Fixing a corrupted OS X Mail structure after an import of mailboxes from the previous system volume

emailmail.app

Due to various and persisting problems, I had to reinstall 10.8.2.

What I did

  • Shut down iMac with internal system disc A.
  • Started 10.8.2 recovery system
  • Copied iMac's system disc A to an external disc B as an image using Disc Util
  • Erased system disc A as HFS / journaled
  • Run a clean install on A

Then, I told OS X Mail to import old mailboxes from B into the fresh Mail system.

Ugly result

Unfortunately, I got tons of tons of deeply nested folders, which eventually contain email:

/Import-5
  V2
     POP-something
        Drafts
          0563726277
              Data
                   9
                     7
                       8
                          Mails
                            <this folder finally contains some emails>

Not hardly to see, I can't use these imported folder structure any more.

Question

Is anybody aware of a tool to fix such problems?

Best Answer

That "ugly" result is not a corruption or mistake, it's the way the Mail folder is structured now.

If you've been messing with its contents, I'd suggest emptying ~/Library/Mail/V2 and starting over again from your original source, re-importing or using Migration Assistant.

No, I don't know why either.

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