Help please, Can't restore my email!!!!????

Discussion in 'Mac Basics and Help' started by loud$, Jun 30, 2010.

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  1. loud$, Jun 30, 2010

    loud$ macrumors newbie

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    #1
    Hi all,

    Last week my hard disk die and i had to go back to apple store and replace it.
    Today i received back my imac and i restore all my files with "time machine"...it looks all fine except my email , i was able to restore only the account setting but not my emails, i tried to check online but i found nothing useful,
    Where Mail is storing my emails? ( there should be some folder or a big file on my back up, but i can not locate which one , i had almost 2000 email mainly jobs and client )
    Can i restore my emails ???
    Please help I really don't know what to do, and i start to panicking
    any help would be very appreciate.

    Thank you


    My OS is 10.5.8
     
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  2. spinnerlys, Jun 30, 2010

    spinnerlys Guest

    spinnerlys

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  3. loud$, Jun 30, 2010

    loud$ thread starter macrumors newbie

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    #3
    mmm, thanks spinnerlys for your effort , of course i know what to type on Google and I already checked this post from apple website, if i do not mistake what it said is:

    1) ( point 6 ) com.apple.mail.plist is the file containing mail account information ( which i presume is pop3 smtp and password )

    2) (point 9) MessageRules.plist , this is the file for mail rules

    3) ( point 10 ) SmartMailboxes.plist , this is a " smart mail boxes information" which i do not know what is it but from the size (4 Mb) does not seems containing 2000 email and a couple of gigb of attachments
    4) ( point 11) Signatures


    What i am looking for is my email and my attachment.... where the OS is storing this information?

    I start to believe my big mistake it was using time capsule !!!

    Anyone with some knowledge to share???


    Thank you
     
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  4. spinnerlys, Jun 30, 2010

    spinnerlys Guest

    spinnerlys

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    #4
    Open Finder, select the Time Machine HDD, select the Backups.backupdb folder, go to the Home folder (your short user name) backed up in there, go to Library / Mail and there should your actual mails be stored. That's at least the place my Mail application used to store the actual mails, including attachments.

    Or are you looking for something else?

    Because I though you were looking for the actual mails and not the settings and such, thus the link to the document, which also explains where the actual mails are stored. But maybe I don't understand you correctly.
     
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  5. loud$, Jun 30, 2010

    loud$ thread starter macrumors newbie

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    #5
    thanks spinnerlys , but on my Backups.backupdb , Library/Mail I got only 1 file called mailaccount.plist which actualy is only 36 kb (it can't contain 2000 email and attachment) , do you have more then one file on your Library/Mail i mean can you see all your attachment in there?

    I had just few hundred mail on my mail server and I re-downloaded now on "mail" again , if i go on my hard disk Library/mail I can see one file of 36 kb (mailaccount.plist) , so i am sure that is not the location of storing email and attachment ( at least on my OS which is 10.5.8)


    Thanks anyway spinnerlys you understood perfectly my question , if you can highlight the part of the document where you think state "this is the place where email and attachment are stored " i will really appreciate.

    as you can understand i am really panicking here and still i can't find any solution>>>>and yes English is not my first language , I apologize for that!
     
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  6. bobr1952, Jun 30, 2010

    bobr1952 macrumors 68020

    bobr1952

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    #6
    I was curious myself and took a look at my Time Machine and the info is stored just as the other posters have stated:

    Macintosh HD / Users / YOU / Library / Mail

    There should be a folder for each mail account and in each folder there should be files labeled for the various mailboxes--inbox, outbox, etc. Those files contain the actual mail--at least that is how I see it on my Time Machine.
     
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  7. spinnerlys, Jun 30, 2010

    spinnerlys Guest

    spinnerlys

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    #7
    It is the last part of the linked document titled "To manually back up Mail messages (emails)".

    Are you sure, you're not in the general Library folder (Macintosh HD / Library)?

    I mean the Library folder in your home folder, so if your account has the name "John Smith", the name of your home folder is "johnsmith", located at

    Macintosh HD (or whatever name you gave your internal HDD) / Users / johnsmith / Library / Mail.

    I currently don't use mail, thus I can't verify right now, but the last three times I used Mail, I could restore my mails by backing up the files and folders indicated by the document I linked to, and if you haven't excluded that specific folder from TM, it should be there.

    Just go into your TM backup and select your home folder (the one with Desktop, Documents, Movies, Music, Library, Pictures and so on in it, your language may vary though).

    Did that help in any way?
     
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  8. woosah, Jun 30, 2010

    woosah macrumors regular

    woosah

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    #8
    I checked mine as well, this is where all my emails are stored in a folder named POP-[I]my.email.address[/I]@gmail.com. So final path is...

    Macintosh HD / Users / YOU / Library / Mail / POP-[I]my.email.address[/I]@gmail.com

    I'm not sure why yours would be any different. What email provider do you use? Maybe you can import from the online mail client.
     
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  9. loud$, Jun 30, 2010

    loud$ thread starter macrumors newbie

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    #9
    YESSSSSSS guys ,

    First thanks to spinnerlys you are right, I was checking the wrong "library" and indeed under Macintosh HD / Users / Me / Library / Mail / POP-my.email.address@mydomain .com ( as woosah did state {thanks to you too m8}) there are a bunch of file with extension .emlx both containing email and attachment.

    So at this point i am assuming if i am copy from time capsule all POP-my.email.address@mydomain .com directory on my new hard disk on Macintosh HD / Users / Me / Library / Mail / POP-my.email.address@mydomain .com it should work.... I am going to try now and see what happen....

    But i would like to say thanks to spinnerlys and woosah for support

    :):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):)

    Really thanks guys, Love you all
     
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  10. woosah, Jun 30, 2010

    woosah macrumors regular

    woosah

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    #10
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