[macintologist]

I got my mom a new Mac and she has a POP email account with her ISP. On her old Mac she has thousands of old emails from that POP account. Is there a way she can transfer those messages and settings onto the new Mac so that when you open Mail.app it's like nothing ever happened. I don't want the old messages to appear as "Archived" or anything like that, just appear in the inbox as if she's been using the same computer for years.

Remember folks, POP email doesn't get stored in the remote email server, it gets downloaded to your computer once and that's it.

[besson3c]

It will be up to the email client she is using to support the mailbox format used by the email client on the machine where the POP account is saved to. Many clients have import/export options supporting various formats, but how well this will work will probably vary.

[Sherman Homan]

It is going to depend on the old client, what was she using? What OS? It has to export into a format that Mail can import. Even then, it probably will result in an Imported Items folder or some such. Not a terrible ordeal, but unless the old email can go directly into Mail's mbox structure it won't 'automagically' appear.

[besson3c]

FYI, Mail doesn't use mbox anymore (since 10.4), but something that closer resembles Maildir + Spotlight extras.

[Chuckit]

If it was Mail on another Mac, you could just use Migration Assistant. Otherwise, like Besson said, it depends on what she was using.

[macintologist]

yes it was Mail.app on Tiger, now we're on Mail.app in Leopard.

[TETENAL]

Use Migration Assistant to migrate her user account to the new Mac. That solves the Mail and all other problems. Like iTunes, iPhoto and documents.

Only thing: since it's a POP account she should not use the old Mac to retrieve mails any more, once she's done that from the new one.