Recover missing IMAP emails from Time Machine

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Level 1

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Recover missing IMAP emails from Time Machine

I use Apple Mail on my iMac and have 4 email accounts. All are IMAP. A few days ago I was clearing out my inbox / moved almost everything to the trash folder. It was thousands of emails. I opened the trash folder and permanently deleted everything that was over a year old. I'm searching for emails I know are fairly recent and discover one of the email accounts has a year of history as I intended and the other 3 accounts are showing only 2 months. I view all of the accounts aggregated in one Inbox, one trash folder, etc and I didn't inadvertently delete the missing emails but I need them back.

From searches here is what I have tried:

Open Finder/Go to folder: ~/Library/Mail/V10

Click Time Machine icon in Menu Bar/Browse Time Machine Backups

Scroll through backup logs until I reach the desired backup date

Restore/Copy V10 folder to Desktop

Open Mail/Click File/Import Mailboxes/Import Data from Apple Mail/Select V10 file from desktop/Import

The mail folders then all show up under On My Mac/Import BUT the folders are all a carbon copy of my current mail folders. The missing emails I need are still missing. I've tried 3 times with 3 different backup dates I know precede my maintenance on the email folders. I'm doing something wrong. Or lost IMAP emails are not backed up in Time Machine and unrecoverable?

iMac 27″, macOS 13.4

Posted on Jul 18, 2023 3:12 PM

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Answer 1

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RaceMX Author

Level 1

11 points

Jul 18, 2023 3:52 PM in response to Old Toad

Thank you for the reply! I actually figured out how to do it. For some reason the process I described above was not pulling the correct dated file. I'm sure I did something wrong. I ended up going to Time Machine directly from Finder/selecting the correct backup file date and manually copying the V10 file to my desktop. This worked. Followed instructions from this post to access the (hidden) file. How can I unhide the Library folder in a … - Apple Community

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Answer 2

Old Toad

Level 10

210,301 points

Jul 18, 2023 3:40 PM in response to RaceMX

You can enter Time Machine and go back to just before you did the deletion. Restore the V10 folder (do not overwrite the existing V10 folder). The you an go into the restored folder, look for your emails, double click on them to open again in Mail. From there you can save to whatever local folder you'd like.

If the emails were not in local mailboxes on your Mac originally (I keept all of my emails on my Mac) this may not work. Give it a try however.

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Answer 3

RaceMX Author

Level 1

11 points

Jul 18, 2023 3:56 PM in response to RaceMX

One more question! Now that I have the missing emails - which I assume are now stored locally and not on mail servers - Can the emails now be returned to the original (imap) folders they originated from or is that just going to create more problems?

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Answer 4

tbirdvet

Level 6

14,206 points

Jul 18, 2023 4:04 PM in response to RaceMX

You can restore them to their original folders. I never try to restore the entire V10 file. I go into that directory and look for a specific mailbox which I export then import in mail as follows:

To restore mailbox:

Open Finder

Click “GO” in top menu bar then click option key

Click on Library

Open mail folder

Open V9 or V10 (or similar) folder

Then find the folders labeled with cryptic titles (at this point you could open TM if you want to go back in time)

Look down through those folders to find a mailbox (note: there may be more than one with same label).

If it contains email you want you can copy the entire folder to your desktop

Go back into mail and import that folder from your desktop

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Recover missing IMAP emails from Time Machine

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