Getting POP and Mailboxes back

[TuckerdogAVL]

When I fired up the computer today and chose the "Mail" icon, after three years I got the "welcome, we'll help you set up you account." All my mailboxes have vanished.

I can "See" the Library/Mailboxes and the POP folders....how do I get these back so I can see the 1100 emails that are saved in the various folders?

PS If I try to import mailboxes, choose other and then go to the mbox files I get the message "there are no valid mbox files to import."

I had hooked up the computer with firewire and I had attempted the migration assistant but really had a problem finding the mail stuff without migrating a lot of old stuff I didn't want. So, I took the advise from another post and what I did last night was copy my mail to a flashdrive so I would have the accounts on the new MacBookpro. When I fired up the old computer today, I had to set up a new account and attempt to restore the folders. They show up but empty. There are five pop accounts and about 30 folders with various client info, etc.

 

[djackmac]

If you are transferring data from another computer, I'd recommend letting OSX do it for you through Applications/utilities/migration assistant. I'm not going through the time to explain it as there are probably thousands of tutorials on this site or through a search engine of your choice which may even give you visual walk throughs on doing this.

EDIT: Did see that you tried migration assistant and brought over stuff you didn't want but this is still a much cleaner way for the inexperienced to do it, plus you can always clean it up later. I wouldn't recommend manually rebuilding accounts like you are trying to do without knowing what you are doing. That is unless you don't mind the apps you are trying to use not pointing to the right locations/folders.

 

[TuckerdogAVL]

If you are transferring data from another computer, I'd recommend letting OSX do it for you through Applications/utilities/migration assistant. I'm not going through the time to explain it as there are probably thousands of tutorials on this site or through a search engine of your choice which may even give you visual walk throughs on doing this.

Thanks, but the barn door is already open. Any Idea as to how to get the stuff back on either the old or the new computer? Might as well do it for the new one at this point....what folders/files would I drag and where? Or, do you feel I should attempt the migration assistant again and tell it to restore the mailboxes, etc on the new one?

Perhaps that's the way to go?

 

[TuckerdogAVL]

PS I fear I may already "screwed the pooch" on this, unless the assistant can rebuild whatever I did. It is the old computer that I fired up today to check mail and it asked me to create a new account. (Though apparently all the information is still on the computer, but the inboxes and accounts are not showing...and all the folders are empty in the program).