pomme4moi
Level 1 (57 points)
Desktops

Q: Where are Mac Mail mailboxes located?

Hi.  I keep software on the internal hard drive of my Mac, but I keep on personal content (iPhoto photos, iMovie projects, iTunes songs and video, etc) on an external drive.  I want to do the same thing with the email content that is stored on my Mac.  For the Mail mailboxes on my Mac, where is actual physical email content stored?  Is there a way to move this and future email content to my external drive, and have the Mail app find it there?  Thx

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.7)

Posted on Mar 22, 2012 10:40 AM

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pomme4moi

Q: Where are Mac Mail mailboxes located?

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  • by varjak paw,

    varjak paw varjak paw Mar 22, 2012 11:32 AM in response to pomme4moi
    Level 10 (169,876 points)
    Mar 22, 2012 11:32 AM in response to pomme4moi

    youruser/Library/Mail/V2/

     

    You can get to your user's Library folder, which is hidden in Lion, by holding down the Option key and using the Go menu in Finder.

     

    You probably could move your mail folders to an external drive via a symlink to that Mail folder, but I've never tried it. Should anything cause your external drive not to be mounted, it will break Mail, so I don't recommend it. But if you want to try it anyway, here's a basic tutorial on symlinks:

     

    http://gigaom.com/apple/how-to-create-and-use-symlinks-on-a-mac/

     

    Regards

  • by Matthew Morgan,

    Matthew Morgan Matthew Morgan Mar 22, 2012 11:33 AM in response to pomme4moi
    Level 7 (22,600 points)
    Mar 22, 2012 11:33 AM in response to pomme4moi

    It's keeped in your Library file which is now hidden in Lion.

     

    To see, from the Finder, hold down the option key and choose Go>Library.

     

    Now open the Mail folder.  That where you'll find all your mesaages, mailboxes etc.

     

    Unfortunately, as far as I know Mail isn't really designed to keep data in alternate locations like iTunes, iPhoto and iMovie can.

     

    Matt

  • by Linc Davis,Helpful

    Linc Davis Linc Davis Mar 22, 2012 11:55 AM in response to pomme4moi
    Level 10 (207,936 points)
    Applications
    Mar 22, 2012 11:55 AM in response to pomme4moi

    These instructions are for Lion only. Back up all data first and be prepared to restore if anything goes wrong.

     

    Select ▹ System Preferences ▹ Users & Groups. Click the lock icon and authenticate. Right-click or control-click your name in the account list and select Advanced options... from the contextual menu. In the sheet that opens, change your home directory to where you want it to be. Save your changes, log out, and log back in.