Moving Mail messages

I have an old iMac (one those old boxes that look like a big CRT monitor) running OS X 10.0. I want to move my mail off of this machine that stretches back a few years and add it to a newer machine that has mail accumulating for the last two years (mini mac intel. I do not want to write over the mail items I have, but want to augment my files so I do not think bringing over the plist file would be a good idea. What is the best way of merging the two mail files?

Copy the Mail folder from the old machine to an external disk drive. Connect the drive to your existing machine and use the Import option in Mail to import the mail from the old mail folder. This hopefully will create an Imported Mail folder on your existing machine with your old mail. This assumes that the current version of Mail can even import the mail files from OS 10.0 - no guarantee.

Similar Messages

Moved mail messages often reappear

This is a problem that has been plaguing me for the last several months: when I move a message from my Inbox or Sent Mail to my Done folder on our work email server, the message reappears in its original location a few minutes later. I can delete it from the Inbox/Sent Mail, and will often return again. Sometimes I can delete the message 3 times before it stays deleted. I cannot tell where the source of the problem is.
I'm using Mail 4.3 on Mac OS X 10.6.4. The account is an IMAP account on a dovecot-1.0.7-7.el5 server, which is redhat's port of dovecot v1.07.
One oddity is that I use MailTags [1] to add info to the header of the email which I can then use for filing the email in the work email system. When I add a tag, MailTags resaves the message to the server. It does not change the identifier of the message.
I also tend to remove attachments after I've filed them, so I don't have extra copies of data files bloating my mailboxes. This also causes a resave of the message to the server.
I ran some experiments with different numbers of attachments, sources etc, and could not find the pattern.
Does anyone know how I can figure out where the problem is? It is completely crippling my email at work, because it is typically tripling the time it takes me to mark a message as done.
I've looked through the discussions, but nothing suggested there has done a lick of good.
Thanks for any help,
Bill

Ernie Stamper wrote:
Do you have the latest version of MailTags? I note, but have not ever used at all, that version 2.5 is cited as adding compatibility for Mail 4.3 in 10.6.4.
Yes, it's always been kept up-to-date.
The behavior you describe would be consistent with errors in the indexing of mailboxes, and it may be possible that MailTags is not keeping track of the messages when moved to the Done folder you describe, via communication with the index.
MailTags shouldn't have any influence when it comes to moving the messages to the Done folder, because they get dragged there by hand. It could have some influence when resaving the messages after adding the tags, but I would then expect to see duplicates when I add or change the tags, also.
I'll run some experiments and report back...

Having trouble moving mail messages from one user to another

I am trying to move mail messages from one user to another on my Macbook, and I cannot seem to do it. I've tried archive, but I don't think I'm doing it right. Any suggestions?
Thanks,
Noreen
Message was edited by: reensjp

I had to go to the Mac store to get the answer to this one... i was archiving correctly, but you need to save the mbox files to your desktop, then move them to the shared folder, that way all users have access. I also had to edit the permissions on the files, as the user i wanted to have the emails didn't have permission to even look at the files.
Noreen

Moving Mail Message Preview Pane to Right of Screen Like in Entourage

Hello,
Would anyone be able to tell me if I can move my Mail Message Preview Pane to the right side of the screen like I can do in Entourage? I prefer the message preview screen on the right side instead of at the bottom as is the default in mail.
Thanks,
Ppsychling

Ppsychling,
Unfortunately, that is not an option. The only choice that the user has regarding the Preview Pane is to show or hide.
Your valid feature request should be made through Mac OS X Feedback.
;~)

Moving mail messages from one account to another sends to inbox, not IMAP folder

I have many email addresses (setup via Google apps) but I generally store all of my emails on one standard Gmail IMAP account. It makes looking for old emails easier IMO. Here's what my workflow should look like:
I get an email on account B, reply with account B, then file that email into account B's folder on account A.
Unfortunately, that workflow has been broken for a very long time now and 10.8.3 didn't fix it.
Here's what that workflow actually does:
I get an email on account B, reply with account B, then file that email into account B's folder on account A, the email ends up in the inbox of account A, I then have to drag the email into account B's folder on account A *again* so it actually sticks. The tricky part is that Mail seems to have the message in two locations until I
Instead of moving the email directly to account B's folder on account A, it goes to the inbox of account A. I'm really tired of having to move a message twice just to get it into the right folder. I was hoping 10.8.3 would fix this but it's still broken. I believe I started noticing the issue in Lion.
I only use Gmail IMAP accounts if that helps. I've re-installed from scratch to eliminate any user account / upgrade issues that could've caused the problem.
I would really appreciate any suggestions or confirmation of the problem from other people so I can file another bug report (did that already but they never understood the issue).

Hi,
Locate your Mail folder via this path - Home/Library/Mail and copy it to the same location on the second machine - when you get the message about overwriting say yes. (make sure Mail is not open on either machine)
I f you're nervous about overwriting the corrupted copy - simply move it out of Home/Library first - say to the desktop. When you copy the new Mail folder over, and you know it works - delete the desktop copy.
Regards

8830..Moving e-mail messages from Inbox to other folder

On my 8830...When I move e-mail messages from my Inbox to a different folder (under Inbox), they disappear totally from my laptop e-mail rather than mirroring what I did on my BlackBerry. On the flip side, if I move messages from my Inbox to another folder on my laptop, it does mirror on my BlackBerry. My e-mail is Outlook 2003, running on my company's Microsoft Exchange Server. Please help.

Since you have folders under your Inbox, I can only assume you're on a BES (BlackBerry Enterprise Server) setup receiving your Corporate email. If that's not the case, I can't figure out how you got folders under your Inbox, and have NO IDEA how you're getting the results you're getting as BIS (BlackBerry Internet Service) email accounts can't have folders!
You most likely don't have reconciliation enabled for the folders you're moving your email to.
Go into Messages, hit the [Menu] button and select Options --> Email Settings. Hit the [Menu] button and select Folder Redirection.
You should see your Mailbox at the top with a + to the left of it. Highlight that line, hit [Menu] --> Expand to display the main folders under your Mailbox. Your Inbox should appear with a Box next to it either checked or filled in.
Highlight Inbox, and again hit [Menu] --> Expand to display the folders under your Inbox. All the folders under your Inbox, and the boxes are probably unchecked or not "filled in". Scroll to the folders you want reconciled with your BlackBerry and hit [Space] to check or fill the box next to it. Use [Menu] --> Expand if there's a + to the left of the box to expand subfolders.
Once all the folders you want reconciled are checked or filled, hit [Esc] and save.
Now your email won't dissappear when you move it! You should also notice in the Messages list that email in folders other than your Inbox have a folder icon rather than an Envelope icon.
And before you ask... The BlackBerry does NOT SYNCHRONIZE, it Reconciles. Email is pushed to the device ONCE, and only changes to the status of messages are transmitted after that. Moves will only be reflected after you've turned Reconciliation on for a given folder. BTW - emails you moved that disappeared should have been in your Deleted Items folder.
Reconciliation rather than Synchronization saves enormously on data transmission ($) as well as Battery life. Believe me - we have both BlackBerries (Big Wigs only) and Windows Mobile (the rest of the 25,000 peons) devices at my company, and the most common complaint about the Windows devices is battery life, and HUGE costs when the device is overseas!
Jerry

Mail messages not moving to trash seemingly until reopening Mail

I have posted about mail messages disappearing after moving them between mailboxes (a nightmare!). I tried several things, deleting preferences, rebuilding mailboxes, etc. The particular dissappearing message symptom is yet to reappear.
However, yesterday the prelude behavior returned.... when I delete a message, it remains in the inbox. I have to quit and restart mail for it to be moved to the trash. It matters not whether I use the delete key on the highlighted message, use the trash tool button, or the "move to trash" command in the "Message" menu. There is other weird associated behavior with the highlighting of a particular message jumping arround (if other messages were unsuccessfully deleted) when this happens too.
I also have the funky search problems in Mail others have described (sometimes working, sometime not).
All this started with Mavericks.... what a mess. Any ideas on a fix... what we need here is a serious software fix from Apple!!!!!!

Apple doesn’t routinely monitor the discussions.
Send Apple feedback. They won't answer, but at least will know there is a problem. If enough people send feedback, it may get the problem solved sooner.
Mail/Provide Mail Feedback
Try re-indexing Spotlight.
Spotlight – Re-index

Mail not saving sent messages, not moving Junk messages

Hi everyone, I'm having a bit of trouble with OS Mail. I've set it up to use an IMAP account, and have set my preferences such that Mail should save all my sent messages in the Sent folder (I assume the Sent folder on my computer, not the one on my IMAP server). Regardless, neither my IMAP server's sent folder nor my computer's sent folder contain any messages that I've sent, and I have confirmed that these messages have in fact been received by the recipients (therefore successfully sent). I am unsure of how to resolve this issue, as there is no obvious setting change for me to persue. I just received this computer (new) a few days ago, so I wouldn't expect this problem to be due to disk maintenance/management, etc.
Also, I have noticed that Junk messages remain highlighted and in my inbox. I changed my prefs to have these messages be placed in my Junk Mail folder. Mail asked me whether I wanted to apply that preference to older messages marked as junk that have yet to be put in the folder; I indicated yes. Nothing happened, and the Junk Mail folder remained empty (until I manually moved the messages to it). Any ideas?
I have searched the forums for related issues and could only find problems that had an associated error message with it; my issue is different in that there are no error messages; Mail is simply ignoring my preferences. Thanks in advance,
Vic

In OS X Mail, this sent folder appears as a subdirectory
(sub "mailbox"?) under my "Inbox" mailbox along with
other folders that are mapped on my IMAP account.
This means you haven't set up your account properly. You probably should set Preferences > Accounts > Advanced > IMAP Path Prefix to INBOX, or something like that.
After putting the right string in the IMAP Path Prefix field, either the IMAP folders will appear somewhere else in Mail (i.e. not as subfolders of Inbox), or your problem will have already been fixed. Let me know what happens.
I should probably mention (just realized) that in my
account settings, my outgoing SMTP server is set to
be my ISP's server (which is different from my IMAP
provider).
I wonder if, by selecting "save messages on server"
I am saving these messages somewhere on my ISP?
Mail should still save the sent messages where you've told it to. It's Mail, not the SMTP server, that stores the sent messages. The SMTP server has no bearing on this, but it was a good idea to consider that possibility, nevertheless.
When I uncheck this option, perhaps my mail will
be stored on my local computer instead?
Yes, that's what would happen, but don't uncheck that option if you really want your sent messages to be stored on the IMAP server, or do it temporarily, so that Mail does at least save them somewhere until we fix the problem, but I believe I already know what the problem is.

Yosemite: Mail folders moved and messages disappear

OS X 10.10.1 on a Mac Mini 2.6 GHz, 8gb RAM, 1tb HD, Gmail setup as IMAP in Mail, personal mail folders sorted alphabetically
Intermittently while moving Inbox messages to personal folders, or opening messages in personal folders, the folders will drop to the bottom of the folder list and messages within the folders will disappear. Rebuilding the mailbox will usually make the messages appear, however the personal folders have to be moved back to their original positions. These instances have occurred frequently enough to be annoying and time wasting. Please advise. Thanks.

Quit Mail. Force quit if necessary.
Back up all data before proceeding.
Triple-click anywhere in the line below on this page to select it:
~/Library/Mail/V2/MailData
Copy the selected text to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C. In the Finder, select
          Go ▹ Go to Folder
from the menu bar. Paste into the box that opens by pressing command-V, then press return.
A folder window will open. Inside it there should be files with names as follows:
          Envelope Index
          ExternalUpdates.storedata
Move those files to the Desktop, leaving the window open. Other files in the folder may have longer names that begin as above. Move those files, if any, to the Trash.
Relaunch Mail. It should prompt you to re-import your messages. You may get a warning that the index is damaged and that Mail has to quit. Click OK. Typically, the process takes a few minutes, but it may take hours if you have gigantic mailboxes. In that case, you may be able to speed things up by temporarily adding your home folder to the Privacy list in the Spotlight preference pane. Remove it when Mail has finished importing.
Test. If Mail now works as expected, you can delete the files you moved to the Desktop. Otherwise, post your results.

IMAP Mail Messages Deleted Not Moved to Trash on Server

Hi, I'm having a heck of a time trying to get the server to update my account after I delete e-mail messages using my IMAP account in Mail. I am using Mail Version 2.0.7 and my Mailbox Behaviors in Preferences>Accounts for Trash are set to Move deleted messages to the Trash mailbox and NOT TO Store deleted messages on the server, and I Permanently erase deleted messages that are One week old. My question is, even after I move messages to my Trash, then right click on it and delete them permanently, they are still hanging out on the server, and I can see them through my online account, even after syncing. I set my online Preferences for Composing to Move Deleted Messages to Deleted Messages, but it is never happening, unless I delete them again online. Am I doing something wrong? Any help would be great! Thanks,
Justen

Have you tried rebuilding (Menubar > Mailbox > Rebuild) the Inbox, Trash, and other associated mail folders? (If Rebuild is grayed out and you have multiple accounts, you will have to expand the view of the Inbox, Trash, and other associated mail folders containing these messages and select each affected account's Inbox, Trash, and others, separately, so Rebuild won't be grayed out.)

Moving Safari bookmarks, address book info and mail messages to new machine

I recently got a new powerbook and would like to transfer my safari bookmarks, mail messages and address book information over to the new machine. What would be the best way to do this? I'd like to keep the old information on the desktop and simply add the information to the new machine.

Yeah - but the kicker is, I don't want to transfer everything, just the safari bookmarks, the address book information and selected mail folders that are "On My Mac"

Mail.app is COPYING instead of MOVING mail to folders (using IMAP)

Hi there,
I hope I can keep this simple, I'll go by the steps leading to my propblem:
1.
I've been using POP3 mail for a long time, mainly with Outlook on PC's and now that I have made the godly switch to Apple I've been using Mail.app for a couple months. I host my domains at GoDaddy.com and they offer decent mail servers including webmail, etc. Since I'm checking mail on multiple platforms (iPhone, iPad, MacBook and webmail) I decided to start using IMAP instead of POP3. GoDaddy set that up form me in seconds and I got IMAP working on Mail.app in no time (yes, I deleted the old POP accounts and started from zero creating new IMAP accounts).
2.
I've learned to keep mail filing easy so I have just two folders: "Inbox" and "archive". My inbox is... well... my inbox. If a mail is in my inbox it's because it's either a brand new unread mail or it is read and I'm keeping it there because action needs to be take upon it. Once action has been taken and I want to save the mail for future reference I just archive it. If I want to retreive mail I just make a search across all folders. Of course I also have the trash folder, sent items, junk, etc.
3. THE PROBLEM
As seen on the subject line, Mail.app is COPYING instead of MOVING mail to the IMAP server based folders. So when I click on archive, or manualy drag a mail to the "archive" folder it places a copy there but the email is still visible in the inbox on all my devices. I have tried creating other IMAP folders and giving them different names such as "saved mail" or "old mail" and still I get the same problem. To prove the problem is on the Mail.app side I loged into my webmail and moved messages to the "archive" folder from there, and guess what... it worked. The messages did not show up in the inbox of any of my devices any more.
PLEASE PLEASE HELP.... I'm talking about three email addresses which receive tons of business related mail every day... I'm flooded in mail.
THANKS in advance for your help!
Kinds regards,
Willem

Thanks wjosten,
I had already tried that. I even created a keyboard shortcut to do so. It doesn't work! As soon as I close down Mail.app and start it up again, the messages are back in the inbox.

Moving a message to a folder corrupts the folder

Any time I move a message from one folder to another, the destination folder apparently becomes corrupted. I say this because I can "repair" the folder and that works - until I move another message into it.
Symptoms: I can see the message header in the message list pane, but cannot see any content in the message pane, nor does any content appear if I open the message in a tab. Sometimes repairing the folder once brings the message back, but the view is raw data (with header information and html tags); in this case, repairing it a second time fixes that problem. The message does automatically show as "read" after the requisite time period. Compacting the folder has resulted in the loss of the message completely (though only from the folder; it was still in the archive).
I have deleted the global-messages-db.sqlite file and recreated the index - no change.
Running Thunderbird 24.5.0 on Ubuntu 12.04.4, 3.2.0-64-generic kernel. My main e-mail source is an imap account. Apparently the problem does not exist when receiving mail in a pop account (at least I haven't been able to recreate it with minimal testing).
Any help would be very much appreciated.

So... i can NOT move a message (received via IMAP) to a folder without corrupting the folder (sometimes I can see the message header, sometimes not, but the message body comes up blank). So before moving a message to a folder I have to "repair" the folder, then move the message, then "repair" the folder again. Having to do that for any and every e-mail message I want to save is becoming... tedious.
One suggestion was to compact the folders; that happens automatically. Just to be sure, I've compacted a folder and then moved a message in - same problem.
Another was to make the folders smaller, so I moved a lot of messages (literally thousands, bordering on ten thousand or more) to the "Local Folders" section - no help there either.
The article in the answer from finitarry suggested using a tool to break the folder into 500 message chunks (so I could look for the corruption). Perhaps I misread the article, but it seemed to be looking for the raw files - hence my listing of the file structure for my profile. I have no idea which one to use for that. Editing text files - not a problem, and I do have an editor that will handle large files (vim).
If there is a way to export everything (and keep the folder structure) I can move all of the messages to Local Folders, export, and then import (assuming there is a chance that would fix things).

Mail messages in my In Box are not appearing in the list of messages.

Mail: SOME mail messages in my In Box are not appearing in the list of messages. Instead, there's a blank line in its place if already read, or just the blue dot if unread. But when I click on the line, the message's column/header detail appears (and I can open it).
(Coincidental or not, immediately prior to this situation, I established a New Rule that mail coming from my son's email address should be Moved to the IN Box as they had been going to Trash. None of the emails I'm questioning have any reference to his email address in them.)

Continuation of info (from GDTGG): When I leave that mail message and click on a different one, the blank line marking its place once again appears for the message. (There was a similar problem posted by someone else in 2009 entitled "Inbox Has Blank Lines" but with no apparent solution that I could find.)

Mail messages are not visible

When I open a message in apple mail, the content does not show up. Just the to, From, Title etc. The body of the message is blank. I can sometimes quit mail and relaunch it and see the messages, but not always. It is not consistent with the same message. In other words some messages fail to be visible and then will be fine as others fail. In other words it is not link to any particular mail message, sender or mailbox.
I can see the first part of message in preview column, but opening the mail comes up white. Sometimes when I forward or reply I can see the string and have done that to read message.
Most of my business is done via email so an assistance would be helpful and appreciated.
Is there a way to rebuild a mailbox. I've tried exporting and reimporting the mailbox, but that did not work
I am running a Yosemite 10,10,1 on a 13" MBP (mid 2010)

Quit Mail. Force quit if necessary.
Back up all data before proceeding.
Triple-click anywhere in the line below on this page to select it:
~/Library/Mail/V2/MailData
Copy the selected text to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C. In the Finder, select
          Go ▹ Go to Folder
from the menu bar. Paste into the box that opens by pressing command-V, then press return.
A folder window will open. Inside it there should be files with names as follows:
          Envelope Index
          ExternalUpdates.storedata
Move those files to the Desktop, leaving the window open. Other files in the folder may have longer names that begin as above. Move those files, if any, to the Trash.
Relaunch Mail. It should prompt you to re-import your messages. You may get a warning that the index is damaged and that Mail has to quit. Click OK. Typically, the process takes a few minutes, but it may take hours if you have gigantic mailboxes. In that case, you may be able to speed things up by temporarily adding your home folder to the Privacy list in the Spotlight preference pane. Remove it when Mail has finished importing.
Test. If Mail now works as expected, you can delete the files you moved to the Desktop. Otherwise, post your results.

Moving Mail messages

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