I'll relate this as a cautionary tale for anyone who finds it helpful.
A friend of mine took to the local branch of GRAVIS in Düsseldorf her iMac 21.5" Mid 2011 to have macOS updated. The most recent backup she had was to an external Time Machine disk from about 2015 (yes, I know). She asked them to make a backup and update the OS. This is what I found when she asked me to fix the mess:
The Time Machine disk contained two backups, one timed shortly after the OS update according to the system log. The files dated from 2015. The other was a day later from when she had plugged in the disk and it had automatically done a backup. My conclusion is that GRAVIS had updated the OS and migrated files from the 2015 backup, then wiped the backup disk and started again.
During this I realised that Migration Assistant allows you to use only the latest Time Machine backup. If, like my friend, you want to migrate later and did not know to switch off automatic backups you are stuck. This is a major design error. In our case it was irrelevant as GRAVIS had trashed the files.
Now to make mail work. Despite Google's documentation, which states that this version works, I could not connect Apple Mail on High Sierra to gmail. I tried replacing the default browser with Firefox. Nothing worked. She now uses Thunderbird and that is OK. It synchronised about 18k mail messages left behind by the previous POP connection set not to delete anything. So, mails were unexpectedly rescued but no folders. Thunderbid's import fails on Apple Mail of this age, so the only option is individually to export to mbox files, rename them and import. Maybe mails this old can just be left where they are and found by search as needed.
We abandoned Safari too as it no longer works with many web sites.
Finally I had to go to Epson for drivers for the printer/scanner. That worked perfectly. Thanks to Epson.
I spent some time teaching my friend the importance of frequent backups and reassuring her that her 1TB disk will work for years with no attention from her, and that the thousands of old mails will just lie there in peace. There's plenty of quota left.
Conclusion: GRAVIS in Düsseldorf gave poor service. High Sierra works but not with the outside world. For that you need to replace the browser and mail client. The computer itself runs fast enough.
A friend of mine took to the local branch of GRAVIS in Düsseldorf her iMac 21.5" Mid 2011 to have macOS updated. The most recent backup she had was to an external Time Machine disk from about 2015 (yes, I know). She asked them to make a backup and update the OS. This is what I found when she asked me to fix the mess:
The Time Machine disk contained two backups, one timed shortly after the OS update according to the system log. The files dated from 2015. The other was a day later from when she had plugged in the disk and it had automatically done a backup. My conclusion is that GRAVIS had updated the OS and migrated files from the 2015 backup, then wiped the backup disk and started again.
During this I realised that Migration Assistant allows you to use only the latest Time Machine backup. If, like my friend, you want to migrate later and did not know to switch off automatic backups you are stuck. This is a major design error. In our case it was irrelevant as GRAVIS had trashed the files.
Now to make mail work. Despite Google's documentation, which states that this version works, I could not connect Apple Mail on High Sierra to gmail. I tried replacing the default browser with Firefox. Nothing worked. She now uses Thunderbird and that is OK. It synchronised about 18k mail messages left behind by the previous POP connection set not to delete anything. So, mails were unexpectedly rescued but no folders. Thunderbid's import fails on Apple Mail of this age, so the only option is individually to export to mbox files, rename them and import. Maybe mails this old can just be left where they are and found by search as needed.
We abandoned Safari too as it no longer works with many web sites.
Finally I had to go to Epson for drivers for the printer/scanner. That worked perfectly. Thanks to Epson.
I spent some time teaching my friend the importance of frequent backups and reassuring her that her 1TB disk will work for years with no attention from her, and that the thousands of old mails will just lie there in peace. There's plenty of quota left.
Conclusion: GRAVIS in Düsseldorf gave poor service. High Sierra works but not with the outside world. For that you need to replace the browser and mail client. The computer itself runs fast enough.
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