My iMac Desktop has "died"

[dannyboy22]

Your ‘missing’ files should be in ~/Library/Safari and ~/Library/Mail - can you see those folders?.

Thanks for the suggestion which I've been trying for a couple of hours. In Library I haven't found a Mail or Safari folder, however, in the User folder and under my name there was another Library folder. In this I could find both Mail and Safari folders.
Navigating to the Mail one I could open various folders with files shown in date order but no subject listed so you need to open each in turn to see what the email was. Each folder contained files belonging to just one calendar year, but so far I've only found 2013 and 2022 and no years in between. However of the emails I opened none were ones I would have normally saved (none of the folders I opened showed deleted).
In the second Safari folder on the area under Users and my name the files appeared to be relating to the OS with extensions such as plist, shm and wal so I was unable to open these.

I think I had naively assumed that in connecting my iMac HD to the Mac laptop I would be able to read the file structure in the same way as if I was viewing them on the iMac! Clearly this is not the case but I'll persevere to find what information I can to upload to the laptop.

 

[dannyboy22]

@Patrick, I think @MacBiter has pointed to why the Finder cannot search those files. For the last few years Apple has pretty much walled off those user files to reduce the number of issues. Very helpful if you're trying to prevent problems but not so good if someone needs to access the files and doesn't know how to do so.

Since you have access to the original drive I think it would be possible to access it from Migration Assistant but I won't be able to check till later today.

If that does not work we should still be able to make sure those files are checked. I won't be able to confirm this till later today.

Thanks and I would appreciate any further guidance you can provide.

 

[ferrarr]

Can you change the permissions on the hard drive to gain access?

 

[MacInWin]

Your unique mail and maybe even your bookmarks will be in your own user folder on that old drive. The path to your own user area is "/Users/<<your login name>>/" on that drive. If you have created a new account on your new machine and the folder is blocked, it's because of the macOS security saying that your new account is NOT the same as the account that created the old folder. That's fixable, if that is the issue.
In post #18, MacBiter said this:

Your ‘missing’ files should be in ~/Library/Safari and ~/Library/Mail - can you see those folders?.

That "~" is an abbreviation for "/Users/<<your user account>>". So, mail is stored at
"/User/<<your user account/Library/Mail' and is NOT blocked by system security uniquely. So, if you can get to "/User/<<your user account>>," then you should be able to get to your Mail files. The same applies for Safari data.

 

[MacBiter]

Thanks for the suggestion which I've been trying for a couple of hours. In Library I haven't found a Mail or Safari folder, however, in the User folder and under my name there was another Library folder. In this I could find both Mail and Safari folders.
Navigating to the Mail one I could open various folders with files shown in date order but no subject listed so you need to open each in turn to see what the email was. Each folder contained files belonging to just one calendar year, but so far I've only found 2013 and 2022 and no years in between. However of the emails I opened none were ones I would have normally saved (none of the folders I opened showed deleted).
In the second Safari folder on the area under Users and my name the files appeared to be relating to the OS with extensions such as plist, shm and wal so I was unable to open these.

I think I had naively assumed that in connecting my iMac HD to the Mac laptop I would be able to read the file structure in the same way as if I was viewing them on the iMac! Clearly this is not the case but I'll persevere to find what information I can to upload to the laptop.

Yes, as explained you won't find those folders in the main Library but they will be under your User name Library as you've found. I can't explain Mail as I haven't used that app for years. However the Safari items you can't read are used by Safari and opened / translated when you open the browser; so you should copy that entire folder and when you have a running system somewhere, move that copy to your User Library. Then when you open Safari - assuming it’s the same version - you should see your Safari settings, bookmarks, previous session, etc.

 

[Slydude]

Perhaps I missed it earlier but did you have a backup of your old system?