Time machine and mail box

My time machine disk is frequently running out of space. My time machine at 250GB was sized for an 5 year old Power PC mac. Now, I have an Intel mac with a 500GB harddrive. Time machine is able to keep only one month of backups, which isunaceptable.
I suspect that a big part of the problem is that I never moves messages from my inbox. So, every time time time machine runs, it has to do a backup of my entire inbox with 18,000 messages.
My system drive is 500GB of which 163GB is used and 337GB is free. (Since there is so much free space, I rarely clean up the system drive.)
Some questiions:
1. What is the file name of the inbox?
2. How can I determine how much of time machine is devoted to inbox backups?
3. How can I determine if there are any other culprits?
4. Any suggestions on time machine size (though I think the 250GB drive will do OK when I do some cleanup and fix the mbox problem)?
5. Any suggestions on time machine vendors?
Thanks.

1. A mailbox maps to a folder. Each message is a file. They are in the user's Library/Mail folder.
2. No. Only messages new since the last backup are copied.
3. It would have no effect on Time Machine.
The Inbox is for incoming mail. I think most people would say that it is a good idea to store messages in some meaningful system of mailboxes. Just as you don't (I presume) store all your files on your Desktop, messages worth keeping should be put somewhere you can find them. But it's up to you. It has nothing to do with Time Machine.
250 GB for 163 GB of data is pretty small for Time Machine. You ought to have a bigger Time Machine disk.

Similar Messages

Time Machine and Mail problems not fixed in 10.10.1

Time Machine and Mail seem completely broken in Yosemite. If anything it got worse in 10.10.1.
1. If you see inboxes at all they are empty.
2. Even if you don't press any buttons, Time Machine changes your account descriptions, order of accounts and in one case even disabled an account!
So after entering Time Machine from Mail, even you don't do anything, you have redo a bunch of settings afterwards.
Anybody know a solution for this?
I've tried talking to AppleCare about this (for a month now) but they never get back to me.
doug

What do you see when you enter Time Machine from within mail?
Also, do you happen to have an external display? I have one and I think that causes extra issues.
Do you see a stack of past inboxes, and for each inboxes do you actually see emails listed?
How many email accounts do you have? And what type are they - Gmail, etc.?
It may be a corruption issue on my individual installation. Or it may be that we have different numbers and types of accounts. So it would be useful to compare.
I have 4 Gmail accounts, 2 "ordinary cPanel" IMAP accounts and 1 iCloud account. So 7 in all.
Thanks,
doug

What am I doing wrong in Time Machine and Mail?

Hello,
I've been trying to switch my Mail from POP to IMAP. I've almost got it finished, but I lost a few messages in my inbox when I deleted them from the server (thought they would stay in Mail, guess I need to get used to IMAP). I went to Time Machine, found the messages from a few hours before, highlighted them, and clicked the Restore button. Time Machine scrolls back to the latest window, then Time Machine closes and I'm returned to Mail, no mailbox selected. When I check the Inbox, the restored messages aren't there. I check the Recovered Messages mailbox in On My Mac, I even check the Deleted Messages box On My Mac. I can't find the restored messages anywhere. I can't seem to figure it out, I must not be thinking clearly, and I need someone's help to point me in the right direction. The messages are safely in Time Machine, and I can't get them to come back.
Thanks for helping me out with this,
Jess

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.

Old computer I had is OSX Snow Leopard with Entourage. New one is OSX Mavericks. Using Mail where are my addresses and old address book. Transferred old computer backup by Time Machine and other things work? Can't see a symbol for address book.

Old computer I had is OSX Snow Leopard with Entourage. New one is OSX Mavericks. Using Mail where are my addresses and old address book. Transferred old computer backup by Time Machine and other things work? Can;t see a symbol for address book.

Where are addresses kept on MAIL? I don;t like the new format at all. Frances
Begin forwarded message:
From: Frances Topping <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: - Old computer I had is OSX Snow Leopard with Entourage. New one is OSX Mavericks. Using Mail where are my addresses and old address book. Transferred old computer backup by Time Machine and other things work? Can't see a symbol for address book.
Date: August 25, 2014 at 9:46:01 AM EDT
To: discussions-replies <[email protected]>
Old Entourage is POP and new Mavericks MAIL is IMAP I believe. I don;t know how to export in the forms you mention. Frances

When i enter time machine with mail open can see past mail . when i open iPhoto and enter time machine can not see past photos have i got a problem ????

when i enter time machine with mail open can see past mail . when i open iPhoto and enter time machine can not see past photos have i got a problem ????

iPhoto '11: Restoring from Time Machine with iPhoto '11 (9.2 or later) and OS X Lion 10.7.2 (or later)

HT201250 I selected old mail in time machine and it will not open. How can I open it?

I selected old mail in time machine and it will not open. How can I open it?

Have a read here https://discussions.apple.com/message/15701309#15701309
Seems that you have to update Logic to the latest version (9.0.15) to get it to work in Lion.
Stefan

Mail deleted a current inbox and restored an old deleted inbox. It won't restore from Time Machine, and I'm missing archived emails from the old account. I'm pretty sure there is other stuff missing, but it's hard to tell. Any ideas why it would do this?

Our Mac was working fine last Monday, then Tuesday morning one of our current inboxes was gone, and an old, archived inbox was restored--twice. Other than some trouble-shooting on Tuesday, we've pretty much left things alone as we were busy doing other stuff.
I tried restoring the files from Time Machine, but it didn't work. I followed plisk restore instructions--nothing. It's a mess. We have no idea what would have caused this. We're above average users--we weren't mucking about with anything. It was just so strange.
I went back into Time Machine, and it just makes no sense that I can't restore anything. We're now missing important emails--nothing too tragic, but still a pain in the butt. Thankfully the current inbox that was somehow deleted had a back-up on our email server, but the archived/deleted inbox file that was magically restored had all the archived emails that we kept deleted.
Any ideas would be wonderful.
Thanks!

Hello,
Could be many things, we should start with this...
"Try Disk Utility
1. Insert the Mac OS X Install disc, then restart the computer while holding the C key.
2. When your computer finishes starting up from the disc, choose Disk Utility from the Installer menu at top of the screen. (In Mac OS X 10.4 or later, you must select your language first.)
*Important: Do not click Continue in the first screen of the Installer. If you do, you must restart from the disc again to access Disk Utility.*
3. Click the First Aid tab.
4. Select your Mac OS X volume.
5. Click Repair Disk, (not Repair Permissions). Disk Utility checks and repairs the disk."
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106214
Then try a Safe Boot, (holding Shift key down at bootup), run Disk Utility in Applications>Utilities, then highlight your drive, click on Repair Permissions, reboot when it completes.
(Safe boot may stay on the gray radian for a long time, let it go, it's trying to repair the Hard Drive.)
If perchance you can't find your install Disc, at least try it from the Safe Boot part onward.
If 10.7.0 or later...
Bootup holding CMD+r, or the Option/alt key to boot from the Restore partition & use Disk Utility from there to Repair the Disk.

Time Machine and Spotlight

I've been having mixed results with Time Machine and Spotlight. It seems to be able to find any files that were indexed before the original backup, but it doesn't find anything that was added after the original (ie from incremental backups). I don't have the Time Machine drive in Privacy in Spotlight prefs.
Also, I can't search in Mail in Time Machine. Once I enter Time Machine mode, the search box goes gray for both the Now entry, and for all past backups too.
Thanks for any help.

I second that. By default both Spotlight and Time Machine should be off. Or at least it should be possible to configure that, which comes handy when installing a new system, updating, etc. I do not want Spotlight or Time Machine to work until all is installed and updated.
On the other hand, it would be great if Spotlight did not require to re-index a new disk when all its contents have been copied from an older disk using the Migration Assistant. After all, the Spotlight index is also on the old disk, so copying such index should be quicker. Likewise, for the Time Machine volume: it should not be necessary to re-index the Time Machine volume, since copying the Spotlight index of the booting disk should be enough.
That way, the slow down and incompatibilities between Spotlight and Time Machine would we wiped out for ever.

My mac 10.8 does no have the file, com.apple.desktop. plist I wentto lIbrary, preference and look for it and it is not where in my mac. I also launch time machine and file is no where on my Mac. How do I get this file back?

My mac 10.8 does no have the file, com.apple.desktop. plist I wentto lIbrary, preference and look for it and it is not where in my mac. I also launch time machine and file is no where on my Mac. How do I get this file back?
thanks

System files are hidden by default in Finder now, search for what you want then click the little + button on the top right of the bar that appears when you do a search. A new bar comes up and click the first box (that says "Kind"), change it to "System Files". Then change the box that says "aren't included" to "are included" and your file should show up.
http://osxdaily.com/2009/02/25/show-hidden-files-in-os-x/

Time Machine and drive permissions question

I'm using Time Machine on a MacBook with two admin accounts (let's call them admin1 and admin2). admin2 is the account used daily. admin1 is the account used very infrequently.
Things were set up with admin1. I noticed today when I was logged in as admin2 that TimeMachine reported that the last backup was more than 2 week ago (when things were set up), and that the last backup failed because the user didn't have privileges.
I did a Get Info on the drive, and it seemed to confirm that (admin 1 had read/write privileges, but admin 2 had only read access).
To get around the problem I logged in as admin1 and turned Time Machine off. I then logged in admin 2 and selected the disk from there, and turned Time Machine on.
My question is - is this normal behavior? Or if there's something wrong, how to fix it?
Thanks...

Scott Newman wrote:
After a few minutes, an external drive that is mounted on the desktop will spin down--like it should. But...each time a "Save" or "Save As..." dialog box is opened in any application, things will grind to halt for a few seconds while the external drive spins up--even though I will not be saving files to that drive. I've always hated that, which is one reason I've always done manual backups.
Does that happen with Time Machine (either with a drive physically or wirelessly connected via Export Extreme) and is there any way to avoid that?
It happens with TM. I am not sure of any convenient work-arounds. You can of course eject the drive and reattach it when you want to make a backup, but that's a bit inconvenient, IMO.
Is it possible to manually turn on and turn off Time Machine (and the external drive) so as to only do manual backups like I'm doing now? I don't really care about looking up a prior version of file that I've changed. I just want a reasonably current whole-disk backup.
Yes, TM has an on/off switch. Just turn it off until you want a backup. It will simply continue where it left off. It will not create a completely new backup.

Time Machine And Repair Permissions Error

Hi.
I have a new Intel Mac running Leopard. "Set up Assistant" worked like a charm and brought over all my preferences, iTunes, iPhoto etc. with out a hitch. Verified permissions and the disk and came up clean.
I bought a USB LaCie 500GB external hard drive and connected it up with the idea that I would eventually use it for Time Machine.
First thing after connecting up the new hard drive, Time Machine came up and asked if I wanted it to use the new drive as a Time Machine drive and I clicked on "cancel." Thanks to all of you I knew enough to need to GUID partition and re-format the hard drive, from the FAT 32 that it came with to Mac OS Extended (journaled) that Time Machine needs. After completing this, again, the dialog box popped up about activating Time Machine and I cancelled it again.
I have not, yet, activated Time Machine. But running permission verify and repair yielded this error message both times: Warning: SUID file "System/Library/CoreServices/RemoteManagement/ARDAgent.app/Contents/MacOS/ARDAg ent" has been modified and will not be repaired.
This is the same message seen on so many other people's machines and posted here when they run into problems with Time Machine. If I don't resolve this error, will I, too, have problems running Time Machine?
This is so weird. The only thing I did between the clean permissions verification and the one with the error was connect the USB LaCie hard drive and partition and and re-format it. Time Machine has not yet been activated on this machine.
What does this SUID warning mean? Is this something I need to worry about? Should I wait to start using Time Machine?
Or... is this not a problem but there are other things I need to do to insure a good running of Time Machine?
Thanks so much for any advice you can offer.-Charlotte

The SUID is nothing to worry about.
It is documented from Apple stating this.
Everyone of us has that error.
It has not bothered Time Machine from doing its thing.

I have a mid 2010 Macbook Pro running Snow Leopard and foolishly upgraded to Yosemite. Is it possible to go back in time with Time Machine and reinstall Snow Leopard. Then upgrade to Lion or Mavericks? Any other ideas on how I can exit Yosemite?

I have a mid 2010 Macbook Pro running Snow Leopard and foolishly upgraded to Yosemite. Now have numerous problems. Is it possible to go back in time with Time Machine and reinstall Snow Leopard? Then upgrade to Lion or Mavericks? Any other ideas on how I can exit Yosemite?

Once you get yourself back to Snow Leopard, if you still want to upgrade somewhat, I would suggest the following:
1. Get an external hard drive that you can use for experiments with new OS versions. You could partition it into 2 or 3 partitions. You could then clone your existing Snow Leopard system to one partition using Carbon Copy Cloner (well worth $40) or SuperDuper ($25).
2. Buy OS X Mountain Lion for $20, through the Apple online store (I don't think it's available through the App Store). Apple has decided to make it very difficult for anyone to get Mavericks unless they have already downloaded it.
You will receive two e-mails from Apple, one containing a PDF with a redemption code, and one with the password you will need to unlock the PDF. Using the code, you will download Mountain Lion from the App Store, where it will appear among your Purchased items.
After ML finishes downloading, its installer app will launch itself. When you see this launch screen, QUIT the install app immediately! Go to your applications folder, find the Install OS X Mountain Lion app, and copy it to a safe location outside of your Applications folder. Keeping one or more copies will allow you to reinstall without unnecessary aggravation if you later need or want to do that. At this point, you can re-launch the Installer in the Applications folder and let it run. You can install it on a clean partition on your external HD, or you can allow it to upgrade the Snow Leopard clone you created on your external drive, or you can do both. This should allow you to test how everything works for as long as you like.
3. If you left yourself a free partition on your test drive, try a clean install of Yosemite and set everything up from scratch (do not migrate anything). This will allow you to see whether your problems with it were related to something in your Snow Leopard system.

Time machine and network Lacie drive

Hi,
I have an network Lacie drive (1GB) that I just connected to my local network. I started the time machine, and after a few minutes I get this error message:
"The backup disk image "/Volumes/openshare/Peter Lauri's MacBook.sparsebundle" could not be created (error 45)."
Anything I can do about this? Anyone that has a Time Machine setup working with Lacie drive or other network drive?
/Peter

akapetchy wrote:
Hi V.K.-
I have a 2TB Lacie 2Big NAS drive, hooked to a Linksys router, that I thought (based on this forum) would not work with Time Machine. Last night, I found in the "share" properties, a box to check to make it the "share" compatible with Time Machine. I checked the box and Time Machine recognized the NAS drive "share" and was able to use it with no issues (so far) - I have my mac tied to the router with an ethernet cable. Lacie explicitly says on its product info page that this drive is "compatible with Time Machine" and it appears it is...
So, are "compatibile with" and "supported" different?
yes, they are. supported are the devices that are officially supported by apple and are guaranteed by apple to work for TM backups. that btw includes working now and also in the future after any possible updates to time machine. anything else you may want to use for TM backups apple makes no promises about. if you run into problems with such devices- you are on your own as far as apple is concerned.
now, all that said, there are a few 3rd party NAS devices that came out relatively recently (that includes your Lacie NAS) that claim to support TM backups. they have no blessings from apple to say such things but TM does seem to work and work quite well with such devices. for example, I don't think I've heard any complaints about problems with your Lacie NAS model as a TM drive.
so that's how things stand. AFAIK, the reason why some NASes work and others don't with TM are mostly technical and have to do with whether or not a particular NAS model implements all the features of afp that TM needs to work correctly.

Using "Enter Time machine" with Mail does not show 'restore' tab

I recently upgraded to 10.5.6 and while in Mail, I used the menu 'enter time machine' and instead of the familiar animation, the preview pane of the mail showed the message "click restore to restore your mailbox 'x'" BUT THERE WAS NO restore tab!
I only had my original desktop background with the Mail preview panel in the center.
I took a screen shot but don't see a way to attach images like on other boards.
In all other applications, 'enter time machine' would switch me to finder and go through that great time machine animation with the 'restore''now' and 'cancel' tabs at the bottom.
Anyone know why this has happened?

Hi Barry,
Sorry to confuse anyone. What I meant was that with Mail.app in front or focus, if I click on the TM icon in the dock OR if I use the menu bar TM icon and from the pull down if I choose 'enter time machine' Then all that happens is the Mail window shrinks a bit, the dock disappears, in the Mail window, in the preview panel there is a grey message saying 'click restore if you want to recover your inbox' if I highlight another folder or mailbox I created it says 'click to restore that mailbox'
But there is no "RESTORE" to click anywhere. I can see my desktop background and the icons of files on my desktop. It looks as if Mail window shrunk a bit onto my desktop with no dock. Hope that gives you an idea.
With any other application as focus, when I click on TM icon in dock or the drop down menu from menu bar, it switches to finder, then goes through that breathtaking animation of the whole desktop dropping down and the finder window trailing into infinity.

Entering Time Machine From Mail Gives Photoshop Error!

Hello everybody,
This is a very strange one: If I enter Time Machine when Mail is in front, and if Photoshop is opened, I always get this error from Photoshop: "Could not complete your request because of a program error."
What happens is this:
• I choose the Enter Time Machine command (Entrer dans Time Machine in French, in fact).
• I hear a beep, but the computer goes right into Time Machine, without a hitch.
• I can do anything I want in TM.
• After that, when I activate Photoshop, I see the Photoshop error dialog. I close this dialog and Photoshop works perfectly well.
This happens whether a file is opened in Photoshop or not. It does not happen when Photoshop is in front, +*it happens only when Mail is in front*+.
I am puzzled...
RTP

Hi joshz,
Thanks for jumping in. Well, this is most surprising. There is no record of any error caused by this, no reference to this one way or the other, no error of any kind... I searched with different keywords, Adobe, Photoshop, Time Machine, TM, Mail, to no avail. Anyway it's easy as I can reproduce this error dialog at will: With Mail in front, I enter TM, hear the beep coming from Photoshop (!!!), get out of TM and there it is in Photoshop.
Then I look into the console. An error reported by this event should be the last one and dated correctly, right? Well, there is nothing new.
What literally baffles me is the fact that this happens only when Mail is the active application when I enter TM. I tried every other combination to no avail.
Other info about memory in my answer to orangekay.
I must say that it was very thoughtful of you to translate your post in French. I do appreciate the courtesy. And yes, your French is certainly acceptable, taking into account that it is not your mother tongue and that you probably do not use it very often. The reason why I mentioned the command name in French is that I was not sure of the exact name in English as my OS is in French. OK, I speak it with what my Hoosier friends call "an accent". But then I tell them... "Look who's talking!"
Roger, From Up North

Time machine and mail box

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for