On 2023-05-03 at 10:08:50 UTC-0400 (Wed, 3 May 2023 07:08:50 -0700)
davecc0000 <mailmate@lists.freron.com>
is rumored to have said:

I’m creating a new boot volume (Catalina) and doing a minimal, manual migration of needed apps.

I downloaded MM from thr Freron server.

I copied
~/Library/Application Support/MailMate

from the old boot volume (Sierra) to the new boot volume (Catalina).

After launching MM and providing all the email account passwords, MM put up this message:

“MailMate failed to save a file to disk”
< https://imgur.com/a/jdBs3iI >

Apparently there is an alias to the messages in the MailMate folder which can’t be resolved. I navigated to the old Sierra boot disk (while still booted into Catalina) and double-clicked on the alias. A System error message was displayed saying the original item couldn’t be located.

Suggestions?

Short answer:

Finder:File->Get Info on the old alias, look for "Original" field. That directory is the REAL Messages folder, in the context where the Sierra volume is mounted at the root. Find that directory on the Sierra volume and copy it to the analogous place on the new disk.


Long answer:

True Finder Aliases should not break like that, but the Finder will present "symbolic link" files (part of the Unix heritage, a.k.a. 'symlinks') as aliases despite the fact that they technically aren't the same. Symlinks are fragile because they hold only a pathname, which can be absolute and hence dependent on where a volume is mounted, or relative and so dependent on the current working directory when resolved. They are generally NOT followed when copying, as they are frequently used as a tactic for disk space management.

At some point, you set your Messages to live somewhere accessible (Preferences->General) and MailMate created a symlink in ~/Library/Application Support/MailMate/ to the absolute pathname of wherever you set the real folder to live. Copying broke the link, which is most likely rooted in /Users/yourusername/ (which is now your home dir on the Catalina volume.)

--
Bill Cole
b...@scconsult.com or billc...@apache.org
(AKA @grumpybozo and many *@billmail.scconsult.com addresses)
Not Currently Available For Hire
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