Mail saved under On My Mac

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Level 1

5 points

Mail saved under On My Mac

I have had a several email folder with several years worth of Gmail emails stored in Mail under "On my Mac" which I could access anytime. So after I just upgraded from Ventura to Sonoma those Gmail folders are gone from Mail and attempts to retrieve them from ~Library/Mail are fruitless. So where do On My Mac files reside on my MacBook Pro? Is it possible to find them in Ventura basedbackup files from several days ago saved on TimeMachine. I have consently done TM and now wondering if its not the best solution. Appreciate any and all assistance.

FYI Gmail forum states emails older than 30 days are auto-deleted, from their servers I guess.

Mark R

MacBook Pro 13″, macOS 10.15

Posted on Oct 8, 2023 1:00 PM

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Answer 1

markrich21 Author

Level 1

5 points

Oct 9, 2023 9:16 AM in response to Recycleur

So I did find many folders and nested folders on TM, I can open them by tapping Spacebar but if I try to open with Mail only see the headers - no content. Suggestions.

Thanks again for bailing me out. Love the Apple Community!

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Answer 2

markrich21 Author

Level 1

5 points

Oct 17, 2023 1:50 PM in response to markrich21

So I can drill down and find the messages intact be selecting then hitting space bar BUT if I try to import or open in anyway all I see is the Header info and not contents. Changing the file extension to eliminate ".partial" have no effect. It's above my pay grade to figure this out. Again these were Gmail emails stored in subfolders (Gmail/Spending etc.) stored On My Mac within Apple Mail. After I upgraded to Sonoma all those subfolders are empty and of course my Time Machine copies are under Ventura. I also can't get TM to work; I can only create a TM image but the icon on toolbar doesn't show TM Options anymore. So be forewarned !!

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Answer 3

Recycleur

Level 4

1,627 points

Oct 8, 2023 5:51 PM in response to markrich21

I moved a message to Importation within On My Mac and I found it there:

~/Library/Mail/V10/6813EDC5-3A57-4B11-A60A-42B650AB5E79/Importation.mbox/7EE8221A-2476-45B5-9F7E-7827F07036C9/Data/5/1/Messages

I first opened ~/Library/Mail/ and did a search for the name of the mailbox (Importation) and then drilled down from there. Of course the numbers will be different on your computer but the structure is similar.

I feel for you, I lost a lot of old emails when I had a hard disk problem, so now even if I don't use my iCloud email address at all for correspondance I created folders in it and move all important messages there so they are in a safer place whatever happen to my computer. Plus I can see them from many devices. Basically On My Mac is empty.

Good news perhaps, ~/Library/Mail/ is saved by Time Machine (I just saw old backups there but didn't try any restoration at the moment)

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Answer 4

Recycleur

Level 4

1,627 points

Oct 9, 2023 10:23 AM in response to markrich21

Here's the experiment I just conducted.

I did a Quicklook on a random message from late June in one of my many inboxes:

~/Library/Mail/V10/5F076B33-E067-424A-835F-FB018B7BFD3A/INBOX.mbox/7EE8221A-2476-45B5-9F7E-7827F07036C9/Data/5/Messages

The file was called 5422.partial.emlx. When I saw what it was about I went in Mail, found it and deleted it. It went to that folder where it was renamed 16947.emlx.

~/Library/Mail/V10/5F076B33-E067-424A-835F-FB018B7BFD3A/Trash.mbox/7EE8221A-2476-45B5-9F7E-7827F07036C9/Data/6/1/Messages.

Then I opened folder INBOX.mbox in its own window and called upon Time Machine. It was able to find that directory up to at least the beginning of June. I chose July 2nd, found message 5422 and restored it.

Now it was back in the directory where it was originally but not in Mail, probably because it didn't go through the normal database update process when a message arrives. So I double-clicked on it and it opened in its own window, complete as the original. There I clicked on Move To... in the top-right corner of the window, I chose any folder and it was returned in Mail.

If you only get headers maybe some configuration is different on your computer.

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Mail saved under On My Mac

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