Problems importing Mail into Mavericks Mail: Guide not working, crashing

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PostmanPot

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Hi all

I'm having a problem importing Apple Mail into Mavericks Apple Mail.

The usual copying Mail from the Library does not work. Copying across com.apple.mail.plist into Preferences doesn't help either

I've been trying this guide - https://discussions.apple.com/message/23881113#23881113.

Deleting the Envelope index, Envelope index-shm and Envelope index-wal files from the V2 folder, doesn't help either. In fact I can't seem to delete them. I'm not sure if it's because Mail was originally opened before attempting the import thereby locking them, but I've force quit Mail, restarted, and the files are still locked.

I'm going to try deleting Envelop Index.lock and Envelope Index-journal to see if that unlocks the above files.

Out of desperation, I then tried a manual import from within Mail. But the mailboxes are so big that it crashes after 10 minutes.

Could anyone please help if you've experienced a similar problem?

Thanks in advance. :)
 
Hi PP

I exported each mailbox (In, Sent, Friends, MyBB, PronSubs, GF) individually from earlier mail and then imported one mailbox at a time and it eventually worked. I then moved Imported mailboxes into the structures I wanted.

Oh, I did curse throughout the exercise if it is any consolation. If you would like, I can share some of my more colourful language so you know which words to use when thinking about the cockup that is MavMail.
 
GreGorGy said:
Hi PP

I exported each mailbox (In, Sent, Friends, MyBB, PronSubs, GF) individually from earlier mail and then imported one mailbox at a time and it eventually worked. I then moved Imported mailboxes into the structures I wanted.

Oh, I did curse throughout the exercise if it is any consolation. If you would like, I can share some of my more colourful language so you know which words to use when thinking about the cockup that is MavMail.
Click to expand...

Hi GGG

Thank you. The problem is that the drive failed and was recovered. Only the remains of the Library from the old OS X are available. Cannot open up Mail on old OS X and do an Export.

And manually importing, as mentioned, leads to Mail crashing. There is just too much mail. And the method in the link is not working. Will try deleting those Envelope files again shortly though.
 
Try pointing the IMPORT option to each specific mailbox within the Library->Mail folder and doing one at a time.
 
GreGorGy said:
Try pointing the IMPORT option to each specific mailbox within the Library->Mail folder and doing one at a time.
Click to expand...

Unfortunately that's exactly what I've been trying, but there is just too much mail in the most important mailbox, which causes Mail to crash 10 minutes later.

I'm going to tinker later, and if all else fails, I might even revert back to Snow Leopard because the copying over of the Mail folder seems more effective.
 
And now you see why I was swearing all through it. Apple knows they fked this up but still no real fix or addressing of the issue.

Another option may be to install the OS ver that was the source of the Mail onto a partition/USB/whatever, copy mail onto that and then export and then import. What a workaround!
 
GreGorGy said:
And now you see why I was swearing all through it. Apple knows they fked this up but still no real fix or addressing of the issue.

Another option may be to install the OS ver that was the source of the Mail onto a partition/USB/whatever, copy mail onto that and then export and then import. What a workaround!
Click to expand...

As a last resort I'll do that, hoping that by installing SL, it'll be a simple copy over of the Mail folder.

Did you not try this guide? https://discussions.apple.com/message/23881113#23881113
 
Initially I did but the problem I had (detailed in another thread) was that the unread count and actual unread number were VASTLY different, hence the box at a time method.
 
GreGorGy said:
Initially I did but the problem I had (detailed in another thread) was that the unread count and actual unread number were VASTLY different, hence the box at a time method.
Click to expand...

So one could say it semi worked? I get nothing, Mavericks Mail registers zero and just asks what type of account I want to set up.

Did you copy across the com.apple.mail.plist file, or not?

Did you delete the Envelope files too?
 
Didn't delete anything. I copied:

~/Library/Mail
~/Library/Mail Downloads


Not the .plist and also went through that setup but IIRC I did that first, then quit, then copied, then went through setup again.
 
Have you tried importing into Thunderbird just to see what happens?
 
GreGorGy said:
Didn't delete anything. I copied:

~/Library/Mail
~/Library/Mail Downloads


Not the .plist and also went through that setup but IIRC I did that first, then quit, then copied, then went through setup again.
Click to expand...

Interesting, I tried without doing the setup first.
 
Manage to resolve it by doing a fresh install and copying over the relevant files/folders before opening Mail.

Problem now is that all the mails are there, however 95% of them only have subjects - no contents. And the Mavericks Mail folder is now about 0.5% of the size...

I noticed in the new Mavericks Mail folder, in the inbox, there were thousands of .emlx/messages missing. Which I've copied over from the backup of the Snow Leopard Mail, but this hasn't helped. Although the folder size is now correct.

Wondering if anyone has experienced this?
 
I would do this: After a fresh install, restore ~/Library/Mail/V2 (thats where all your mailboxes are), DO NOT open mail, then reboot into recovery mode and run DiskUtility to repair permissions. Once done, reboot and then delete EnvelopeIndex and only then open mail. It should then either start importing or ask to migrate (depending from when your backup is).

NVM: Saw that you got it sorted
 
MagicDude4Eva said:
I would do this: After a fresh install, restore ~/Library/Mail/V2 (thats where all your mailboxes are), DO NOT open mail, then reboot into recovery mode and run DiskUtility to repair permissions. Once done, reboot and then delete EnvelopeIndex and only then open mail. It should then either start importing or ask to migrate (depending from when your backup is).

NVM: Saw that you got it sorted
Click to expand...

Thanks for the reply, will keep that in mind. It's been a great learning curve, being new to Mac and all. :)

I would have to say though that PST is an easier system, but perhaps more prone to corruption. :p
 
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