You can make a difference in the Apple Support Community!

When you sign up with your Apple Account, you can provide valuable feedback to other community members by upvoting helpful replies and User Tips.

Looks like no one’s replied in a while. To start the conversation again, simply ask a new question.

Take Apple Mail eMail off-line

I’ve a lot of people asking about archiving email, to say an external drive, but I’ve yet to find a solution that works.


I want to be be able to replicate the functionality of an Outlook PST file but using Apple Mail. I want to move\export email into a folder on an external drive which I can take offline but then open and access emails without importing on an as and when basis.


Any thoughts or suggestions really appreciated.


Regards



iMac 27″, macOS 10.15

Posted on Jan 3, 2022 3:17 PM

Reply
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Jan 3, 2022 3:36 PM

You can export a mailbox as an mbox file for storage and ultimately import into another Mail application installation.


See Import or export mailboxes in Mail on Mac


  1. In the Mail app  on your Mac, select one or more mailboxes, then choose Mailbox > Export Mailbox.
  2. Choose a folder or create a new folder, then click Choose.
  3. Mail exports the mailboxes as .mbox packages. If you previously exported a mailbox, Mail doesn’t overwrite the existing .mbox file; it creates a new .mbox file, such as My Mailbox 3.mbox.


2 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Jan 3, 2022 3:36 PM in response to iwaddo

You can export a mailbox as an mbox file for storage and ultimately import into another Mail application installation.


See Import or export mailboxes in Mail on Mac


  1. In the Mail app  on your Mac, select one or more mailboxes, then choose Mailbox > Export Mailbox.
  2. Choose a folder or create a new folder, then click Choose.
  3. Mail exports the mailboxes as .mbox packages. If you previously exported a mailbox, Mail doesn’t overwrite the existing .mbox file; it creates a new .mbox file, such as My Mailbox 3.mbox.


Take Apple Mail eMail off-line

Welcome to Apple Support Community
A forum where Apple customers help each other with their products. Get started with your Apple Account.