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Recover Missing Mailboxes After Big Sur Update

After updating to Big Sur, all of my archived mail is gone, and a custom mailbox I created for receipts is gone too. Is there a way to recover these?

iMac 27″, macOS 10.15

Posted on Nov 12, 2020 8:41 PM

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Posted on Nov 13, 2020 6:36 AM

In your user folder is a folder called Library (sometimes hidden so look up how to access it) and in there is Mail. In Mail is a folder that is called V with a number. In there are a bunch of sub-folders and you need to look around in them to find the folder you want.

15 replies

Nov 13, 2020 2:53 AM in response to Philip Trauring

I just used Time Machine to find the folder from my last backup. I stupidly forgot to backup immediately before upgrading, but it's only a week old. I may be missing a few e-mails, but not too many. I selected the Receipts.mbox folder, pressed the Restore button, saved it to my desktop, then in Mail I selected the Import Mail... menu item in the File menu, selected Receipts.mbox, and it got imported into an Import folder in Mail. I then just dragged it out of that folder and back into my main Mail list.

Nov 16, 2020 8:17 AM in response to ealakart

You need to go to a backup of your user library in your user folder before the update. In there, you will find a folder called mail. There are folders in there that contain the missing emails you are looking for. I my case I had to find the folder that had what I was looking for, as I had two in there. It ended up being the higher numbered folder. If you have multiple accounts, there may be several folders in there you need to import. I imported them all. then sorted through to find what I needed.

Dec 16, 2020 12:19 AM in response to ealakart

Hi, Not sure if this has been answered for you but......


In Finder select Go from the main menu to get the drop down menu and then press the alt key. The link to Library should appear between the Home and Computer entries. Select it. You will then be able to scroll to mail and in there the Vx folder containing all your mail. The directories are now named cryptically so you need to open them up to see what is inside them.


The full path is:


/Users/your_user_name/Library/Mail/V8


Good luck.

Dec 16, 2020 12:32 AM in response to Geoff@MM

To answer the second part of your question.


Once you have found the file you want you need to use the File:Import Mailboxes.... function in mail. However, I could not find a way to get back to the Library folder once I had selected either the "Apple Mail" or 'files in box format" route (Can someone else offer a solution here?).


So I had to copy the entire Vx folder to the desktop and import what I wanted from there. Do not just drag and drop the folder as it will move it (not copy it) to the desktop and that will give you more problems with the mail app.


Hope that helps.

Dec 16, 2020 12:48 AM in response to Geoff@MM

However, before you do all of this, I suggest you first login to your iCloud account for your Mac (or PC) and check your mail there. My archive file as there and in fact, when I looked around I found all my archive files on the Mac but under my iCloud mailbox entry. So I just added it back to the Favourites entry (I will now archive all my mail in the iCloud account no matter what mail address I have used).


It would help if someone at Apple could explain why the archive folder (or others) have gone "missing" from the favourites area. I used to be able to archive my old mails and the app sorted them into the respective email address archive folder but that is not happening now. It is still working on my iMac that can no longer be upgraded so Big Sur is not an issue there.


So be careful and check that the files are truly missing before importing and giving yourself more problems.

Jan 7, 2021 8:16 PM in response to gbol

Well. . .it's not like I'm an expert. But I found my custom folders in the V8 folder within the library, and then used the Import Mailboxes under the File menu in Mail. The first option should be left at Apple Mail--not .mbox as you might think. Click through until you find the containing folder in the V8 folder and import. They'll be added to your Mail program under "On My Mac" under a sub-heading of Import. Hope that's the solution for you. Good luck!

Recover Missing Mailboxes After Big Sur Update

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