Help with Apple Mail 10.9 to 10.12 update

Off-Topic
#1

When I got this machine almost 4 years ago I got a 500 GB SSD boot drive. To save space on it I put my mail folder on an external drive and created a simlink (via an app I found on the net) in the user library to point to it…

I just updated the OS from 10.9.5 to 10.12.6… But after the upgrade Mail was empty… It is ignoring the symlink… So I copied the Mail folder to the user library folder on the SSD and restarted Mail… It was still totally empty - no accounts, no mail no nothing!

Is there anyway I can fix this and at least import all my old email and account settings now?

Thanks

  • karen
#2

Were you not using IMAP?
What happens if you use File > Import Mailboxes?

#3

[quote=345125:@Tim Parnell]Were you not using IMAP?
[/quote]
No

Thanks. That got the emails in but not the mail accounts themselves.

  • karen
#4

I recall the accounts are stored in the com.apple.mail pref file.

edit: sorry, it was in an old macos. now they are stored in the “account” section of the pref panels
must find them in the preferences files, but as they are shared with notes, recall, etc, it’s no more in the mail folder.

#5

The problem is that Apple changes the storage of Mail (accounts and data) for every §$%& version. On the first startup the data is converted. After that: you are out of luck. Also the sqlite databases used for storage are mostly encrypted so that they are really useless.

#6

did you try removing the 3 “enveloppe” files in the mail folder, then open mail again ?
they are indexes they can be rebuilt by mail app.

#7