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Gmail and Mac Mail multiple issues, where are ALL the mail folders

Hi Community,

Long story but I have gone to Apple support and Google support with no luck with issue, so my novel solution is the only one left.

I have major issues with my Macmail. I cant export, rebuild or 'fix' it. All my email is in Macmail and a lot of it is from a closed email address, so not on Gmail server.

I don't want to lose this email but I want to have my Macmail working properly again. So my plan is to copy all my email folders from my Macbook Pro to my imac (which is running the same version of the OS 10.15.4) in hopes that I can 'paste' these folders in and transfer the 'broken' database to the imac which I never use for email and then either empty the email folders on the macbook pro or move everything onto external drive and reinstall OS to get macmail back to healthy.

Does anyone know if copy and pasting app folders for Macmail will work?

Also where are all the folders I will need to copy I know about the

Macintosh HD/Users/NAME/Library/Mail

Macintosh HD/Users/NAME/Library/Containers/Com.apple.mail

are there any more? To 'clean' the macmail after copying successfully to another machine are there specific folders I should delete or empty contents of or will a fresh install of OS be required?

Thanks for any assistance on this one.

MacBook Pro 15", macOS 10.15

Posted on Apr 4, 2020 9:24 AM

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8 replies

Apr 4, 2020 2:03 PM in response to BDAqua

I don't have any rules and yup trash gets deleted not archived, I am amazed that email that I send to the trash goes to bin then I deleted it from there and they magically reappear in the inbox or archive folder. I was just getting a couple of shots to show you examples and I figured something out. Often to find the 'piles' of email I wish to delete I use the search function. It appears deleting them when they are search results makes them magically reappear but if I actually go to the archive folder or inbox and scroll to the email from the date etc it stays gone, how weird is that! I have captured a couple of shots to give you an idea of the issue though. The good news is I did manage to delete the ones that advised they were sent in 1921!

Thanks for your help I will move those folders and see what happens. :-)

Apr 4, 2020 11:49 AM in response to BDAqua

Hi thanks for reply, great to know it should work, have I listed all the places I will find mail correctly or are there more? Problems with macmail are its constantly ‘moving’ mail which is a known issue for some users and is under action by engineers but I also have emails I cant delete and multiple copies of emails (sometimes 100 ‘Draft’ copies) Which reappear if I delete them. The gmail server and the mac have partially synced so some emails are on server but not all so no way of knowing. It says I have 13k of flagged messages but you go into the flagged folder and there are none. Tried flagging all mail and then removing flags but still ghosts of 13k. Thanks for asking and the reply too :-)

Apr 4, 2020 3:57 PM in response to Megabite47

Sounds like great news, it is solved is it?


Ignore the files in gMail Archive & gMail All Mail, google never really deletes any of your eMails they get tagged as Deleted or Archived but are always there, really Trash emptied ones should be hidden from you but not Google, but sometimes Trah folder gets tagged as Archived also & stuff gets confused, as there are really no Folders in gMail just tags. :)

Apr 6, 2020 1:05 PM in response to BDAqua

Unfortunately I copied and pasted the two folders I thought contained everything but obviously they didnt as about 100k of email is missing. I will have to go hunting for more folders to have another go. But at least the email still worked so folder copying is probably the answer, just need to find the other folder or folders. Thanks :-)

Gmail and Mac Mail multiple issues, where are ALL the mail folders

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