How do I restore missing emails from a backup within the command line?

Question

How do I restore missing emails from a backup within the command line?

Answer

Note: In the following examples, "$username," "$emailusername," and "$domain.tld" must be replaced with the cPanel account's username, the email account's username, and the account's domain name, respectively.

1. Log into the cPanel user's account.
2. Ensure that the target email account exists.
3. Access the server's command line as the root user via SSH or Terminal in WHM.

4. Create a staging directory.

   # mkdir -vp /path/to/extraction/folder/

5. Extract the contents of the backup for the account.

   # tar -xf /path/to/backup/location/$username.tar.gz -C /path/to/extraction/folder/

   Note: The paths "/path/to/backup/location/" and "/path/to/extraction/folder/" must be replaced with the path to the backup location and the path to the extraction folder.

6. To copy all of the email account's files back to the email account's folder under the cPanel account.

   # rsync -avP --ignore-existing --progress  /path/to/extraction/folder/$username/homedir/mail/$domain.tld/$emailusername/cur /home/$username/mail/$domain.tld/$emailusername/cur
    

   Note: If you wish to restore all emails, you must copy all the mail directories (cur, new, .spam, .Sent, .Trash, etc.).

7. Change the ownership of the mail files.

   # find /home/$username/mail/$domain.tld/$emailusername/ ! -user $username -exec chown $username. {} \;

Additional Resources

How to manually extract individual files from a cPanel backup with the tar utility