Time Machine can't restore mails prior to ML

Today I found out that I'm not able to restore any emails prior to Mountain Lion via Mail.app and Time Machine. In Finder.app and Contacts.app my backups go back all the way to May 2011 and I don't have any problems restoring files from even the first backup. In Mail however, I can only restore emails that where recieved or composed on Mountain Lion (see green box in screenshot). Although the sidebar of the TM "Star Wars" view in Mail.app shows all my backups, I cannot access anything that was created under Lion (the red box in the screenshot).
Anybody experiencing this too? What could be the cause? Any possible fix?
And of course I already searched http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html but I couldn't find this kind of issue there.
Thanks for your help in advance and Regards,
Werner

Hello all,
I am happy to inform you that in the end I found a workaround:
1) Make sure you enable "show path bar" in the view menu of the finder.
2) Select the applications folder in the finder and then launch Time Machine
3) When you are in the Time Machine galaxy go to the search bar in the Finder and try to search for a random email you sent before your last back-up.
4) The tricky part is that the first time you type in some text it will not perform any search. Delete the text with the backspace and repeat the text. Now it will perform the search.
5) In the results you should now be able to find an email.
6) Now go to the path bar at the bottom of the finder and move along the path until you see the the Mail folder and select it.
7) Press the restore button in Time Machine and your Mail is recovered!
I don't know if the following had any influence, but maybe you should make the hidden home/library folder visible first. I already did this before I took the steps above.
It was a tip I found on the Macworld forum
Dan Frakes wrote:
"Change the hidden flag using Terminal
Launch Terminal from within your own account, type chflags nohidden ~/Library, and press Return. Your Library folder is now permanently visible. To make the folder invisible again, use the command chflags hidden ~/Library."
Good luck!

Similar Messages

  • Mountain lion's Time machine can't restore iphoto,

    I'd backup overall system via time machine to timecapsule, including iphoto, when I start up time machine to restore some files, as finder ,mail,calendar,they are fine without any problem, But when I launch iphoto then startup time machine, the window of time machine will switch to finder , I can't restore the picture from iPhoto,But I remeber in Snow Leopard, this is fine,Is ML bug?

    Welcome to Apple Communities
    Open Finder, select Pictures and go to Time Machine. Restore the iPhoto Library

  • My Time Machine can only restore individual files or empty folders

    Having upgraded to Snow Leopard, I find that when trying to restore a folder of files from my Time Machine HD one of two things happen: either it copies the folder but not the files within it, or it says I don't have the permissions to copy the folder, and then copies the folder anyway - albeit without its contents. If I restore an individual file, I have no problems - but this is hardly going to provide the security promised by Time Machine if I need to restore a project of files saved in a nest of folders, or worse still restore an entire HD.
    I have repaired disk permissions on my Mac, I can't repair permissions on my TM drive (it is greyed out in Disc Utility) and so have erased my TM drive and done a new TM backup of my Mac under Snow Leopard hoping this would solve the problem...
    It hasn't! Any suggestions?
    I can however connect my G4 Powerbook running Leopard on my WiFi network to the TM drive, and restore folders to it as normal which suggests the issue is to do with the Snow Leopard upgrade...
    Jog!

    I solved my TM-Problem:
    The problem was based on incorrect permission and owner settings in my user folder.
    I created a new user and copied the files from the corrupt user folder to the new user folder and corrected the permissions and owner settings.
    More information here:
    http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2963?viewlocale=en_US
    Seems that there is a more simple an efficient method:
    "Note: In Mac OS X 10.5 and later, while started up ("booted") from the Mac OS X 10.5 installation disc, a user's home directory permissions can be reset using the Reset Password utility."
    Message was edited by: brachi

  • Back up of Macbook Pro OSX 10.6.8 with Time Machine can i restore on a new Pro bought with Lion?

    I'm Backing up my Pro with time capsule
    I wont have access to any mac machine for the next moth where I will buy a new Pro hopefully this will come installed with Lion.
    Can i Restore from this back up across the different platforms?

    Apple has always provided an easy, automated way to do that, and there's no indication they won't with Lion.
    See How do I set up a new Mac from my old Mac or its backups?  The link to Using Setup Assistant on Lion won't be posted until Lion is released, but it will likely be similar to the one for Snow Leopard.

  • If I have an imac backup on Time machine can I restore to a laptop?

    I'm having an older macbook pro fixed and it's getting a new HD.... I was wondering if I could use my external HD I normally use with my imac to "restore" all info I have on the imac to the laptop?

    You should be able to use Migration Assistant on the MacBook Pro, and then, use the "Restore Time Machine or other disk" option to restore your iMac's Time Machine backup to the MBP.

  • Time Machine- Can I restore to a different Mac?

    Hi,
    I had two macs. A Macbook Pro and an iMac. Recently my iMac was destroyed in a flood, and I am not going to replace it.
    Both of my mac's backed up to the same Time Capsule and the iMac was my main storage place for my aperture library...
    I don't care about anything else on that computer, but I need to get into that aperture library...
    Help!
    Can I restore it from the back up of my iMac? Is there a way to browse files from my Macbook Pro? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

    Yes, you can restore to a different location from a different Mac.. look at the info pondini gave here.
    Q14-17 http://pondini.org/TM/FAQ.html

  • Time Machine on Mavericks: restore file doesn't work

    I've successfully located a file I need to restore from Time Machine backup by doing a Finder search for the filename (something.graffle, an OmniGraffle document), and when 0 items are found, I "Enter Time Machine..." and use the back arrow or click on a date some months ago. This process finds two copies of something.graffle, and I can select these and Copy them, or I can select them and click Restore. Neither, however, works. When I try Copy, then Cancel out of Time Machine, there is nothing to Paste. When I try Restore, the image of the item glides to the present-day folder and is present for a moment in the present-day Finder window after Time Machine closes, but it instantly disappears, and Find once again cannot find it.
    My Time Machine backup is on an external disk connected by Firewire.
    I found some other threads mentioning a bug with dual displays, so I already tried disconnecting my external displays--it didn't help. Seems to be a different problem.
    Any ideas?

    I solved this problem, which also appears on this thread: time machine can't restore files
    The solution, for me, was to open the folder that I thought probably had the file. I knew it was probably in one of my two ~/Documents/OmniPresence folders, and in fact it was in a sub-sub-folder of OmniPresence, i.e. ~/Documents/OmniPresence/workfiles/stencils/something.graffle. This time doing the search produced 0 items, I entered Time Machine, went back to the earlier date where I'd seen it before but been unable to restore, and again Time Machine showed me two copies of the file. But this time, the files had their proper OmniGraffle document icons, and the context menus showed Restore options that hadn't been present earlier. I used Restore this file to… and successfully brought it into my presentday OmniPresence folder. From there I moved it into the workfiles/ subfolder where it belonged.
    I hope this helps others.

  • After installing Mavericks my Business Mail folder disappeared and Time Machine can't seem to restore it with everything in it. How can I fix this?

    Time Machine doesn't restore my Business Folder in Mail, which is empty after I installed Mavericks. It will restore just the folder but nothing in it. What am I doing wrong? Also, Time Machine doesn't go back more than about a year. I thought it would do better than that.

    Michael - Thanks! I used my wife's iBook, and it did indeed allow me to restore it there.
    Unfortunately, now when I plug my nano into my Cube, it is still telling me that some of the tunes don't copy onto my iPod (in fact, none of them do) because I don't have the current software, and to install the latest by going to apple.com, blah, blah, blah.
    I DO indeed have the latest software and both iTunes and my Cube recognize the nano. I just can't get it to copy them onto it.
    Does anyone have an idea as to what I can do to actually get MUSIC to play ut of this thing! I've had it for a week and a half, and something as simple as getting tunes to load onto it is proving to be the hardest process ever! Arggghhhh!
    The only thing I could think of - and this was late last night, was tha looking at the specs of iTunes 5.0.1, is that it requires a 500MHz processor - and my Cube only has a 450 MHz PowerPC G4 processor - Can anyone tell me if this is the 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  ????

    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)

  • Time Machine did not restore a lot of my old mail??

    Hi,
    Time machine did not restore all of my mail? I have two mailboxes in mail- comcast and cana.
    I got all my messages from comcast but not cana. Does anybody know why it did not restore the messages in cana?
    Thanks

    When you open the mail app in an account you can work with Time Machine in the mailboxes for that account. To deal with the mailboxes for another account you need to go out of Time Machine, make the other account active and go back in.

  • I have reinstalled snow leopard 10.6.8 and want to restore my i photos from time machine. can not find iphoto libary in time machine, can"t not find home-pict. iphoto lib.  in time machine

    i have reinstalled snow leopard 10.6.8,  and want to restore my i photos from time machine. Can not find i-photo libary in time machine, can't not find > home-pict. iphoto lib.  in time machine. Please help.

    On my HD it does not say ,restore, in yourname -pict. Iphoto lib.,
    On the time machine, it , yourname etc, oes not show up at all.
    Only right side of TM, your name etc. does not show.

  • Status report time machine backup by e-mail

    Hello,
    i'm using Leopard server (workgroup mode) and want to know if there is a way to get a time machine backup status report by e-mail
    It's important for us to know every day if time machine was able to backup ok or if there are problems.
    thanks for suggestions
    Marco

    Although you can restore messages from a Time Machine snapshot within the Mail application, it generally won't work with messages that were saved by an older version of Mail. In that case, you have to use an alternative method.
    Triple-click the line below to select it:
    ~/Library/Mail/V2
    Right-click or control-click the highlighted line and select
    Services ▹ Reveal
    from the contextual menu.* A Finder window should open with a folder selected. Inside that folder are subfolders representing your Mail accounts. The names refer to the email addresses you use. Decide which ones you want to restore messages from.
    Enter Time Machine and scroll back to the snapshot you want. Select the account folders you want and then select  Restore ... to... from the action menu (gear icon) in the toolbar of the snapshot window. Restore the folders to the Desktop, not to their original location.
    From the Mail menu bar, select
    File ▹ Import Mailboxes...
    Import from the mailboxes in the folders you restored to the Desktop. The imported messages will appear in a new mailbox. Move the ones you want to keep wherever you like and delete the rest. Then delete the folders on the Desktop.
    *If you don't see the contextual menu item, copy the selected text to the Clipboard (command-C). In the Finder, select
    Go ▹ Go to Folder...
    from the menu bar, paste into the box that opens (command-V). You won't see what you pasted because a line break is included. Press return.

  • Time machine won't restore back to lion

    Mountain Lion is causing me big problems. My external firewire 800 hard drives will not stay mounted and my fans are running at full speed after waking from sleep. Restarting fixes these problems until it sleeps again. Sometimes it takes several restarts.
    So I am trying to revert back to Lion the day before I foolishly upgraded to ML and Time Machine will not allow me to restore any of my old backup prior to ML. How can I get rid of ML without loosing data and taking up tons of my time?

    Time Machine will not allow you to go back to a previous OS version, unless you are running that version. So if you are running Mountain Lion, it will only restore to ML back ups.
    Others have done what you want to, if you have a OS X LION install disc/usb. You will have to manually copy over data as you should always back up your system regardless.
    Source; Derek Currie https://discussions.apple.com/message/19105493#19105493
    "Time Machine does not provide bootable backups. Therefore, this is not the solution.
    If you bought Lion, you should be able to re-download it from the Mac App Store. (Sadly, Apple pulled the ability to actually buy Lion off the store). You should be booted to another volume other than the one you will be installing to. You may have to disable the installation on the disk you wish to move back to Lion. I'm not certain, but suspect that trashing the ML System folder would do the job. The Installer will probably notice the missing OS and allow the Lion install. If not, then you'd have to go to the root directory of that volume, make invisible files visible and trash the 'Kernel' files and try again to install Lion.
    Ideally you can use the Time Machine backup to restore just about everything else. But you may find everything works fine after the install.
    I beta tested 10.8 Mountain Lion and know that it had a couple remaining bugs upon release. That's what updates are for. I expect there will be a rapid release of 10.8.1 update via the Mac App Store. It may well be worth hanging in there with 10.8. It is most definitely an IMPROVEMENT over Lion, whose Finder bugs I absolutely hate. (But that problem may soon be solved with the 10.7.5 update coming soon).
    If you look around the net you'll find there are instructions for creating a bootable Lion installer DVD or USB thumb drive as long as you have the Lion Installer on a hard drive. Here are a couple with illustrations:
    http://osxdaily.com/2011/06/21/mac-os-x-lion-clean-install-explained/
    http://mashable.com/2011/07/20/lion-clean-install-guide/"

  • Time Machine will not restore backup files.

    trying to restore a backup to a new internal hard drive and time machine sees the  external hard drive with the backup but no folders. tried a couple of different  external hard drives and even installed new OS on the new internal drive. the original OS and the new are both Maverick and after three days of swaping drives and installing fresh installs of maverick and talking to tech support, i'm convinced the issue is in Maverick. anyone have a suggest without buying a third party package like Carbon Copy?

    I got something simular. I restored the whole TM backup and the mail messages from august '08 till 15 jan '09 didn't import. I can see them clearly sitting in Time machine but the restore button won't lit up. And I cannot go back in time cause it only ofers me the today option. What to do?
    Sakshin.

  • Time Machine and .Mac/IMAP Mail

    I decided to try out Entourage 2008 yesterday, which very quickly turned out to be more trouble than what it was worth. It did seem at least to be very good at importing/transferring my mail, including my .Mac account and my IMAP account.
    To cut a long story short, said mail disappeared from my .Mac inbox AND my IMAP inbox. Probably a user error on that point.
    No problem I thought this morning, and brought up Time Machine to recover my .Mac Email Inbox and my IMAP email inbox.
    However, for both accounts, while Time Machine would seem to recover the data, it would not provide it back into Mail. I realise that these are IMAP accounts, but I'd expect in these circumstances Time Machine would recover + push the inbox contents back across to the IMAP servers (or more specifically, trigger Mail.)
    Instead, nothing.
    I was able to recover my IMAP server Inbox thanks to NetWorker, but my .Mac mail inbox is lost as far as Mail is concerned. I can recover the files for the Mac-account folder under ~/Library/Mail, but .Mac doesn't see them. I try to do an import from the Time Machine backup region, Mail doesn't accept they're suitable files. In the end, the only option I had was to manually pull out from ~/Library/Mail/Mac-account the attachments and messages as plain text files for the INBOX. So no effective data loss, just a pain.
    Does anyone else have any experience on getting Time Machine to properly restore .Mac (and/or IMAP) messages that have been deleted on the .Mac/IMAP server?

    One last question - when i import my mail from Outlook Express into Mail, it puts the import into a section of Mail (if you look at the left hand side) titled "ON MY MAC". Are these emails subject to recovery as well?
    Yes. Unless, you have excluded something in the TM Prefs Exclusion List, virtually everything on your Mac will be backed up to the TM backup disk.
    At one point, or another, ALL of us were 'new to Macs'. So don't be sorry for asking questions, that is how ALL of us here learned as well.
    Cheers!

Maybe you are looking for

  • Messages puts a blank conversation at the top of the list

    I recently deleted an entire conversation in messages, and now that contact will occasionally  update and go to the top of the list. It has a time associated with it as if I had sent a message at that time, but the conversation is still blank. I am w

  • BDC Session In Dynpro

    Hi,            Is it possible to use BDC session to update data for TC : PA40 using webdynpro application . ...If so could you provide some example how to achive this ... Thanks, Kumar

  • Web Part Error in Sandbox solution

    Hi, I used the following code for "ADD POST IN NEWSFEED USING C#" in sandbox solution 2013.                     string serverUrl = "http://sanchit:5097/";                     string accountName = @"tafecorp\spservices";                              S

  • Export in LR5

    I have made some changes to images in LR5 but when I export after creating a different folder or even exporting to the same folder the converted image is not there to do any further work on or to view. If I search Finder on the Mac the new image is i

  • GUI: Implementing Previous-Button

    Hello! I have several SubVI's which all take effect on the content of one cluster. Now I want to build a GUI which calls all the SubVI's in an determined order. Implementing the 'Next'-Button was no problem, but I had some troubles with the 'Previous