Transfer Mail emails to fresh mac

[stevearm]

Hi all. I’m the process of doing a clean macOS install. I’m not keen on using any automated processes to transfer data over, I’d like to start from scratch and only move select data over.

My issue is I forgot to export Mail.app mailboxes which I was then going to import into a fresh Mail app.

I do however have a complete copy of my old disk. Is there a way of copying any of the previous Mail folders across and it would work seamlessly?

If so, should I launch Mail for the first time and set my accounts up? Or should I transfer folders and this will also copy the accounts info?

One slight detail, the home folder of my old mac was capitalised and the name of my new home folder is not. Dunno if that makes a difference.

Many thanks!

 

[Fishrrman]

The "complete copy" of your old drive -- is it "mountable in the finder" on the NEW Mac?

If it is...
Here is what I would try.

First:
Connect the old drive to the new Mac.
Let the drive icon appear on the desktop.
Click on the icon ONE TIME to select it, then bring up the get info box for it (type command-i).
In get info, click the lock on the bottom and enter the password you are using for your NEW account on the NEW Mac.
Then, put a checkmark into "ignore ownership on this volume" (sharing and permissions).
Then close get info.
WHY we did this: to overcome account permissions when importing from the old account to the new one.

Next:
Open Mail on the NEW Mac.

In the file menu, choose "import mailboxes".

In the resulting dialog, choose "import data from files in mbox format".
A dialog will open asking you from WHERE to import.

Now, you need to select your OLD drive.
Navigate to your old "home" account:
Home/Library/Mail
Now... you should have folders (visible in the dialog) that are named "V6" (or "V" with a different number).
Inside these are the "mbox" files we need to import.

I would try selecting the folder "V6" (remember your number may be different) and importing "the whole thing".

The import could take a while depending on just how much is inside.

It will all probably go into a NEW folder in your Mail.app with the name "imported" in it.
Then you have to manually "arrange" things as you want them.
Yes, it's more work, but that's "the cost" of doing a manual import.

You could also do a more "selective" import by opening the "V6" folder, and going into it and selecting individual mbox files to import (rather than the whole thing).

Good luck.
Get back to us with a report as to whether this helped or not.

 

[trauring]

I have the same problem. When I moved my whole Mail folder over to my new Mac like I had in the past, instead of seeing all my On My Mac folders, it tried to import everything into a single folder. I am trying the above, but it is importing the whole folder structure including the weird hexadecimal folder name, with a Data subfolder, then a bunch of numbered sub-folders, and then a folder with the e-mails. Considering I have hundreds of folders, and many sub-folders, it would take me forever to untangle all of that. It seems insane that there is no way to move On My Mac folders over to a new computer without days of manual work.