MacOS – Backup and Restore Apple Messages on macOS

backupmacosmessagesrestore

Is there some means of saving your Messages history on OS X and copying it to a new system without doing a full restore from a Time Machine back up?

Doing some searching, I found the below and tried this approach in a virtual machine copy of Mavericks without much luck.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5948332

Despite copying the files to their respective locations on the fresh install and adjusting permissions, the new installation version of Messages never seems to import/recognize the history from my current system.

To ensure my permissions were okay, I also found

Mavericks Mail will not save preferences

which was linked to by

Fixing broken Messages on OS X Mavericks

but this also did not result in Messages importing/using the copied history. Both instances of Mavericks are using Messages 8.0

Best Answer

Yes, it is possible to import message history from a Time Machine backup onto a new machine without a full restore from a Time Machine backup. This was tested on 10.10 but should work for at least 10.9 as well.

  1. Take a full Time Machine backup of the new system.
  2. Quit Messages.app.
  3. Remove all of the following files and directories on the new system:
    • ~/Library/Caches/com.apple.iChat/
    • ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.iChat/
    • ~/Library/Messages/
    • ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.imessage.bag.plist ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.imservice.FaceTime.plist ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.imservice.iMessage.plist ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.imservice.ids.FaceTime.plist ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.imservice.ids.iMessage.plist ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.iChat.AIM.plist ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.iChat.Jabber.plist ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.iChat.LSSharedFileList.plist ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.iChat.StatusMessages.plist ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.iChat.Yahoo.plist ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.iChat.plist
  4. Copy the following files and directories from your Time Machine backup to their respective locations on your new system:
    • ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.iChat/
    • ~/Library/Messages/
    • ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.imessage.bag.plist ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.imservice.FaceTime.plist ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.imservice.iMessage.plist ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.imservice.ids.FaceTime.plist ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.imservice.ids.iMessage.plist ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.iChat.AIM.plist ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.iChat.Jabber.plist ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.iChat.LSSharedFileList.plist ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.iChat.StatusMessages.plist ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.iChat.Yahoo.plist ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.iChat.plist
  5. Restart your system
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