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Transferring v5 mail to v7 (high sierra to catalina)

What is the best process to transfer a massive amount of emails/mailboxes from High Sierra (10.13.3) Apple Mail to Catalina?


I've read migration assistant is horrible, "export mailboxes" doesn't work, and that transferring the v5 folder to the v7 may work (but no confirmation).


If I transfer v5 to v7, do I move the contents from one to the other? Or do I just copy over v5 and see what Mail does with it?

MacBook Pro 13″, macOS 10.15

Posted on Nov 4, 2020 8:20 AM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Nov 4, 2020 8:57 AM

Greenwall wrote:

What is the best process to transfer a massive amount of emails/mailboxes from High Sierra (10.13.3) Apple Mail to Catalina?

I've read migration assistant is horrible, "export mailboxes" doesn't work, and that transferring the v5 folder to the v7 may work (but no confirmation).

If I transfer v5 to v7, do I move the contents from one to the other? Or do I just copy over v5 and see what Mail does with it?



The most trouble free way to move to a new machine, is using the Setup Assistant on the initial boot— you have one shot here. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT205749


If that opportunity has past, the second best way is use the Migration Assistant.

How to move your content to a new Mac https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204350


2 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Nov 4, 2020 8:57 AM in response to Greenwall

Greenwall wrote:

What is the best process to transfer a massive amount of emails/mailboxes from High Sierra (10.13.3) Apple Mail to Catalina?

I've read migration assistant is horrible, "export mailboxes" doesn't work, and that transferring the v5 folder to the v7 may work (but no confirmation).

If I transfer v5 to v7, do I move the contents from one to the other? Or do I just copy over v5 and see what Mail does with it?



The most trouble free way to move to a new machine, is using the Setup Assistant on the initial boot— you have one shot here. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT205749


If that opportunity has past, the second best way is use the Migration Assistant.

How to move your content to a new Mac https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204350


Nov 4, 2020 4:00 PM in response to Greenwall

So I copied all the files over, propagated permissions, deleted the plist file, renamed the v5 folder as v7, and opened mail. I got a message saying "upgrading library" and then Mail opened an only showed my icloud account and nothing else, and proceeded to freshly download all 64k emails.


So copying the v5 folder doesn't work, FYI to anyone else who is trying this.

Transferring v5 mail to v7 (high sierra to catalina)

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