Transfer Mail to new Mac problem - any ideas?

I just received a new M1 iMac. I have been having some weird errors on my current iMac (2017 Retina 5K, Big Sur) so I decided to do a fresh install. I backed up everything using CCC and set up the new Mac without using Time Machine or Migration Assistant.

From the CCC backup, I copied over my Documents, Photos, and Movies folders. I then copied over my ~/Library/Mail folder.

I could have sworn I have done this before and upon opening Mail, it did a rebuild and everything was good. This time though all I get in Mail are my most current (not yet filed locally) iCloud emails. All my folders and filed emails won’t show up. I have tried selecting “Rebuild” in Mail. I have tried copying over the original Preference plist files. Nothing works :frowning:

Anyone know what I did wrong? Any ideas?

[ My old Mac is not wiped plus I have plenty of redundant backups so I am not worried about experimenting. ]

If you do use IMAP, there should be no reason to copy anything manually. Apple Mail will reload everything that is on the server. If you do not use IMAP but POP3, you have to migrate the mails.

Before you do anything manually, be sure to have a backup that is consistent. Your CCC backup should be fine.

Here is a nice article that describes the way how to migrate mails manually step-by-step. The article describes several different options how to proceed.

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Have you tried importing the mailbox?