Importing Mail

[MattDell]

I'm having trouble here. I want to move my mail from my Powerbook to my MacBook Pro. The way I'm doing it is copying/pasting my Mail folder from my Powerbook onto the desktop of my MBP. From there, I delete the contents of my Mail folder on the MBP, then copy/paste my Mail from the desktop to the Library.

When I open up Mail, it says that it wants to import all my Mail. It prompts me to hit continue, so I do. It then says "Importing mail 1 of 17000" etc. It gets to mail 700 or so, then it says it's done.

So now I'm missing about 16,000 e-mails. Why won't it go all the way?

I've done this three times and I get the same result.

-Matt

 

[mad jew]

If you literally drag the Mail folder (in your Library) from the old machine to the new one's equivalent location whilst Mail is closed, you should be fine. Of course, this is assuming the Mail preferences are set up identically for your account though. I ran into trouble when I did this with two machines that had slightly different names for the accounts.

 

[MattDell]

That's what I'm doing. Well, I did that the first two times. This 3rd time I did it the way I described above.


It just won't import them ALL. It stops around 700 e-mails.

-Matt

 

[mad jew]

It shouldn't be importing them at all though. It should be like transferring an iTunes or iPhoto library in that opening Mail will result in all your emails just being there. Are the accounts on both machines set up identically, right down to their name and SMTP server?

 

[MattDell]

Exactly the same.

 

[mad jew]

Hmm... Is the PowerBook running the latest version of Tiger (and Mail)? Are you using the Import function from Mail's Find menu? Have you tried importing them with this function, one-by-one?

 

[MattDell]

Actually, no. It's running Panther (That's 10.3, right?). Do you think it has something to do with that?

I've used the import feature as well as just dragging and dropping. Both return the same results... about 700 e-mails. I can't believe there's no "Export Mail" feature.

-Matt

 

[mad jew]

Ahh crap, yeah that's your problem. Sorry, I'm stupid and should have realised that earlier. The file layout in Tiger's Mail is different to that of Panther's so a simple folder replacement won't work.

Instead, import one mailbox at a time. For some reason Mail doesn't like importing more than one mailbox at any time, which sucks. I have a feeling the 700 emails you already have imported will be from a single mailbox, right?

 

[MattDell]

One at a time didn't work...


My Inbox folder only gets 274 messages. Thats where about 10000 messages are... and the only ones I really care about. Anything else up your sleeve? I appreciate the help.

-Matt

 

[mad jew]

Not much.

It might work better if the folders are smaller. So on the Panther machine, split everything up into folders of about 300 emails or so. Then see if that works better. I hate the import 'feature' of Mail. It barely ever works.

 

[MattDell]

Could I take this problem to the genius bar?

 

[mad jew]

I imagine so. We don't have Apple Stores (or Genius Bars) in Australia so I don't have any experience with them, sorry.

Of course, Migration Assistant in the Utilities folder is designed to help you here but it's not the best app. Still, it might be worth a try.

 

[MattDell]

Yeah, it wanted a firewire cable to use that app. I don't have such a thing. :-\


The genius bar is about an hour from here, but I may be up that way soon. I'll see what happens.

-Matt

 

[mad jew]

It might be worthwhile getting a Firewire cable or even borrowing one from a friend. They're pretty cheap and they come in handy if ever you want to do large file transfers. Also, Target Disk Mode is a good way of recovering data from a crashed system. Good luck with whatever you try.