Archiving messages and mailboxes

Question

Level 1

4 points

Archiving messages and mailboxes

I need to archive mailboxes and the messages within them and be able to search through them by date and message title. However as soon as the mailbox is saved anywhere else (other than its native location in library) the messages loose their titles and sometimes origina send dates too - depending upon the method used.

Mail messages - just like any other document need to be archived and searched for future reference yet Apple Mail doesn't seem to have any facility to do this - unless I've missed it of course.

Can anyone help me please?

G4, Mac OS X (10.4.4)

Posted on Jun 4, 2006 11:34 PM

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Answer 1

Sijmons

Level 4

2,094 points

Jun 5, 2006 12:52 AM in response to heykaramba

Have a look at this program:
http://www.mothsoftware.com/ma_1.html

although it archives stripped-down versions of the emails (no HTML code etc), which may be what you want or maybe not.

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Answer 2

macjack

Level 10

111,168 points

Jun 5, 2006 1:36 AM in response to heykaramba

Welcome to Apple Discussions.

You can just copy ~(YourHome)/Library/Mail to some external media. You can then open any mbox or message from it through your Mail app.

-mj
macjack@gmail.com

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Answer 3

Sijmons

Level 4

2,094 points

Jun 5, 2006 7:27 AM in response to macjack

MacJack, I have never tested this so I'm curious.
When do do a straight copy of the Mail folder on an external drive, and a few mails later that copy is no longer up-to-date, how do you access that external folder? via Import? and if yes, does that generate duplicates?

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Answer 4

macjack

Level 10

111,168 points

Jun 5, 2006 7:49 AM in response to Sijmons

Hi Sijmons, the OP only said he wanted to archive messages, not to set up a daily incremental backup of Mail.

To archive old Mail, I can copy to external and doubleclick on any Mail/Mailboxes/messages" to open. Then delete old "on my Mac" mailboxes on my startup volume.

A better solution is, of course, to have a clone on an external and perform daily incremental backups.

-mj
macjack@gmail.com

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Answer 5

Sijmons

Level 4

2,094 points

Jun 5, 2006 8:01 AM in response to macjack

Thanks MacJack, I see what you mean now.

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Answer 6

Jun 5, 2006 9:00 AM in response to heykaramba

You might want to take a look at the Archive Messages script from Mail Scripts - it allows you to export your messages as plain text, RTF, or mbox:

http://homepage.mac.com/aamann/

Andreas

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Answer 7

Jun 5, 2006 5:25 PM in response to heykaramba

What exactly does "I need to archive mailboxes and the messages within them" mean? What is it exactly that you want to accomplish that makes Mail not convenient to do so by using custom "On My Mac" mailboxes, for example?

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Answer 8

heykaramba Author

Level 1

4 points

Jun 5, 2006 5:30 PM in response to macjack

Yes but how do you browse through those messages by their original title? I archive word docs and excel docs and give the filename a meaningful title so that I can browse through them later to find relevant information. If you just archive a mailbox, all you get is something like 10008.emlx which is quite useless.

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Answer 9

heykaramba Author

Level 1

4 points

Jun 5, 2006 5:31 PM in response to David Gimeno Gost

I've just posted this answer above but this will answer your question back to me :-

Yes but how do you browse through those messages by their original title? I archive word docs and excel docs and give the filename a meaningful title so that I can browse through them later to find relevant information. If you just archive a mailbox, all you get is something like 10008.emlx which is quite useless.

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Answer 10

Jun 5, 2006 5:39 PM in response to heykaramba

I have no idea what are you talking about. Your answer has nothing to do with my questions.

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Answer 11

heykaramba Author

Level 1

4 points

Jun 5, 2006 5:44 PM in response to macjack

Here is precisely what I do.
#1. I have project folders where I store Word and Excel files that relate to that project - they have meaningful titles so I can browse through them in Finder.
#2. I currnetly can't file my emails in the same folder when I archive it off onto CDROM to make more room on my server. Well I could just copy the mailbox and messages from Library - but that wil not give the message files meaningful titles to browse through in Finder later on.

I know that I could import the archived mailbox back in to AppleMail - but thats a big pain in the butt compared to just being able to browse in Finder.

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Answer 12

heykaramba Author

Level 1

4 points

Jun 5, 2006 5:47 PM in response to David Gimeno Gost

see my answer above to macjack - I can't be more precise than this.

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Answer 13

heykaramba Author

Level 1

4 points

Jun 5, 2006 6:51 PM in response to Andreas Amann

Well, thats a very good little script you have written there Andreas - I export as rtf with headers and attachments and I get files that have menaingful titles as they contain original title, name of sender and date - exactly what I wanted.

As this is such a useful feature I hope Apple will do the right thing and make you rich when they purchase the rights to deploy it in next versions of Apple Mail.

Regards and many thanks. Bob

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Answer 14

Jun 5, 2006 6:56 PM in response to heykaramba

Bob,

glad to hear that my script helped you out - as far as the "getting rich" part is concerned, I am not keeping my hopes up to high... 😉

Andreas

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Answer 15

macjack

Level 10

111,168 points

Jun 6, 2006 6:19 AM in response to heykaramba

Mia culpa to you, Sijmons et al. The solution I provided will not work the way I described.

I was talking with a friend about "archiving old mail" he runs a business and has tons of messages he wanted to archive. He had just told me about this solution he had found.

I didn't test this myself but took his word for it. I even questioned him about the emails opening the entire mailbox and could he read all the messages with the proper subjects? He said he could.

Finally at the end of the day when I could test it, I got the same results as others only numbers in Finder and only the chosen email would open.

What he was doing was overwriting his Mail folder on another drive running OS 10.4. Well, sure that'll work, but then you might as well set up for daily backup.

Oh well, again apologies to anyone I lead on a goose chase.
Good idea for a script Andreas!

-mj
macjack@gmail.com

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