Recovering Mail settings

Question

My father recently thought he was cleaning up "unused" items on his computer. He moved a bunch of things to a folder he titled "Unused". Included in this was the Library folder in his home directory. A new Library was automatically created and all app settings were reset to default. The main problem is that when he went to use Mail, it wanted to him to create a new account. He did stopped at this point and called me in.
Another piece I should mention is that he said when he emptied his trash it had 1500 items in it (usually it would have fewer than 10). His use of the computer is actually quite limited. So this tells me he put something in the trash that really should not have gone there, but unfortunately there is no way for me to know. His memory is not very good, either.
The Library folder in the "Unused" folder he created has his mail cache, and appears to have the other settings. However, missing is the file "com.apple.mail.plist". Using spotlight, the only file with this name is one created the day he did this 'clean up' and tried using Mail, only to discover its request for creating an account.
My question is twofold. I have not been able to figure out how to recover his original Mail setup. Would this require the previously existing "com.apple.mail.plist" file? If so, am I able to recreate a 'new' Mail account that gains access to all his old mail, etc?
I appreciate any help that can be given.

Answer 1

Brad,
The plist would only be necessary to recover and use a backup of the full Mail folder, but if the Mail folder continued to exist as the current Mail folder after trashing the preferences, then doing the following would be expected to recover the account folders and mailboxes IF the current Mail folder contained them:
When or if the com.apple.mail.plist is removed, then Mail will open as though new, but if when prompted to import anything, you DECLINE, and instead, re-enter your account info, Mail will re-discover the account folders for your accounts, and all should be well.
If on the other hand, you only have any copy (including the current one) of the Mail folder, then any mailboxes it contains can be imported, even if you cannot recreate the account setup info, the same way. However, any mailboxes in any account folder, cannot be imported as, say, the Inbox, but rather as another On My Mac mailbox, from which you can then move messages to the current Inbox.
Ask any needed questions, and keep us posted.
Ernie