Although iData Pro requires OS 10.7 or later, it is capable of importing Apple Mail folders going back to OS 10.4.
However, the way Apple Mail folders are stored changed after OS 10.6. To learn how to import Apple Mail files from OS 10.4 through 10.6, click here.Mail File Location
Beginning with OS 10.7, the Library folder has been hidden, so the following steps are required to access your Mail folder.
If you created folders in the Mail application for different kinds of email, those folders are strored in the Mail folder with .mbox after the name. The following explains how to find those folders. 1. In the Finder, select Go to Folder... under the Go menu. This will bring up the following window:
2. Type in ~/Library and click the Go button. This will open the Library folder.
3. Look for the Mail folder. This is easiest if you click at the top of the Name column to sort the folders in alphabetical order.
4. Drag the Mail folder to the favorites list at the left of the window.
HOWEVER, it is important that you DO NOT move or delete any files or subfolders within the Mail folder, as that could result in the Mail app being unable to locate your emails.
5. In iData Pro, select Apple Mail - OS 10.4 or Later in the Import sub-menu, under the File menu.
6. In the Open dialog, click on Mail in the favorites list, then open the V3 folder.
7. Open the various folders that have the long alphanumeric names until you find the .mbox that you want to import. Then highlight it and click the Select button.
Other Mail Folder Locations
The .mbox folders are how Apple Mail stores your mailboxes.
If you have created sub-mailboxes within other "root" mailboxes, you can open a root mailbox to import a sub-mailbox. The previous image is from my personal Mac. Here's what Chinese List.mbox looks like when it is opened:
If I select Chinese List.mbox, both the main-level folder emails and the Beijing Sounds.mbox will be imported. If I want only Beijing Sounds.mbox, I can just select that one.
Oddly, the other three folders with the long names each contain the same set of sub-folders. Here's the first one:
They have different dates. I'm not sure why there are three of them.
If you haven't created folders and Rules for directing all your email messages into folders, your messages may be in the Inbox. The Inbox is in a slightly different place. In the same folder as the Mailboxes (folder listed above), you will find a folder that begins POP- and includes your email address. In that folder will be an INBOX.mbox folder. This is where your Inbox messages are located.
Completing the Import Action
Once you have selected folder to import, click the Open button. A dialog will appear
giving you
several options.
If you have a datafile open with the appropriate fields, you can add or merge the imported records into the existing datafile.
Add to current datafile
This will append the imported records to the current datafile. No attempt will be made to determine if a message already exists in the datafile. To avoid duplicate records, you must be sure that messages you previously imported are not in the folder that you are now importing.
Merge into current datafile
This will sort the current datafile and only import messages that are not already in the datafile. If there is the slightest difference, iData Pro will see it as a new message.
Email Record Structure
iData Pro places the message portion of each imported email message into the Freeform Text Area of a record. In addition, any existing data of the following types will be put into matching fields:
Subject
Date
From
Reply
to
To
cc
File
Name
References
Import Speed
Old HTML messages that contain links to images that no longer exist on the Web are a particular problem, as the system may spend as much as a minute (which feels like forever) trying to find the image before giving up. In a few cases, the system will not be able to process such a message, and will return an error code. In these cases, iData will place a message saying, "HTML could not be processed." in the Message area.
If you notice that you have a record containing an unprocessed message, you can look at the File Name field to find the name of the .emlx file. Find that file in the Finder and double-click it to open it in Mail. Then, you can copy the message content in Mail and paste it into the iData record.
If it seems that the import is going on for longer than normal, you can abort the import process at any time by typing the esc key or command-period. However, if you know that the mailbox being imported is large, it's probably best to be patient. When the process is aborted, messages that have already been imported will show up in the datafile.
