TS4002 Restore Mail folders (time machine) on 10.8.2 (there is NO ~/library/Mail file)

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Not provicient on the Mac, recently made the move from Windows.

Harryost wrote:
Okay, after my iMac hard drive was replaced (needed to upgrade to mountain lion). Time machine was restarted after restoring my files. (Think I should have used migration assistant). The prior dates 11/13/2012 (last date before my hard drive was replaced and a full backup) are grayed out.
Depending on how you restored your files, the new drive may be treated as a different one (even if it has the same name).   If so, the backups were made from a drive that's no longer available.
If so, you should be able to see the backups of the old drive via the procedure in #E3 of Time Machine - Troubleshooting.
If you'd done a full system restore or used Setup Assistant or Migration Assistant to put your stuff back from your backups, Time Machine should have treated the old backups as if they were made from the new drive.  Since that apparently didn't happen, you should be able to do it manually, via #B6 in the same link.   It's a bit techie and tedious, unfortunately, but you should be able to tell it to "associate" the old backups with the new drive.

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    Welcome to the Apple Support Communities
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    Restoring Your Emails from a Time Machine Backup
    Warning: If you have already setup Apple Mail with your accounts and preferences, this will negate ALL your doings.
    Note: This process will restore all your email accounts, preferences, passwords, smart mailboxes, etc.
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    Before loading Time Machine, open the Finder and navigate to Home Folder (username) -> Library. In there will be a folder name “Mail”. Rename it to “Mail (default)” (Select the folder then hit the Return key to rename).
    Mount your Time Machine Backup Drive (ahem, plug it in).
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    Go back to your most recent backup (2nd window back) and navigate to Home Folder (username) -> Library. Select the “Mail” folder and click the restore button (bottom right).
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    That’s it!UPDATE (20-January-2009): After step 4., also restore ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.mail.plistThanks Jon C.
    If you have multiple mail accounts, you should also restore the ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.mail.plist file as well. This will ensure all of your account settings are imported. – Jon C.
    Follow me on Twitter here.
    40 Comments
    Chucho
    May 13th, 2008 at 11:11 amThanks it’s a great hint, you should post it in macosxhints.com
    Westin
    May 19th, 2008 at 3:28 amAwesome content and great instructions even for stupid people like me. Thank you so much for posting this. It worked like a charm and really is appreciated at 2:30 a.m. after hours of reinstalling junk.
    Slippery Snake
    June 23rd, 2008 at 9:15 amThis worked. However, I had three email accounts, and it only imported one. My Smart Mailboxes were not imported either.
    Jon C
    July 30th, 2008 at 2:50 pmIf you have multiple mail accounts, you should also restore the ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.mail.plist file as well. This will ensure all of your account settings are imported.
    Joseph Hurtado
    August 26th, 2008 at 11:23 amRaffy,This tip is worth it’s weight in gold! Thanks so much for posting such a well though out recipe for a Mail Rescue operation.Just put Jon’s advice on the article, that is also very valuable!Take care,Joseph Hurtado
    from Toronto
    Cory
    December 3rd, 2008 at 9:25 amYou saved my life! Thanks!
    Drew
    January 19th, 2009 at 12:08 amCheers Great tip! Thank you very much for your time!
    Lizart
    May 23rd, 2012 at 2:00 pmStill working in May of 2012! Thanks so much!
    source
    May 29th, 2012 at 11:11 amIm getting a teeny problem. I cant get my reader to pick up your feed, Im using bing reader by the way.
    Bruno Zysman
    May 31st, 2012 at 4:56 pmThanks so much for this tips
    I could get back my 170 000 mails in 5 hours thanks to this post, after having tried for few hours without success…Bruno

    Don't try to restore the file; restore the Note. Go in Mail to the mailbox where the note belongs. Enter Time Machine from there and step back until you find the Note.

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