How to restore my Emails after upgrading to Mac OS X Lion

[Atul.TA]

Ok So I have upgraded to Lion, and there are some constant crashes. I just first of tried with a hardware diagnostic tests as I thought it would be an hardware issue. In addition, I also performed a complete reinstall of Lion along with Apple software. But what I am concerned to is to try with restoring all my mail folders and locally-saved emails. I made some attempts going into Mail but I came across something strange behavior as when I searched for the backup, there was no such visible Mail folder . I came to know that Back In Time will provide me the result as it tends to be simple backup tool for Linux inspired from “flyback project” as well as “TimeVault”. I also tried with BackupLoupe which will help me. I got other options with me as trying with Time Machine would have effected in my data restore, but I found on some forums that this does not work properly on newly installed system. So what could be the possible case, can you suggest me some of the 3RD party software’s which will help you to restore my mails.

[Leon.Sunny]

I think this thread relates to my issue and I suppose rather than creating a new thread, I must post my query here. I am willing to have a clean install, but I have a folder called within Mail, which I require to keep, but not knowing where would this be located within my Time Machine Backup so I can restore it after the re install?

[Evoldo]

You will usually find Mail within this folder. If you come across Finder, you will be having Library as hidden by default. So you can make use of drop down menu with moving Finder and move to the option key down to make visible the Library. So ultimately you will be with . Users/*youraccount*/Library/Mail

[shetty]

I also came across same issues as I was not able to see any library folder under my account. That was really strange. It did not helped a lot. But later came into my concern that they hide it under Lion. And that you will be able to see in time machine where it would be located, if your backup is of snow leopard os. So if you are with lion the folder would be present there, but as it is hidden, you are not able to see that. So you will require to show hidden files before moving it.but there are some users who find it difficult to locate hidden files as that seems to be tricky in apple and not so easy as we normally do in windows. So , you need to open terminal and code this:

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE
killall Finder

and then open Time Machine , you would definitely find that one.

[DakshaMira]

Lion’s Mail brings many new characteristics, but it still won’t magically backup along with restore your messages when you move to a latest Mac or make a reinstallation of OS X. It’s simple to transport mail to a new copy of Mail, even if you don’t make use of Time Machine or another technique to back up your Mac’s drive. And for this you require a Lion’s Mail client and an external drive to which you can back up your data. First, you need to connect your external drive to your Mac and you need to back up one or more mailboxes, smart mailboxes, or else folders, and then launch Mail, then you need to choose Show in the Favorites Bar to see them in Mail’s sidebar. choose every item you wish for backing up. You then need to click to choose numerous adjacent items, or else Command-click to choose several nonadjacent items. If you are interested in exporting your Messages, you need to select Mailbox and then choose export Mailbox in the Menu Bar, or you can even click the gear icon which would be present at the bottom of the sidebar and select Export Mailbox. choose your external drive in the Devices segment of the Export sheet’s sidebar as the target for your exported selections.

Make sure the Export All Subfolders box beneath the sheet to export items complete with subfolders, then click select to export the data to your backup drive along with eject your drive, which currently encloses your exported .mbox files. If you need to import back to mail , you need to launch Mail on your new Mac or a new installation of OS X and set up an account as provoked. Then make an connection with your drive, then select Import followed by importing Mailboxes in Mail’s Menu Bar. In the resulting window, select Apple Mail as the application you will be importing from. choose your external drive in the Import window, then choose each .mbox file you wish to import, and click select. Verify the import in the next window, and then click Continue. You then will be able to import mail and then you will now be able to appear in the Import folder in Mail’s sidebar.