Using Time Machine to find old e-mail?
Just wondering if I can use Time Machine to retrieve older e-mails that I deleted. I use Firefox and Hotmail (aka Outlook). The e-mails I want are no longer found in my "Deleted" folder.
I went back in the Time Machine to the approximate date in question, but could not figure out what to do from there. Thanks.
The idea is that, although emails sent to you are initially stored on your email provider's servers, some "email client" programs (eg Mail) will download copies (so they can eg let you read old emails while you're not connected to the internet) - and just because you've delete emails from Hotmail's servers, doesn't mean they've been deleted from the stores of any email clients you might've used!
If you've never used Mail with your Hotmail account, then we can eliminate that as an option - if it's never had a chance to download these emails, then we can be sure it doesn't hold copies now. But have you ever looked at the emails outside of a web browser? For example, have you ever had a phone set up to view emails?
If you've never used a non-web-based email client, then I'm afraid you're likely out of luck. Contacting Hotmail's support staff may yield results but I wouldn't bet on it.
Similar Messages
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I have a new macbook air, and want to transfer all my data using time machine from my old macbook running leopard, is this possible and easy and will it transfer all my musc and photos?
The Setup Assistant can restore your data from a Time Machine backup. You'll be asked if you want to do this the first time you turn the computer on.
(60797) -
TS3161 how to use time machine to reconstitute old iPhoto library
In moving photos in other files to the Pictures Folder, I somehow changed the iPhoto Library. How do I use Time Machine to put the iPhoto Library back in the right place with the picture data for iPhoto prior the the additions to the Picture folder.
Open Home/Folder/Pictures/iPhoto
Click the Time Machine icon in the toolbar and enter...
Go back in time and click restore... -
Can you use Time Machine to find Web sites?
I am hoping I can use Time Machine can get me into a website I visited last month. This website (a museum website in China) is now blocked due to a 403 error. Any ideas on how to do this would be appreciated.
MMHHello Marcia:
I thought about your question for awhile (intriguing).
Anyway, something you might try.
Go to your home folder ~library>safari. Highlight the history plist. Restore it from a TM backup that predates your visit. For good measure (although I do no know what it does, I would restore a file called historyindex.sk.
That may or may not work, but it is worth a shot.
As always, be sure you have a backup before you do anything that is software-related.
Barry -
How use Time Machine to restore/transfer all mail folders, accounts, mail s
I did an erase of my HD & a new install of Snow Leopard. Had Leopard OS X 10.8 b4 (corrupted SBBD, freezes had to use Disk Warrior to fix file structure)
I tried Archive & Install 1st - but it failed. The plan was to fix Leopard 10.8 & once fixed update to Snow Leopard. “The Installer was unable to import your user directory from the previous system. You will need to create a new account.”
In any event now I sit with a fresh copy of Snow Leopard installed. I was unable to get Migration Assistant to see my Time Machine volume sitting on my new desktop & new Finder! I selected transfer data from TM or other external volume yet, only my Mac HD showed up. I wasted more time trying to get into time machine via Time Machine preferences. It kept wanting to back up my new system with a box that said tell me when erase old backups! I wasn't about to allow TM to back up new system till I selectively moved my stuff. I finally just opened the External TM volume & browsed & dragged my Documents, & other easy to move files to my New system.
I only discovered today that I could have right or control clicked TM & actually enter it. I still have it stopped from doing any backups so it is grayed out in the menu bar.
So I am NOT looking to transfer my Home folder or my old system (corruption danger).
I am slowly reinstalling all the apps I can find or have disks.
I am really hoping I need not do the mail in multiple steps by finding the Inbox in my last TM & restoring that & then on to Sent, etc.
So, I have yet to open the Mail in Snow Leopard which will be empty & want a way to restore my Leopard version of mail complete with everything from my TM backup. If I disconnect from the Internet b4 I launch restore mail & then connect hopefully all the new mail will be added to Inbox along with restored & I won’t need to manually drag anything.
Also, to restore an app can I just find the app in Apps folder & click restore? I only have a few I want to do that way such as the old version of iMovie HD 6 which is no longer available from Apple. (Yes, I still want both my ’08 version I bought & the older version sitting on My TM backup)
Thanks much!Hello Doug:
It should be pretty easy.
Open the Address Book. Click on the Time Machine icon. You will see a cascading address book display. Use the bar on the side to go back in time. When you have one before the problem, click restore.
Barry -
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. -
This morning, I upgraded to Snow Leopard from v10.5.8. Then, I exported 11 contacts from our old Now Contact database, intending to import that info into Address Book. It was an experiment, as we have 1199 contacts in 20+ categories and want to eventually get them into Bento from Address Book. The export automatically created a file called Export.vcf on the desktop, after I highlighted the 11 contacts. I tried to look at the info, but when clicked it opens Address Book, which then simply asked if I wanted to import the 11 contacts to it. I clicked yes. Then in checking Address Book 7, not 11 contacts appeared. I clicked on "All Contacts" and there were 1630. We only have 1199, so where did the extra 400+ come from? Since I had already clicked twice on the Address Book window, I couldn't undo the import. So I thought 'Ok, I'll trash Address Book and go to Time Machine, find Address Book, go to right after the upgrade to SL, hit Restore and bingo. Nope. I keep getting the post-import info, not pre. Con someone direct me to a solution? I want to get rid of the import contacts plus the extra 300 or so ( I already had a hundred or so in several categories)? Then, I need to figure out (1) why ALL the old records were exported from Now Contact, (2) where they were hiding in that .vcf file when Address Book recognized that I only wanted to export 11, (3) why Address Book showed only 7 imports in the "Last Import" group, but showed ALL my contacts in the "All Contact" group, even though they should nearly all have been safely untouched in the Now Contact DBase file. PS, I am not especially computer savvy. Thanks for any enlightenment.
Booting From Snow Leopard Installer Disc
1. Insert Snow Leopard Installer Disc into the optical drive.
2. Restart the computer.
3. Immediately after the chime press and hold down the "C" key.
4. Release the key when the spinning gear below the dark gray Apple logo appears.
5. Wait for installer to finish loading.
Drive Preparation and Installation
1. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Utilities menu.
2. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Note the SMART status of the drive in DU's status area. If it does not say "Verified" then the drive is failing or has failed and will need replacing. SMART info will not be reported on external drives. Otherwise, click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
3. Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to one. Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID then click on the OK button. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed.
4. Select the volume you just created (this is the sub-entry under the drive entry) from the left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.
5. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Security button, check the button for Zero Data and click on OK to return to the Erase window.
6. Click on the Erase button. The format process can take up to several hours depending upon the drive size.
7. After formatting is complete quit DU and return to the installer. Install Snow Leopard. -
Installing a new harddrive and using time machine to restore old files
I want to replace the old 250 gig harddrive on my Macbook pro with a new 750 gig one I just purchased. I have made backups with time machine and have heard that after you install Snow leopard on the new drive you can just create your old computer with all the files back in place with the time machine backup you made from the previous drive. Im sure plenty of you have done this I am just wondering how it went and some tips of how to not mess this up. One question I have is do I need to do all the Snow Leopard updates for the system (I think my disc is 10.6.4) , or iTunes,quicktime etc, or will that all be resolved with the time machine restore. Same goes with iLife, should I install iLife first or will that come over with the time machine restore. I think im thinking into this too much but just not sure how this all works. Thanks for your help!
Prepare your new drive:
Drive Preparation
1. Boot from your Snow Leopard Installer Disc. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Utilities menu.
2. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Note the SMART status of the drive in DU's status area. If it does not say "Verified" then the drive is failing or has failed and will need replacing. SMART info will not be reported on external drives. Otherwise, click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
3. Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to one. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID (for Intel Macs) or APM (for PPC Macs) then click on the OK button. Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed.
4. Select the volume you just created (this is the sub-entry under the drive entry) from the left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.
5. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, check the button for Zero Data and click on OK to return to the Erase window.
6. Click on the Erase button. The format process can take up to several hours depending upon the drive size.
7. When completed quit DU and return to the installer. You will have an option appear to restore from a TM backup. You can select that option or you can complete the installation of OS X. Upon completion of the Setup Assistant you can opt to restore from an external drive or a TM backup.
Be sure your TM backup drive is connected and powered up. If all else fails you can always finish the installation and the reboot, then restore from your TM backup using Migration Assistant. -
Who can help me use Time Machine to find some photos from a year ago?
I need to know how to retrieve some photos from a year ago that should be stored on my ext. drive. I have Time Machine....Mac OSX 10.9.1. I have tried to do it and Time Machine tells me there is not enough room to download my old Picture Library. I don't want to download the whole liibrary. I just want to locate one event or album that contains the pictures I am seeking. Isn't there a way to open the Picture library from a year ago and select just the pictures that I want to bring back to my current IPhoto Library? I need some hlep with this. I have never tried it before.
DickThe best solution to your problem is to restore the old library to a volume on an external drive, then open it in iPhoto and export the images you want.
Enter Time Machine and select the item you want to retrieve in a snapshot. From the action menu (gear icon) in the toolbar select Restore ... to... and choose the destination you want. Then click the Restore button in the lower right corner of the display. -
How do you use time machine to find files you have deleted?
I have time machine set up with a USB drive. I have spotlight set up to index my backups.
If I go into the finder and type "order confirmation" it finds the PDF file with those words in it just fine.
If I delete that file from my desktop, it fails to find it. So then I enter Time Machine while still in the middle of the search, and press the back arrow to go back in time until spotlight can find it. It correctly goes back just one hour (my last backup had that file in it since I just deleted it) but it doesn't actually display that file.
So that's a simple test case of my having no idea how to get Spotlight and Time Machine to work together.
Am I doing it wrong?Try the Time Machine Tutorial
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Time Machine not finding old backups
I took my Macbook in for service last Thursday (12th) and i got it back yesterday (17th). Now, i have about 2 months worth of backups on a Western Digital MyBook but Time Machine can no longer find them (i'm guessing, they don't show up when i try to browse them), but they're still there on the backup disk. It's also trying to make a new "initial" backup.
Any help?
Thanks in advanceI'm having the same problem. I had Time Machine backing up to an external LaCie drive and after getting my Mac Book Pro back from the Apple Store it can't find the backups. The logic board was replaced, but other than that everything was as I left it.
I can see the backups on the drive and ran disk utility to check for problems with no issues. However, I can't continue my backups from where I left off. -
I have just started using Time Machine. I was thinking about deleting old E-Mails on my Mac to clean. Does Time Machine back up the E-Mails , if so how can I find them in Time Machine ??
If you back up your mac before deleting your emails, Time Machine should back up your e-mails.
I never tried this so i'm not sure to find them in Time Machine. To browse in your backups simply click the Time Machine icon in your dock. In the right bar, you can select an backup. Than you can browse in finder, in your backkup.
EDIT: Just browsed and CT above was right. This topic might help you:
https://discussions.apple.com/message/20154303#20154303 -
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.
JerryAlthough 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. -
I have a new macbook pro and want to transfer my Mail autofill from my old mac. Never used Time Machine or Migration Assistant -- looks complicated. Any easy way to do this?
caitlinfromcambridge wrote:
Thanks -- I would like to try this. I do not know how to reach hard drive from old mac to new. Can you help me with this?
There are two ways - you can boot your old Mac in Target Mode (reboot your Mac, and as soon as you hear the startup chime hold down the T key on the keyboard until you see the yellow/orange Firewire logo on screen). You can then use a FireWire cable to connect your new mac to your old one. The old Mac hard drive will appear on your new Mac as if it is an external hard drive.
Details on Target Disk Mode: http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1661
If you don't have a firewire cable but you do have a home network (i.e. both computers can access the Internet at the same time), you can share the hard drive on your old Mac and then connect to it on your new Mac.
Good article on sharing your hard drive: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1549
Finally, if the above doesn't thrill you, you can hook an external drive to your old Mac, copy the mail folder over to it, then connect the external drive to your new Mac and copy it over. It's two steps, but if you don't have a firewire cable and aren't comfortable with sharing over a network it will work just as well - you just have to wait for the mail folder to copy twice instead of once.
If you get stuck post back! -
I recently bought a WD My Book Live to backup using Time Machine, now that I've upgraded to and my old NAS won't support Mountain Lion. The WD drive appears in the Finder, but it doesn't appear as an option when setting up the backup disc in Time Machine. Any ideas please?
" now that I've upgraded to and my old NAS won't support Mountain Lion. "
Do you have a few words missing in the original question ?.
When i upgraded from LION to MOUNTAIN LION it made NO difference at all to my MyBook Live !!!
reading the original post again and again, do you in fact have two My Book Live units, an old one and a new one ?
tim
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