged down. If I can move a major piece and have it come out OK, then I'll move another little piece. When I get the big stuff done, then I can decide if I can live without whatever is left. Big stuff will be Mail, Safari (bookmarks, etc), NetNewsWire (the biggest part of that will be making sure the Google Reader stuff comes with it), 1Password and MS Office.
For Mail, is just the ~/Library/Mail folder and com.apple.mail.plist file from Preferences all that's really needed? I was reading an about.com article that talked about moving keychains folder, but that got me into trouble enough that I'm having to restart the Lion install on an external drive. Is the Keychains folder move necessary?
Thanks for whatever help might be offered.

Manually Transfer Mail from Snow Leopard to Mavericks

I'm having trouble moving my mail accounts from Snow Leopard (iMac) to Mavericks (MacBook).
For the past several months I have been using both computers, but with all my Mail work taking place on the iMac/Snow Leopard. Now I'm ready to use the MacBook exclusively. Using Migration Assistant isn't an option because it won't consolidate two user accounts.
I followed the suggestions elsewhere and copied the ~/Library/Mail folder from the iMac (SL) to the MacBook's Library folder, replacing the Mail folder there.
I then launched Mail.app. After 20-or-so minutes of processing, Mail.app asked me to create a new account. I chose 'Cancel' which caused Mail to automatically quit. So I went to the iCloud preference and turned on Mail (I had previously set it to Off). I then launched Mail.app again.
I repeated this three times with the same results:
- None of the mail accounts (I have a dozen of them) and none of their mailboxes (Inbox/Sent/Trash/...) showed up: neither under Mailboxes in the left panel, nor in Maill.app's Accounts preferences.
- All of the 'On My Mac' folders appeared, but they were empty. Rebuilding the folders brought back most of the messages, but some messages were missing (the message counts in the various folders were lower by about 1~2%).
Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.
Many thanks.

If the two machine's have two different username/password combos, you cant' do what you want. The only solution is to create a duplicate account on the MB, mimicking the one on the iMac and then copy the Mail folder into that user's Library folder. Then, use that as your primary user account, deleting the the useless other one.

How do I import mail from Snow Leopard to Lion Mail?

Tried dragging ~/Library/Mail files and folders across.
But Mail insisted on my setting up an accounr (I have several) and put everything into that one account.
Anyone know of a foolproof doc./url or checklist, please, which explains how to get everything that was in Snow Leopard Mail into Lion Mail?
Thanks!

similar "solution" for how to import ical from snow leopard to lion:
1) copy the following files (e.g. from a snow leopard backup) prior to first opening ical:
1a) ~/Library/Keychains/ (folder "Keychains")
1b) ~/Library/Calendars (folders "Calendars")
1c) ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.iCal.* (ical preferences files, "com.apple.iCal.helper.plist", "com.apple.iCal.plist")
1d) ~/Library/Preferences/iCalExternalSync.plist
2) then open ical in lion ... import/update will follow
if you have opened ical prior to the above steps these files (1b, 1c and 1d ) have already been created, so you have to replace them with your backups from snow leopard described above
if you have set up calendar accounts in system preferences "Mail, Contacts & Calendars" you might have to delete them before applying the above steps
ps:
not quite sure if the following steps are necessary (or did help) for mail/ical import, because mobileme sync works now different in lion (no option for syncing calendars anymore within system preferences—>mobileme) ...
i did a mobileme sync in snow leopard prior to the clean install of lion with:
Calendars
Mail Accounts
Mail rules, Signatures, and Smart Mailboxes

How to transfers mail from snow leopard to mavericks

Hello, I have a little big problem, how can I transfer all the emails and email accout from snow leopard to mavericks? the two operating systems are on the same computer, on the same hard disk on two different partitions.
thanks

I'm not sure if you will need to boot into Snow Leopard to do this, but if you can see the Mail folder in Snow Leopard you can drag it over to Mavericks.
Apple Mail stores your data in User's Library/Mail.
Your User's Library is hidden in Mavericks. See:
How to enable the User’s Library folder
Mavericks Mail will upgrade when you open.

Restore Mac Mail from Snow Leopard Back Up

Hi, I've just upgraded from Snow Leopard to Mavericks and I'm going through the process of restoring bits and bobs from my time machine back up. I did a clean install which I though might help my machine as it's been getting a bit slow recently.
Can anyone help me with restoring my mac mail to a 'how it was state', I have my time machine back up created in Snow Leopard and I also archived each mail folder seperatley (.mbox) to be double safe. I'm not sure of the best and most efficient way to restore all my mail accounts, hopefully someone on here can help.
Many thanks in advance.
Terry

Thanks for the help. I ended up importing each mailbox (mbox) seprately. When I tried to import 'apple mail' it choked in the process probably because they are pretty big files. But it worked though the import mbox option ok.

Can I use iCal/Mail from Snow Leopard to access iCloud?

Hi All-
I got the iOS 5 upgrade on my iPad & iPhone. I have a MBP that is running Lion (10.7.2), and a MacPro that is still running Snow Leopard (10.6.8).
I currently use MobileMe to sync my calendars, contacts, and bookmarks. I can view these in iCal, Address Book, and Safari, respectively.
If I move my MobileMe account to iCloud, will the iCal, Address Book, and Safari Bookmarks on my Snow Leopard Mac Pro still sync properly, or will I need to upgrade my MacPro to Lion prior to migrating to iCloud?
I can initiate the move on the MBP, but I don't want to strand the MacPro.
Thanks!

This is what applies on a Pre-Lion Mac when you upgrade your MobileMe account to iCloud:
Your email, calendars, contacts and bookmarks, and 'Find my iPhone' will be migrated to iCloud.
Your iDisk, together with website hosting and Gallery, will continue to work as before until next June.
Syncing of Dashboard Widgets, Dock Items and Keychains between Macs, and Mail Accounts, Mail Rules, System Preferences, Signatures & Smart Mailboxes between Macs & iOS devices, will cease altogether.
You will be able to access email, calendar and contacts on the iCloud website at http://icloud.com provided your browser is reasonably up-to-date.
You will not be able to sync contacts or bookmarks from a pre-Lion Mac.
You will be able to enter the server settings for email manually in the Mail application and access your email.
You will not be able to sync your calendars directly.
Some people have been able to set up calendar syncing by using the method detailed here - this is an unsupported hack and may not be reliable, and may stop working at some future point. BusyCal is an iCal-like calendar application with extra facilities: it can sync with the iCloud Calendar while running on Leopard, Snow Leopard or Lion.
There appears to be no method of syncing contacts (though Address Book on a Mac can be synced with Google or Yahoo address books - I don't know how reliable this is).

How do I move my mail from snow leopard to mavericks without using migration assistant

I'm doing a clean install of Mavericks on a new MacBook Pro. I want to move over my mail data on a MacBook Pro running Snow Leopard without using migration assistant (it brings over too much stuff I no longer need). I can find the library just fine by holding down the option key while clicking on the "go" menu. However, the folder setup looks quite different than in Snow Leopard. What do I need to bring over, and where do I put it?

Thanks for your help.
Just to close the loop, it took a little more than this. I had to start over with the following steps:
Restart the new computer by holding down the option and R keys.
Erase the harddrive of the new computer.
Reinstall Mac OSX. Name during setup as unique from that on the source computer.
Set up a system administration user with a name unique from anything on the source computer.
Connect the two computers with firewire/lighting cable.
Turn on the source computer holding down the t key (target disk mode).
Using Migration Assistant bring in the users only.
Log into the account with the mail problem, open mail, and rebuild the mailbox.
It seems to be working now - fingers crossed.

Moving accounts from Snow Leopard Macs to Mac mini with Snow Leopard Server

I got my brand spanking new Mac mini today with Snow Leopard Server! So far, we (at home) were managing our accounts on individual iMacs and a MacBook Pro. While I will be getting into the innards of account migration, management etc. I thought I'd post a quick question here; Currently I have an iMac with three user accounts on it (wife and two kids). I also have my own personal MacBook Pro with my account (the only Admin account) on it. We'll soon be getting another iMac for our daughter (who currently has an account on the existing iMac). My idea in getting the Mac mini was to move to and centrally manage all the user accounts in the household on the Mac mini server. What is the best way to accomplish this? What is the best way to move the existing accounts on to the server?
Additionally, I'll be looking into connecting the two stationary iMacs with Powerline Ethernet (where one runs Ethernet over existing electrical wires in the walls). My other option would be to rely on wireless network (I don't think this would be a good idea for if I am going to be placing the user accounts on the server and there needs to be a constant on, reliable connection between the server and the client computers as they will be talking to each other a lot!). Any thoughts on Powerline? (I am not looking forward to installing Ethernet cabling behind walls :o))
What say the wise men of Mactopia?!
Thanks,
Kenneth.
P.S. I had earlier accidentally posted this in the corresponding section of Mac OS X instead of the Mac OS X Server forum.

Ok so the esiest way to explain this is to tell you what i just went through.
I have 3 user accounts. All the accounts are network Users meaning that there home folder are kept on the server. I was having a problem with Time Machine giving me error 41 and error 11. After scratching my head for 2 days I ended up copying (Drag-n-Drop) the Home Folders to an External Hard Drive. I then proceeded to erase both of the internal hard drives on the mac mini and did a fresh local install of the Server OS.
Everything was fine at that point. Now this is where Snow Leopard stopped being nice.
I went and Created the user account again using WGM. I let WGW create the home folder and the 9 folder inside. I made sure the short names were the same and the passwords were the same as they were previously.
However, once i Copied files from the external drive to the home folders the permissions copied as well, Which i guess should be expected. So now at this point apparently the UID's of the newly created users wasn't the same as they were before the clean install. I have multiple instances of root listed in the ACL for several folders and also had several instances of System listed sporadically.
Now, This isn't to say that you can't drag n drop because now That I have it all squared away and everything is now working ok, I would probably still drag n drop the home folder off to an external disk, but only because I now know what to do to clean things up.
if you drag and drop be sure to use the CHOWN command and theCHMOD commands afterwards. Take a look at this MacFixIt article: http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13727_7-20013630-263.html?tag=mncol;title
If you copy your local imac users to the home directory on the server you may want to follow the steps on the URL I gave plus you will most likely also have to do the following. In a nutshell you are going to use the chmod command to strip all the ACL Permissions then you are going to use the chown command to re-specify the correct owner and the correct permissions for the network user.
!) Go into ServerAdmin and click on Sharing
2) Go to the users folder you are using and select the user you are going to work with.
3) Click on the Permissions option
4) click on the +sign at the bottom (this will open the users & groups list to the right)
5) Drag the current user from the users list to the owner permissions line under posix section
5a) Click Save
6) Click on the Gear button at the bottom
7) Check the box for Owner Name and Owner Permissions.
8) Uncheck the box for Access Control List then click ok
Once you've gone through that rigmarole you can go back into ServerAdmin and fix the permissions for public and Sites folder which should only take a minute or so.
So the moral of this story and as I found out when i ended up calling Enterprise support is that the act of dragging and dropping user home directories from one server to another, or as in your case, from a local machine to a the server isn't anything that apple recommends or supports. you might want to read through the man pages for "Ditto" or so apple tells me, but honestly now that you know, the steps above aren't all that bad. It's true Knowing IS half the battle!
have Fun!
P.S. FWIW If you run into problems and have to call Enterprise Support be prepared for them to tell you to refer to the user Guides. So reading those would be to your advantage even though they aren't the easiest things to understand unlike apple's consumer products user guides

Mail from Snow Leopard appears as suspicious on Windows

I am running Snow Leopard (10.6.4). I use Macintosh and my wife uses Windows. Because most of my emails are business related, we are both on the same address. In addition, because I have a number of computers, I send BCC to myself so that I can download responses onto all computers. Since I have gone to Snow Leopard, my BCC's often come into my wife's computer, marked as "suspicious". We have narrowed it down to the following: When ever I respond to a message that has used ClamAV, the response comes across as "suspicious" on Windows. It also seems to do the same thing when my response subject has Re: in it.
Has anyone else seen this? Any ideas why the mails might end up this way?

Were you ever able to solve this problem. I'm having similar issues since upgrading to snow leopard. Four macs connect to a Windows Server 2003 for shared files. Each user has full permissions & when we "get info" it shows read & write permissions. Two of the computers were running 10.4, two were running 10.5. Everything worked properly until upgrading to snow leopard. Some files let me copy, move, delete. Others either just hang up or we get a "no permission" error. Also getting a "pdf is in use" error, even when the file/folder doesn't contain a pdf. We had our IT rep check the server who said everything is in working order. They don't represent macs any longer but feel that it's a mac problem. I would have to agree since this problem only started after the upgrade, and the one machine that was not upgraded (still running 10.5.8) is not dealing with these problems.
Lastly, I would install 10.5 back on all of the computers if I could, but the leopard disk that came with one of the computers wouldn't work with the 2 machines running 10.4 and I didn't see it available at the apple store. I'll buy it if it's still available, but why wouldn't the disks that I have work?
Thanks for any help

Manually migrating mail from Snow Leopard to Mavericks via Time Machine backup

Just performed a clean install of Mavericks 10.9.2 onto my computer and I would now like to manually bring in my mail from my time machine backup. Can you tell me what files to copy over and in exactly what folder they should go? P.S. I don't want to use migration assistant because Mail is the only thing I care about carrying over. Thank you.

If the two machine's have two different username/password combos, you cant' do what you want. The only solution is to create a duplicate account on the MB, mimicking the one on the iMac and then copy the Mail folder into that user's Library folder. Then, use that as your primary user account, deleting the the useless other one.

Importing Mail files and config to Yosemite from Snow Leopard

Hello,
Can someone explain to me where i must copy my SNOW LEOPARD Mail files to on Yosemtie. I can't find the Mail file path on my new Yosemite Macbook pro
I really need my 40gb+ of mails from snow Leopard before i cant begin using this computer.
Thanks.
MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Mid 2014), OS X Yosemite (10.10.1)

Do a backup.
Quit the application.
Go to Finder and select your user/home folder. With that Finder window as the front window, either select Finder/View/Show View options or go command - J. When the View options opens, check ’Show Library Folder’. That should make your user library folder visible in your user/home folder. Select Library/Mail/V2.

Mail "unexpectedly quits" after migration from snow leopard to new iMac running Mountain Lion

Mail "unexpectedly quits" after migration from snow leopard time machine files to new iMac running Mountain Lion. I can run connection doctor OK. But the activity window is blank. If you try to open message viewer window then mail program crashes. Would really like to get my old emails back as the old imac is totally dead. Thanks for any help.

Launch the Console application in any of the following ways:
☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Console in the icon grid.
Step 1
Make sure the title of the Console window is All Messages. If it isn't, select All Messages from the SYSTEM LOG QUERIES menu on the left.
Enter the name of the crashed application or process in the Filter text field. Post the messages from the time of the last crash, if any — the text, please, not a screenshot.
When posting a log extract, be selective. In most cases, a few dozen lines are more than enough.
Please do not indiscriminately dump thousands of lines from the log into a message.
Important: Some private information, such as your name, may appear in the log. Edit it out by search-and-replace in a text editor before posting.
Step 2
Still in the Console window, look under User Diagnostic Reports for crash reports related to the process. The report name starts with the name of the crashed process, and ends with ".crash". Select the most recent report and post the entire contents — again, the text, not a screenshot. In the interest of privacy, I suggest that, before posting, you edit out the “Anonymous UUID,” a long string of letters, numbers, and dashes in the header of the report, if it’s present (it may not be.) Please don’t post shutdownStall, spin, or hang logs — they're very long and not helpful.

Moving mail from Snow Leopard running on an external disk

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