Putting old mail in new user account.

Hello,
Sorry this may be a really simple question,
I've had mail running on the administrators account for a couple of years, I'm just creating user accounts for all the different people who use it. I want them all to be able to access the old sent messages and the entire archive of their mailbox.
How can I put this information into the new user accounts?
Is it just a case of dragging the relevant files from the Adminstrators library>mail account?
Thank you so much for any help you can give me
cheers
Fred

I worked with MobileMe support and found that I had to add main account to user account temporarily while I moved files, then deleted account

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Brand new user account, same old name

I've been having some quirky behavior with the main account on my Powerbook. Most recently I purchased and installed Speed Download, only to find that it unexpectedly quits after just a few minutes of an FTP download. I can run it in a new account without incident. Reinstalling does not solve this problem.
But this is just the most recent issue, there is a lot of other strange behavior that I'd like to try solving with a new user account before I go ahead with a re-install of the OS. But I don't want trouble with permissions, etc. so my plan is this:
1) Backup old user account (let's call it ABC).
2) Create new admin account called XYZ.
3) Log into XYZ and delete ABC account
4) Rename XYZ back to ABC
5) Rebuild ABC from the backup, being careful to only import Library items I really need (like the Mail.app data) and let the rest be created from scratch.
The idea is that the user name will be the same, so there will be no permission issues. The contents of the Users/ABC/Library directory will be mostly new and uncluttered except for those items that I hand-pick from the backup.
Please only comment on this migration plan, I don't need help with Speed Download. This particular issue is only the straw that broke the camel's back, there is a lot of other quirky behavior that I am eager to get sorted out as well.
Any insight will be greatly appreciated.
Regards,
Ian
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Ian,
I'm not sure if this will work.
The Mac OS (like all unix OS) is saving a user ID which is a number stored in the system, changing the name of the user will not help because your ID will be different than the old ID.
One thing I can think about is if you have another Mac you can use the migration assistant to move your data to it and back after deleting the old account.
One other option will be to delete your account without deletion of the files (files are stored under deleted users directory), create a new one and copy all needed data to the new account.
I hope this helps you,
Ziv

How to move an old iTunes folder into a new user account?

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SlippySlope wrote:
Were you saying that you have two user accounts (one one the old Mac and one on the new Mac) or two Apple IDs with your music?
Read the original post. The user used Migration Assistant to copy files from an old computer to a new one. This creates a new computer account with the old content. The user then had two accounts on the new computer with content the user wished to merge.

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Why was I forced to create a new user account in order to access Apple discussions? The last time I had posted to Apple discussions was 11/06. From the emails notifying me of replies to my post, I can still go to the link where my question and the replies are. Last week I wanted to post another question. Instead I encountered a circular problem. Every time I tried to log in to discussions with my Apple ID and password (the same as my .Mac name and password, which were working fine for accessing .Mac), I was told that there was an error in my password. When I tried again, I was repeatedly re-directed to a "create new user account" web page that listed my .Mac email address as my Apple ID, as it should have. I tried to re-create my old user account with my own [real] name (as before) and was told that name was in use! Of course, it was me! (I had always used by real first name and surname as my name on Apple discussions.) So finally, very frustrated, I created a new name, a nickname, for discussions, and it worked. Now, all my previous posts are gone. It's as if I didn't exist in the Apple world until today, 9/16/07, but I originally had established my user account in 2004. I tried asking about this in a phone call to Apple support, but I was re-directed to the .Mac web site. Then I posted a question at .Mac feedback to no avail. I had a feeling that as soon as I "obeyed" and created a new user account that wouldn't be recognized as myself, my past posts would be sent into oblivion. I don't like losing all my previous posts that were attached to my user account. I have found this problem very frustrating and would really like an explanation.

Hi decemberbaby,
Try this procedure.
Delete all the Apple Cookies in your browser, and empty the Cache.
Go here Discussions Sign In, and try logging in with your original Apple ID again.
If that still doesn't work, delete the Cookies again, and go to My Info, and log in with the original Apple ID.
If you get the error message "Your Apple ID or password was entered incorrectly.", click on "Did you forget your password? Click here for assistance".
On the page that opens, you can also click on "Forget your Apple ID
ali b

HT3309 Share mail settings with new user account on the same mac?

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jonnyukbravo wrote:
I want to transfer the mail settings from the original one simply so that mail opens in an identical way whichever account I'm siging in with.
Oops.
If you just need Mail settings, only copy
~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.mail.plist
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Thanks, Alon

No. Not the main Library folder. Make absolutely sure you are in the Home Library folder and not the main Library folder.
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Once you restart, then you will be back to the default preferences to the system and all applications. And yes, it will affect all settings including your Dock, just as logging into a new user. You will have to reset everything there also.
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How to create new user account and delete old one?

Greetings,
we have wanted to change our alias on the discussions group but understand from the frequently asked questions section that,
"Once you create an alias, you cannot make changes to it. If you want to change your alias, you will need to create a new User Account".
However it does not go on to tell us specifically how to now set up a "new User Account". Could someone specify how to do this? And if we do this, how would we then delete the current User Account? Thank you.
Chris

Colleen Von Eckartsberg wrote:
Thanks for the reply.
However I am still confused. I originally thought the "user account" referred to an account specific to the Discussions Forums, not the general "Apple ID" however your email seems to suggest they are one and the same....Please clarify.
If so, however I do not think I am able to change my Apple ID. As I am a mobile me user I am required to us my mobile me address for my apple ID.....and do not think I can have two ID's with the same mobile me address.....
Any additional thoughts are appreciated. Thanks.
Chris
Not with the same Primary address, but you can use your MM address as a secondary one. That is how I have my 2 Apple IDs setup. 1 uses my Dot Mac address and the other uses an ISP address as the Primary with the latter having my Dot Mac address as an alternate address.
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Creating a new user account and transferring files from old account

I am now having more problems than I can handle with my Leopard installation...problems such as applications that refuse quit no matter what ~ even after attempting force quit them and/or attempting to "sudo kill -9 PID", and now that I am having problems with Adobe Lightroom not even being able to remain open on my user account for more than 10 seconds max before it crashes without provocation (yet runs fine on a troubleshooting account I created on the same machine), I would now like to create a new user account on my MacPro Leopard 10.5.6 and transfer my files from the previous (problematic) user account, but I've never done so in the past...
Can someone give me a basic rundown of how to go about doing this as a means of troubleshooting my current sickly user account (and if you could also please let me know which files I should avoid restoring to the newly created user account so that I don't screw that one up as well, I would appreciate it)
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While logged into the troubleshooting account (assuming that it's an admin account—if not create a new one and log into it), backup the bad account's folder, delete the bad account, selecting the save data option (which is stored in /Users/Deleted Users/ as a disk image), recreate the bad account using the same username/password combo, log out and back into the recreated original account. If the problem's solved, open the saved data dmg file in /Users/Deleted Users/, open the /Library/Preferences/ folder from the saved data, open the current /Users/restored account/Library/Preferences/ folder, and slowly copy plist files from the saved data folder to the current one that don't exist in it. Log out and back in to ensure there's no conflict and things still work correctly. Resolving conflicts or identifying corrupt plist files is a laborious process. Good luck.
See http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=4703015 for more details on this process.

Putting old mail in new user account.

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