Time Machine is no longer usable as it was with previous versions of MacOS. For example, I cannot get TM to show my mail messages and mail folders, so I can I search through them to restore mail backups. Is there a hack or fix for this?
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Catalina 10.15.4 and Time Machine
- Thread starter aljoseph
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good morning, Did you fix this TM issue...if so, do you mind sharing how, as I have same problem with mail and contacts. sorry I can't help you, Apple couldn't help me.
You have to open the Mail app first before you enter Time Machine. Are you doing it that way or are you just trying to find the folders from individual Time Machine backups?
Thanks.
I have tried, opening mail first then TM. Ive tried opening finder then TM, this way mail Graysons out soon as I open TM.
Not fixed. Time Machine is unusable with Catalina.
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I do open the Mail app first as I have always done in the past. When I do that now I get blank cards with no detail and no ability to scroll backwards. Very frustrating.
When I read this I thought it couldn’t possibly be true so I checked a MacBook Pro I have been testing Catalina on and sure enough, no Mail backup. Now what, keep my Mail usage to a machine running Mojave?
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I took a look at the Mail backup on my main machine running Mojave and it’s exactly the same as the Catalina backup. I have a bazillion e-mails archived in On My Computer folders in Mail and those ARE all backed up. Any chance this is the way a TM backup works? If I set up a new computer/device from scratch, after I put my credentials into Mail, it goes and gets all the Mail that’s present on my other devices without any kind of backup restoration.
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I took a look at the Mail backup on my main machine running Mojave and it’s exactly the same as the Catalina backup. I have a bazillion e-mails archived in On My Computer folders in Mail and those ARE all backed up. Any chance this is the way a TM backup works? If I set up a new computer/device from scratch, after I put my credentials into Mail, it goes and gets all the Mail that’s present on my other devices without any kind of backup restoration.
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Sadly, TM does not work as it should on Catalina. Either Apple doesn't know about this, unlikely, or Apple simply doesn't care as they have not, to my knowledge, acknowledged the problem and issued a we are looking into it or it will be fixed with the next OS update. :-(
Actually, Time Machine is backing up your Mail exactly as it should. The post right above yours gives the path to where your emails are stored. You don't expect Time Machine to backup/restore a file that's open in Word do you? Or a picture that's open in Photoshop? You expect it to backup the document itself. That is exactly what Time Machine is doing with your email backups. In this particular case there is nothing broken for Apple to fix.
Sorry Daverich4, but you have no idea or concept of how TM works, or has worked in the past. If I look at my email inbox on my desktop and then bring up TM it shows the current inbox exactly as it would appear if I were viewing it live. Thus, I can back up hour by hour or week by week, whatever. If I am looking for a specific email that I deleted, I can scroll backward in time via TM until I locate the deleted email. It's showing me what my inbox looked like at any given point in time. I can click on a specific email, hit restore and it restores that specific email to my inbox. That's just one example of how TM works. I've used TM for years and until Catalina, it no longer works as before. TM does not do that with Catalina. Thus, I say Catalina does not work as it has in the past. I'm not the only one who thinks TM in Catalina is broken.
I'm providing a YouTube video link which shows how Time Machine actually looks and works.
I'm providing a YouTube video link which shows how Time Machine actually looks and works.
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Yes, that video explains how Time Machine works. It backs up files and folders. It DOES NOT back up documents that are opened in documents. If screen capture worked when Time Machine was open I could show you the same blank Mail screen that I get under Mojave that I get under Catalina.
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I just tried using Time Machine to look at my e-mail. When I have the Mail app up and enter Time Machine all I see are blank windows with no ability to select a time backward or select a specific e-mail message to restore. All the controls except the Cancel button are greyed out. I have not tried this in Mojave as I don't have a machine running Mojave any longer.
I get the exact same screen in Mojave and Catalina. I did a little research and a long time ago it did work the way the OP describes but hasn’t for some time. I get the impression it has something to do with the switch from POP mail to IMAP but as long as it’s backing up the mail folders themselves (it is), I don’t care enough about it to pursue this topic any further.
Here is an article from 2018 where it shows Time Machine UI for e-mail actually displaying backed up e-mail messages. From the date of the article I think the person might have been using High Sierra.
www.macobserver.com
macOS: Use Time Machine to Recover Lost Email - The Mac Observer
You can use Time Machine to travel into the past to recover deleted documents in Finder. But you can use it in other apps too, like Mail. Here's how to use Time Machine to recover lost email.
www.macobserver.com
All - Thanks much for your input concerning Time Machine. I'd just as soon close this thread at this time. My original post was meant only to say that TM no longer works as it did in the past and I wondered if it was just me or was I missing something important. I do understand that mail backups occur regularly, but getting to a specific but deleted email (or any document) is now a chore when it used to be an easy peasy process. Time Machine has, for me, lost its usefulness.
I was wondering if anyone had found a fix. Like most people I had assumed it was working, it was previously. Time Machine is showing empty windows, though the titles are correct and there is a count of emails - it is just nothing is accessible.
Time Machine is working for my File Folders OK, it is just email that has broken.
Any help appreciated.
Time Machine is working for my File Folders OK, it is just email that has broken.
Any help appreciated.
No fix as far as I know. Time Machine is now next to useless as it no longer works as originally designed.
I agree it is disappointing but disagree that Time Machine it is next to useless.
In the 7-years since I purchased my iMac and started using a Time machine I do not recall ever needing to restore an email using Time Machine. If I really needed to then I could get the mbox files from Time Machine using Finder or from my Carbon Copy Clone or BackBlaze.
I plan to raise this as an issue with Apple to see what they say, I will post back if it is of interest.
Yes, I can really understand why that is a chore. I am curious as to why you would need to recover so many emails from the Time machine though.
Does this thread offer a tiny glimmer of hope? https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/399030/why-will-time-machine-not-restore-mail
This issue with TM and mail not working started with Catalina and continues with Big Sur. I have a Macs with Mojave, Catalina and Big Sur and Mojave works perfectly but not Catalina or Big Sur. I have reported this to Apple several times but it appears they will not fix the issue.