How to move all mail to a new Mac?

[Doc69]

How do I move all my emails to a new Mac? I have 5 IMAP mail accounts, iCloud, Gmail, and Hotmail as well as over a hundred folders with saved emails "On My Mac". Probably over 100K emails. I don't think I can't use Migration Assistant since I've already set up the new Mac manually with everything except the Mail (a lot of work!).

Can I perhaps just copy the user/Library/Mail folder to the new Mac? And if so, should I set up the different mail accounts manually before attempting to move the data, or are the accounts and their settings also contained in the V10 folder?

The new Mac is an M2 MBP on Ventura 13.4.1 and the old one is an Intel Mac mini also on Ventura 13.4.1

 

[kitKAC]

Why didn't you use Migration Assistant?

In Mail, FILE menu, IMPORT MAILBOXES - see if that works.

 

[Mike Boreham]

How do I move all my emails to a new Mac? I have 5 IMAP mail accounts, iCloud, Gmail, and Hotmail as well as over a hundred folders with saved emails "On My Mac". Probably over 100K emails. I don't think I can't use Migration Assistant since I've already set up the new Mac manually with everything except the Mail (a lot of work!).

Can I perhaps just copy the user/Library/Mail folder to the new Mac? And if so, should I set up the different mail accounts manually before attempting to move the data, or are the accounts and their settings also contained in the V10 folder?

The new Mac is an M2 MBP on Ventura 13.4.1 and the old one is an Intel Mac mini also on Ventura 13.4.1

The IMAP should all just download when you sign in to your accounts on the new mac. If you have used Migration Assistant as I do, it verifies it all correctly. If you are setting up from scratch it will just download the emails from the servers.

Moving on-my-mac mail from old computer to new is more problematical. When I used MA to do this last year it did not migrate my on-my-mac email and I had to reimport it from archives. Since then I keep everything on IMAP/iCloud.

For on-my-mac you could see if MA moves it for you, but if not I think the best way is to export to archive on your old mac and then import the archives on new mac.

Alternatively you could do as I did and move all your on-my-mac mail back to IMAP on old mac and let it download on new mac.

 

[Doc69]

Why didn't you use Migration Assistant?

In Mail, FILE menu, IMPORT MAILBOXES - see if that works.

I wanted to start over clean and install everything from scratch in order to make sure no corrupted files or other bad things were coming over to the new Mac. I haven't done this since probably Leopard so I felt it was time.

Importing Mailboxes works, but I think you have to export and import them one by one. And since I have over 100, I'm looking for a way to move them all in one go.

 

[Doc69]

The IMAP should all just download when you sign in to your accounts on the new mac. If you have used Migration Assistant as I do, it verifies it all correctly. If you are setting up from scratch it will just download the emails from the servers.

Moving on-my-mac mail from old computer to new is more problematical. When I used MA to do this last year it did not migrate my on-my-mac email and I had to reimport it from archives. Since then I keep everything on IMAP/iCloud.

For on-my-mac you could see if MA moves it for you, but if not I think the best way is to export to archive on your old mac and then import the archives on new mac.

Alternatively you could do as I did and move all your on-my-mac mail back to IMAP on old mac and let it download on new mac.

Very weird that MA did not migrate the On My Mac mailboxes! If I can't find a way to do it all in one go, like moving the V10 Mail folder, then I will have to export/import the On My mac folders manually. But hopefully, someone has experience with what happens if you move the V10 folder and Preference files.

 

[elvisimprsntr]

I’ve used migration assistant and/or restore from TM backup probably 10 times in as many years and never had a problem, including between OS versions and architectures. Why make life more difficult than it has to be?

 

[Doc69]

I’ve used migration assistant and/or restore from TM backup probably 10 times in as many years and never had a problem, including between OS versions and architectures. Why make life more difficult than it has to be?

If I could use the MA for only the mail.app I would definitely do it. But I don't think you can. I think you have to restore everything. But maybe I'm wrong?

 

[Mike Boreham]

I’ve used migration assistant and/or restore from TM backup probably 10 times in as many years and never had a problem, including between OS versions and architectures. Why make life more difficult than it has to be?

Did that include on-my-mac mail? I have only tried MA once while I had on-my-mac and as I said it wasn’t migrated. I submitted a report to Apple. I have not heard of it happening to others so I would advise OP to try MA.

 

[Mike Boreham]

If I could use the MA for only the mail.app I would definitely do it. But I don't think you can. I think you have to restore everything. But maybe I'm wrong?

MA does give you some options, but dont think you can use it just for Mail. Why not use it for everything? Which is what I always do.

 

[Mike Boreham]

I wanted to start over clean and install everything from scratch in order to make sure no corrupted files or other bad things were coming over to the new Mac. I haven't done this since probably Leopard so I felt it was time.

Importing Mailboxes works, but I think you have to export and import them one by one. And since I have over 100, I'm looking for a way to move them all in one go.

Understand though I think the risks of “cruft” are overstated. I think your best option would be to move all your on-my-mac mail to IMAP and let it all download on new mac when you sign in.

You could always move it back to on-my-mac on new Mac later.

I have messed around with with transferring the V folder manually and it used to work years ago, but last time I tried it it had problems. You may find someone who knows exactly what to do. Seem to recall deleting the envelope index came into it.

 

[1800AirTAG]

How do I move all my emails to a new Mac? I have 5 IMAP mail accounts, iCloud, Gmail, and Hotmail as well as over a hundred folders with saved emails "On My Mac". Probably over 100K emails. I don't think I can't use Migration Assistant since I've already set up the new Mac manually with everything except the Mail (a lot of work!).

Can I perhaps just copy the user/Library/Mail folder to the new Mac? And if so, should I set up the different mail accounts manually before attempting to move the data, or are the accounts and their settings also contained in the V10 folder?

The new Mac is an M2 MBP on Ventura 13.4.1 and the old one is an Intel Mac mini also on Ventura 13.4.1

What email client are you using?

Depending on that you may be able to slowly “drag and drop” mail to a single imap or exchange account and let it sync and once done it’s all in the cloud.

 

[Doc69]

What email client are you using?

Depending on that you may be able to slowly “drag and drop” mail to a single imap or exchange account and let it sync and once done it’s all in the cloud.

I'm using Apple Mail only, but I have 8 different IMAP accounts enabled (iCloud, Gmail, Yahoo, Outlook). I tested what you suggested and dragged an 'On My Mac' mailbox to a new folder on iCloud, and it copied over fine (not moved). I could even drag more than one mailbox at a time. So even though I have over 100 folders, this is probably doable.

 

[Doc69]

Understand though I think the risks of “cruft” are overstated. I think your best option would be to move all your on-my-mac mail to IMAP and let it all download on new mac when you sign in.

Yes, moving all the mailboxes by adding them to iCloud seems like my best bet right now. One of the reasons I wanted to start over fresh without migrating, is that the Mail.app on my old Mac creates a lot of folders named 'Recovered Messages (iCloud), Recovered Messages Gmail), Recovered Messages (On My Mac), etc. with thousands of messages. I never could figure out why this is happening and if some or all of these messages are copies or originals.

 

[1800AirTAG]

I'm using Apple Mail only, but I have 8 different IMAP accounts enabled (iCloud, Gmail, Yahoo, Outlook). I tested what you suggested and dragged an 'On My Mac' mailbox to a new folder on iCloud, and it copied over fine (not moved). I could even drag more than one mailbox at a time. So even though I have over 100 folders, this is probably doable.

Oh awesome! I’ll honestly take a copy over moving it completely over any day just to have a backup.

But, this is the exact way I used to help customers “migrate” their mail into a new mailbox, etc back when I was a tech.

Glad to hear it’s still a potential solution

 

[Doc69]

My last question now is how do I move all my Mail Rules, of which I have hundreds. If anyone knows this, please let me know!

EDIT: I think I just figured it out. I copied these 3 files from User/Library/V10/MailData on my old Mac and pasted them in the same folder on the new one.

RulesActiveState.plist
SyncedRules.plist
UnsyncedRules.plist

 

[ChrisA]

How do I move all my emails to a new Mac? ...

You don't have to move the mail. Just us Apple's Migration Assistant when you set up your new Mac. It moves all data and apps and user accounts, Apple ID and so on to the new Mac.

But BEFORE yu do anything let Time Machine make one last backup on the old Mac.

 

[JamesMay82]

I’ve done this like the comment above and I just moved them back onto the cloud to let them download again on the new mac/fresh install.

I think you can maybe drag emails into finder to back up.. I’m not on my comp to try but in theory that would work.

lastly! Have an email cull if you can

 

[DCIFRTHS]

I thought rules were backed up to iCloud. The reason I say this is because I just setup a new machine running Ventura, and when I opened Apple Mail, all my rules were there. I was very surprised, and happy.

What’s even more surprising is that the last time I had a Mac sync to iCloud was approximately in 2016. It was/is a 2008 MacBook Pro. I still have it, but haven’t turned it on since sometime in 2016 (approximately).

So, is it possible that rules are/were backed up to iCloud? In my case, I don’t see how else they got onto my new Mac running Ventura⁉️

Edit: The 2008 was running OS X El Capitan.

 

[0339327]

How do I move all my emails to a new Mac? I have 5 IMAP mail accounts, iCloud, Gmail, and Hotmail as well as over a hundred folders with saved emails "On My Mac". Probably over 100K emails. I don't think I can't use Migration Assistant since I've already set up the new Mac manually with everything except the Mail (a lot of work!).

Can I perhaps just copy the user/Library/Mail folder to the new Mac? And if so, should I set up the different mail accounts manually before attempting to move the data, or are the accounts and their settings also contained in the V10 folder?

The new Mac is an M2 MBP on Ventura 13.4.1 and the old one is an Intel Mac mini also on Ventura 13.4.1

There are several ways to do this and none are great.

You can move the entire Mail folder from your user library. This will take a few days to reindex.

You can export/import each mailbox takes time and may redate the messages.

The best way is to move them back to the server and then re-download them on the new machine.

In general, there is no good option here. I have struggled with this for years. Apple just isn’t really good at this.

 

[cleanton]

I wanted to start over clean and install everything from scratch in order to make sure no corrupted files or other bad things were coming over to the new Mac. I haven't done this since probably Leopard so I felt it was time.

Importing Mailboxes works, but I think you have to export and import them one by one. And since I have over 100, I'm looking for a way to move them all in one go.

Export and import...

 

[haralds]

As long as macOS is the same or newer, I have been able to move mail by just copying the ~/Library/Mail folder and the Mail Settings files in Preferences.
All the other methods mentioned also work.
I have 25 years of mail, and downloading the messages from IMAP accounts again takes two days.

 

[canadianreader]

How do I move all my emails to a new Mac? I have 5 IMAP mail accounts, iCloud, Gmail, and Hotmail as well as over a hundred folders with saved emails "On My Mac". Probably over 100K emails. I don't think I can't use Migration Assistant since I've already set up the new Mac manually with everything except the Mail (a lot of work!).

Can I perhaps just copy the user/Library/Mail folder to the new Mac? And if so, should I set up the different mail accounts manually before attempting to move the data, or are the accounts and their settings also contained in the V10 folder?

The new Mac is an M2 MBP on Ventura 13.4.1 and the old one is an Intel Mac mini also on Ventura 13.4.1

I tried it once copying the V10 Folder to a new Mac and it worked the only thing I did differently is I opened mail on the new mac and closed it then I started copying/overwriting existing data. Also Gmail will ask for re-authentication if the OAuth login method doesn't work try creating App Password in Google Account and use the old imap/smtp method.

 

[Fishrrman]

How I would do this (and yes, it's gong to take a lot of work and time).

I'd get an external drive capable of holding ALL the old mail folders.

I'd locate the old mail on the old Mac.
Should be in:
home/library/Mail

I'd copy all the "Mail" folders to the external drive.

Then, I'd take the external drive and connect it to the NEW Mac.

Next, I'd take steps to overcome permissions problems:
- let external drive icon mount on desktop
- click on icon ONE TIME to select it
- bring up the get info box (command-i)
- at the bottom of get info, enter password (for NEW Mac)
- put a check into "ignore ownership on this volume" (sharing and permissions)
- close get info.

Now, I'd open Mail on the NEW Mac.

I'd go to Mail --> File --> Import Mailboxes...

... and work from there, importing a little at a time. KEEP NOTES.

You could try "all at once", but it may all go to one location and then you'll have to do some moving afterwards (you may have to do that anyway).

Yes, it's going to be A LOT of work.
If you had just used setup assistant at the very beginning, you could have avoided this.

 

[DCIFRTHS]

I thought rules were backed up to iCloud. The reason I say this is because I just setup a new machine running Ventura, and when I opened Apple Mail, all my rules were there. I was very surprised, and happy.

What’s even more surprising is that the last time I had a Mac sync to iCloud was approximately in 2016. It was/is a 2008 MacBook Pro. I still have it, but haven’t turned it on since sometime in 2016 (approximately).

So, is it possible that rules are/were backed up to iCloud? In my case, I don’t see how else they got onto my new Mac running Ventura⁉️

Edit: The 2008 was running OS X El Capitan.

I am wondering if anyone had the same experience as I did regarding rules being saved to iCloud?

 

[Doc69]

I am wondering if anyone had the same experience as I did regarding rules being saved to iCloud?

Did you perhaps restore from a Time Machine backup? If so, that could be the reason. I set up a new Mac with Ventura, and logged in to iCloud, but none of my mail rules came over. I have searched in iCloud Settings but found no specific setting for this.