archiving or managing 20 years of email?

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Level 1

106 points

archiving or managing 20 years of email?

hi all.

i'm using mac mail for my current email and am in the process of reconstructing about fifteen years of variously "archived" email in THUNDERBIRD for the mac.

this means i am currently running two different email clients for "current email" and for "archived email". but there is NO good distinction (like a date cutoff or anything really) and there is likely SOME OVERLAP in terms of duplicated emails or other issues in terms of how this data is organized (or not organized).

can anyone help me understand 1. what the "archive" options are in mail 2. whether there is a good reason to try to import the "archived" mail in thunderbird into mac mail or some OTHER SOFTWARE (or to specifically NOT do this) and 3. any other thoughts on keeping mail archived or organized or at least relatively tamed moving forward?

i am about to jump in to a yearly or every two year process where i sort mails by sender and then DELETE any spam which IN AND OF ITSELF is a massive time suck. so i would love to be thinking a little bit about handling things including archiving email moving forward while i perform this mind-numbing multi-say effort.

THANK YOU

Posted on Dec 27, 2019 12:53 PM

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Answer 1

steve626

Level 6

13,905 points

Dec 27, 2019 1:24 PM in response to hotwheels22

I am thinking if it were me, I might not do it.

https://www.systoolsgroup.com/import/thunderbird-mail-to-mac-mail/

In this article, it is noted that the import process is sometimes flawed. You might find some emails, attachments, etc. missing. If Thunderbird is working for you, why not keep using it for the archived emails?

You might also consider ways to better manage your email flow. For instance, setting up more or better filters to remove spam, deleting junk emails immediately, deleting most emails instead of keeping everything, filing the emails you keep into appropriate folders. One method commonly used is to sort emails into folders by year, e.g. 2016, 2017, 2018 and then into subfolders as desired, within each year. There is no need to have a mind-numbing effort every year or two if you simply set things up so you control the email, versus the other way around! However if Thunderbird is working for you, maybe just keep using it for the archive as is?

Apple Mail allows you to sort email into folders for long term "archive" as do most other email clients. However I don't expect that importing a massive 20-year email collection from another client will go entirely without some "complications."

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Answer 2

BDAqua

Level 10

250,259 points

Dec 27, 2019 2:46 PM in response to hotwheels22

Depends on your Mail provider, but basically Archivejust Hides them...

Select the inbox.
Right-click "Account Info"
Select "Messages on Server" tab.
Wait until the size of all of your mailboxes is calculated.
Select the Archive mailbox and click "Show Messages" button.

The archive now appears in the mailboxes bar.

In gMail Archived is just a flag, not a folder, it won't display them in the inbox but will show up in gMail>All Mail or the above method.

Archive is for Mails you don't plan on viewing but just maybe required in some distant future.

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Answer 3

BDAqua

Level 10

250,259 points

Dec 27, 2019 1:09 PM in response to hotwheels22

Perhaps this would help?

https://support.apple.com/guide/mail/use-smart-mailboxes-mlhlp1190/mac

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Answer 4

hotwheels22 Author

Level 1

106 points

Dec 27, 2019 2:11 PM in response to steve626

thanks.

sorry i was not entirely clear and somewhat purposely left it open ended. also i am just starting things do it is a bit confusing.

i guess i have two issues.

i am currently reclaiming “archived” TB profiles into a NEW archived” Profile in TB. this is an absolute mess since i simply dumped old profiles silly bulky in s folder on my hard drive and i have about ten of them that i know all have multiple duplicates multiple time. just the naming convention of the profiles scrambles my brain so much i cannot think about it. but then the fact that MBOX file types have no suffix and they themselves are sort of haphazardly strewn throughout a profile folder. well this process is an absolute mess. and i just started with it.
second issue is managing mac mail better moving forward. but i should say the 2019 organization makes no sense to me because emails are almost better left dumped into the UI IMHO. then search for it later. the dated yearly sort didn’t work out for me basically.
then the NEXT issue (i think and APOLOGIES as i an trying to think my way through this with help) - is how to make a sensible distinction between TB archived mail and “current” mac mail. maybe i should import and export data here by picking a year and move anything prior to one date over to TB and anything AFTER that date over to Mail and call it a day? which i think it sounds like you may be suggesting.

anyway, apologies for the hazy post and hazy response i am just trying to wrestle this 2 ton bull in a way i can make it work moving forward...

THANK YOU

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Answer 5

hotwheels22 Author

Level 1

106 points

Dec 27, 2019 2:02 PM in response to BDAqua

hey man.

thanks a lot for the helpful bump start on this.

so smart mailboxes let me see the data in a smart folder with some kind of categorization criteria (search term or sender?) and rules would instead do an actual sorting of mail?

is that right?

what about the archive functionality...?

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archiving or managing 20 years of email?

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