Time Machine not restoring Mail Inboxes

I switched over to Mail from Entourage when I got Leopard. I installed the 10.5.1 patch last night and Mail then gave me a message that my junk folder was corrupt then crashed. I restarted, ran disk utility, and now two of my inboxes are empty. I ran Time Machine and it can see the inboxes and says hit "restore" to get them back, but the restore button is grayed out and I'm stuck seeing the emails but having no way to retrieve them. This is one major exercise in frustration and I'm ready to go back to Entourage, as I never had disappearing inboxes with it. Andbody know of any other way to get these inboxes back?

Now all my inboxes are empty. it appears Leopard 10.5.1 created more bugs in mail than it fixes. Thanks Apple! As for corruption, it worked fine before the update and the mailboxes were empty after the update. Also, what seemed to prompt the problem was the undeletable emails I'm now seeing other people report on the discussion boards. Looks like I may be heading back to Entourage. I like the idea of the scrolling over numbers and addresses to add them to the address book, but how about you make the actual email program work first!

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Time machine not restoring MacBook Pro to original (pre-Mavericks) state??

I installed Mavericks, but don't like it so want to use Time Machine to restore my computer to a version before Mavericks. When I select Restore, though, it just added files to my desktop. How do I get it to Restore to pre-Mavericks??

Pondini passed away recently, but obviously his legacy lives on. You are going to need to use the command line to inherit the backup so it is recognized. Follow the instructions below. RIP Pondini.
Time Machine - Troubleshooting B6. "Reconnecting" to your backups

Time machine not restoring email file

Using Mountain Lion on MacbookPro. When I try to restore en email, I go through the procedure and hit restore on the selected email in the selected TM backup. TIme Machine reverts to the current Mail as usual but does not create the restored email. Mail screen says Mailbox Not Selected. There is no time machine folder in On My Mac and no recovered files subfolder under that. On my older MacbookPro Time Machine created these and the recovered file shows up there.
Any suggestions?
Thanks

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.

Time Machine not restoring - HELP!

I had a 500Gb external drive with a majority of my data die on Christmas. No problem I figured, I have a current Time Machine backup I can restore from to a new drive. So I go into Time Machine and start the restore - about 10% of the way through a 5 hour restore it tells me it has encountered a corrupt file and cannot continue. (Why can't it just SKIP the corrupt file, continue, and tell me what files were corrupt and it had to skip at the end of the process??!! That would be too easy.) Anyway, that's not even my problem. So I figure I'll go in and manually restore items a few at a time to track down the corrupt file. HOWEVER, when I re-entered Time Machine the drive name that I was restoring no longer shows up! On any date going back 4 months! It was just there yesterday when I tried the original restore. Now its gone. So now I'm afraid I have no backup and all data is lost. Where did it go? ANY SUGGESTIONS!!!! Thank you!

donhertz wrote:
Any thoughts on forcing it to skip a corrupt file on restore so I don't have to manually restore all the files?
Try repairing the backups, per #A5 in [Time Machine - Troubleshooting|http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/Troubleshooting.html] (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of the +Time Machine+ forum).

Time machine not restoring contact!

Some contact phone numbers were accidentally deleted. So, I go to one of them, then click the time machine button in the dock. Time machine comes up, so I browse back until that contact's phone number reappears. I click restore, and it restores. The phone number doesn't come through though.
So, repeat the process and review duplicate. When I do, the phone number isn't listed in the update. Even if I tell it to keep both, the new/old one are identical and do not have the phone number. I can see the phone number in the time machine backup -- right there on the screen, but clicking restore doesn't bring any old info that's different than what I already have in the current contact.
What am I missing?

avanrotciv wrote:
P.S: I chose to do a clean install because I had too much trash and broken programs all over my system.
That's likely the problem. Backing-up damaged or corrupted data won't magically fix it!
I tried the normal upgrade without erasing the disk but unfortunately most of the trash was still there, so I had to star over from a clean disk.
Try repairing the backups, per #A5 in [Time Machine - Troubleshooting|http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/Troubleshooting.html] (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum). Depending on exactly what's wrong, that might help.

Time Machine not restoring Microsoft Office.

Hello there,
My hard drive recently failed completely. Luckily, I was still covered under Apple Care and was able to get it replaced for free, and I had also just backed up all my data. The problem I am having now is that since I've transferred all of my data from my old hard drive onto my new one using Time Machine I am no longer able to access my Microsoft Office applications. There are just question marks in my dock now where these icons used to be. Why am I not able to transfer these over? Is is a Microsoft permissions issue? I was able to transfer them over when I bought a new iMac and just duplicated my user account, but it's not working on my MacBook Pro now.
Any help would be most appreciated!
Thanks.

I don't have the original discs, otherwise I would just reinstall. The confusing part is why all my apps transferred to my new iMac but not when I transferred everything over to my new laptop hard drive. Perhaps the volume copy I selected was corrupted because I backed it up when my hard drive was making weird noises and failing?

Time machine not restoring

I just got a new iMac to replace my older 2011 model and the old one used time machine to back up automatically to an external hard drive so I expected I could just set up the new one no problem. When I use migration assistant, I go through the steps to transfer from a time machine backup from a hard disk but when I get to the "select your system" screen where it would normally present me with options to choose from, the loading circle just spins forever with the message "looking for other computers" nothing comes up, it just keeps spinning. I've also tried directly connecting the two macs together and running the import from another mac option but the same thing happened. The drive will mount on the desktop and I can open it in finder and see the backup files in it, but it just won't come up in migration assistant. Any suggestions? Both computers are running 10.8.4

After transferring the data, do as follows.
This simple procedure will clear your Time Machine settings, including exclusions. The backups won't be affected. If you have a long exclusion list that can't be recreated easily, you may prefer a more complicated procedure that preserves the exclusion list. In that case, ask for instructions. Otherwise, do as follows.
Triple-click the line below on this page to select it:
/Library/Preferences/com.apple.TimeMachine.plist
Right-click or control-click the highlighted line and select
Services ▹ Reveal
from the contextual menu. A Finder window should open with a file selected. Copy the file to the Desktop. Then move it (the original, not the copy) to the Trash. You'll be prompted for your administrator password. Reboot and recreate your settings in the Time Machine preference pane. It will show that you have no backups. Don't worry; that's expected. Run a backup to test. The backup may take much longer than usual. If TM now performs as expected, delete the file you copied to the Desktop.

When using Time Machine in Mac Mail, everything works fine but restored files do not appear in MM - On My Mac, and I cannot find them anywhere. Thanks

Time Machine Problem: Mac Mail. Cannot Find Restored Files in Mac Sidebar where they are supposed to go.
I am using Mountain Lion on my MacBook. I have successfully used Time Machine in the past, but I have incurred the following problem that I am requesting help on.
I am attempting to recover Sent and Inbox Mac Mail sent. I go through all the steps properly and locating what I want to recover, and after hitting Restore everything seems to be working and I get a message "Restoring 207 files". The guides say that then I am supposed to find the files in Mac Mail sidebar under ON MY MAC. But they are not there nor anywhere else I have looked. In other words, everything appears to be working fine except I cannot find the restored files.
Thank you for you help.
Jerry

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 selectRestore ... 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.

When using Time Machine to restore some Mac Mails, after clicking restore, a message shows "restoring 480 mesages. They are supposed to appear on Mac Mail sidebar in a special folder. They are not there and I have no idea where they are? Would apprecia

I am having a problem with the Time Machine in restoring Mac Mail back to a certain date. Everything works fine, with Mac Mail the active application and entering Time Machine, and I have found the mail file after the location process is done, then I hit Restore and there is a messages "restoring 480 messages", but I cannot locate them anywhere. What is suppose to happen is that a special file should appear in the sidebar of Mac Mail in the section On My Mac. Any suggestion would be appreciated.
I use Mountain Lion.

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 selectRestore ... 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.

My iPhoto app was digressed back to 9.5, not sure how I did it. I then went to time machine and restored it. Now when i try to open it, I get a message that iPhoto is on a disk and locked tells me that I don't have permisson to unlock it. Help ?

My iPhoto app was digressed back to 9.5, not sure how I did it. I went to time machine and restored. Now it wont accept my password. tells me it is locked. Can anyone help me?

Run Repair Permissions in Disk Utility and see if that helps.
If not, you can select the iPhoto Library in your Pictures folder, go File > Get Info (or Command-i), go to the bottom of the info window and set your permissions to Read & Write. On the Action menu at the bottom (the one with the gear) choose Apply to enclosed items...

TS3423 Mac book pro stops responding after Maverick OS restart. Currently have a circle with a line through it after 20+ hours. Tried to shut it down and use the Time Machine to restore but no response. How can I restore with Time Machine if it will not s

Mac book pro stops responding after Maverick OS restart. Currently have a circle with a line through it after 20+ hours. Tried to shut it down and use the Time Machine to restore but no response. How can I restore with Time Machine if it will not start?

sonjadg,
you can purchase a replacement pair of grey installation DVDs for your MacBook Pro from either Apple or iFixit. If Startup Manager is only showing an OS X Installer volume, then it sounds like the Mavericks installer had a problem midway through its installation process. To fix this, you’re going to need to erase your internal disk and reïnstall your original version of OS X from the grey Mac OS X Install DVD, use Software Update to get it back to 10.6.8 (presuming that your MacBook Pro originally came with Snow Leopard), and then restore from Time Machine.

I recently took my imac in for a recall on the hard drive, they replaced my hard drive, i used time machine to restore all my files. Now when I turn time machine on it says back up failed not enough space, it is not overwriting old back ups.

I recently took my imac in for a recall on the hard drive, they replaced my hard drive, i used time machine to restore all my files. Now when I turn time machine on it says back up failed not enough space, it is not overwriting old back ups. Why? Please help

http://pondini.org/TM/FAQ.html

Backup contents not showing during Time Machine system restore

I just installed a new hard drive on my Macbook Pro so I'm trying to restore a backup of my old hard drive that was saved on a USB-connected external drive (model: LaCie Minimus). However, when I try to transfer the information during system setup, my backup is not showing as part of the external drive's contents. Only the backup information of two other computers are showing up, but not mine (my computer is called 'Hannah Mercader's Macbook Pro'):
However, if I plug the external drive into another laptop to view its contents, my computer's backup information is clearly in the external drive:
I am positive that I have been backing up my laptop properly using Time Machine. However, the last time that I did try backing up my laptop, it didn't work because my hard drive had failed in the middle of the process (hence the reason for needing to install a new hard drive). I've already tried to Repair the external drive using Disk Utility... everything seems OK but my backups still aren't showing when I try to set up my laptop.
Please help me to restore my last proper backup's contents!

Most likely, some folders were excluded from your backups as the result of a failed or aborted software installation.
Starting from a clean installation of OS X, set up a new administrator account and log in. Enter Time Machine and press the key combination shift-command-C. The front window will show all mounted volumes. All snapshots should now be accessible.* Select the one you want and navigate to your home folder (in the Users folder at the top level of the old startup volume.)
You should now be able to restore your user data. I suggest you do this in two stages. Quit all applications except the Finder before you begin.
Restore all the visible items at the top level of your home folder.
Hold down the option key and select Go ▹ Library from the Finder menu bar. Enter Time Machine and restore all items in the Library folder. Log out and log back in as soon as the restore is complete.
Any other invisible folders or files at the top level of your home folder that you want to preserve will have to be restored separately. For most users, that isn't necessary.
You'll have to reinstall all third-party applications from scratch, or restore them from another kind of backup, if you have one.
You'll have another problem if this is a new computer, or if you erased the startup volume: The next time you back up, Time Machine won't recognize any files as being the same as they were before, and will make a full copy of all files. There might not be enough space on one or more of your backup volumes for that. There are different ways of dealing with that situation, depending on your needs. The easiest way is to set your backup drives aside, if possible, until you're sure you'll no longer need the data on them, then erase them and start over. Meanwhile start a new backup on one or more empty storage devices. If that solution isn't workable for you, ask for instructions.
*If you don't see any snapshots in Time Machine, exit the time-travel view and then hold down the option key while selecting
Browse Other Backup Disks...
from the Time Machine menu, which has an icon that looks like a clock running backwards. Select the backups of your computer by its previous name. If you don't have the Time Machine menu, open the Time Machine preference pane in System Preferences and check the box marked
Show Time Machine in menu bar

How to restore Mail inbox for one mail account?

I am away from home, and the inbox of one of my mail accounts on my MBP (10.7.3) has lost all its information. When I get home I want to restore (most of) the lost data from my Time Machine backup.
However, I do not want to restore all the accounts and all the mailboxes, just the one that was lost.
How to I find the Inbox for that account, in order to use the older file in Time Machine to restore it with?
DN

You just go to the mailbox in Mail that the messages are missing from and then, from there, choose Enter Time Machine from the Time Machine menu bar icon. You'll see the Time Machine interface, showing the current version of that mailbox, and you can go back in time to when the messages were still there. Then select the messages you want to restore (all of them, I'd guess) and restore them. They'll show up in a new mailbox (Recovered Messages or something? I forget exactly what it's called), and you can move them back to where you want from there.

Can I use Time Machine to retrieve mail that was in Trash on my MacBook Air, after I emptied Trash?

Can I use Time Machine to retrieve mail that was in Trash on my MacBook Air OS X Yosemite, after I Emptied that Trash?

Interesting question. I don't think you can because Time Machine would have deleted the data in subsequent backups because it was removed from the computer. But you never know about these things until you actually try it, which I've never done. So, why don't you give it a try. Worst that can happen is it's not there and you're no worse off than now.
If you need help with restoring mail from Time Machine: Please visit Pondini's Time Machine FAQ for help with all things Time Machine. Also open Mail and select Mail Help from Mail's help menu. Search for 'restore mail' and see if you don't find some instructions there, too.

Time Machine not restoring Mail Inboxes

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