Saving AOL Mail Permanently

Hello, and welcome to the Discussions.

It is AOL's policy to remove messages from your Inbox, which since their accounts are IMAP type, is on the server, after 27 days. There is no action of Mail to prevent this. AOL does provide another folder on the server named Saved -- you will see it in the Sidebar further down, into which you can move messages prior to 27 days. Or you can move messages to an On My Mac mailbox you can create as a New Mailbox, where they will be saved on that one computer only.

Ernie

Welcome To  Discussions dogcatdoc!

If you have the AOL application installed you can also store the Emails in the PFC (Personal Filing Cabinet).

Repost if you need additional info.

ali b

I have a question along these lines, as well. I thought Mail downloads all my AOL mail, saving it on my computer? Am I wrong about this? Today, all messages prior to August 23 have disappeared from the Inbox of my Mail. I tried using Spotlight, but no luck there, either. Help!

I also use the stand alone AOL and iMap in Mac mail. Ernie I value your information and knowledge but I "think" I have to respectfully disagree with you in this post. I have AOL mail stored in my Mac mail inbox going back to 8/22/2008. It has never been deleted after 27 days and it's still in the inbox. Maybe I am misreading or not fully understanding the post so correct me if I am wrong. I don't know about anybody else who uses AOL with Mac mail but for me the inbox mail doesn't automatically get deleted after 27 days. Maybe for some the emails get deleted? I know I should either archive or put them emails in the saved folder. Some of these AOL emails are like how to do stuff on a Mac etc. because I am relatively new with Mac computers. You are probably correct about the 27 day deletion but how come it hasn't happened to me? Thanks........

I don't use AOL but if they are using IMAP, then how the messages show up on your end can be controlled by your Mail preferences. For example I have my Mail set up so that all messages are cached locally. After a few weeks I drag them to folders under On My Mac so that I have them permanently no matter what my mail provider does up on their end. So check your account settings in Mail.

How AOL email will be saved depends on the program that you are using. Using the AOL classic program (v10.3.7 was the last version and it does not work well on Leopard), you had the option to automatically save the mail you've read. If you did not select that option, it would remain in a "read mail" folder for the above mentioned 27 (or perhaps 30) days. AOL's Help web pages give more detail on this.


Mac OS X's Mail does not have this feature, so you must manually save each incoming mail, or as others have said, periodically save all of the older emails before they are deleted.


Another option is to mark them as "unread" and they will remain in your Inbox and AOL's server indefinitely.