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Level 1

10 points

Mail Downloads folder

Hello everybody !

I have a question connected with mail.app

I am addicted to making back-ups of everything I have on my computer. Correspondence in mail in a part of important data I need to regulary back-up just in case. Untill now I've been back-uping the folder "User->Library->Mail->V2" because I thought that all the messages INCLUDING ATTACHEMENTS are stored there.

But recently I've found out the folder with a significant size "User->Library->Containers->com.apple.mail->Data->Library->Mail downloads" that contain (well, obviously) attachements to the messages from mail.app.

THE QUESTION:

What is the role of "Mail downloads" folder? Will all attachements (in mail.app) be deleted in case I clean this folder by deleting all it's content ? Or should I back-up it together with "V2" folder to be able to restore all information from mail.app (includint attached files) on my computer?

Thank you in advance 🙂

MacBook Air, Mac OS X (10.7.1)

Posted on Jun 13, 2013 12:04 AM

22 replies

Moloy Author

Level 1

10 points

Jun 15, 2013 6:32 AM in response to Topher Kessler

Well as for time machine . . . I was not able to find any preferences of back-up service lol. And to edit anything I needed to use some 3rd party applications, this is not what I want.

1) Time Machine didn't "want" to backup my Windows7 partition

2) Time Machine backs up every 24 hours and I can not change it. Taking into account that I have 450 GB space occupied the backup process takes more then 50minutes, so as soon as the process ends, the second one begins. This is pretty loudy because my external HDD is always spinning and Macbook's cooling system is always on (about 4000+ rpm all the time is pretty annoying). Also this wears my external drive off.

3) As a result my macbook's processor is always busy with 90+ C temperature even when I am doing nothing.

4) There are only 2 folders that change rapidly and are to be regulary backup'ed: Mail folder and my own folder containing personal info (word files, excel files, pictures etc). And their size is like 2GB each. The whole other system changes like 1 time in a week (after some upgraid or maybe installing of a new app....or changing some preferences...). But I can not "tell" time machine what to back-up. I can only exclude folders, but this is not what I want.

Jun 15, 2013 6:39 AM in response to Moloy

True it will not back up a Windows partition, though for this you can use WinClone (http://twocanoes.com/winclone/), or a Windows-based solution.

Time Machine will back up on the hour, and not every day. If this is happening then there's something awry with your setup. Time Machine will also only backup the changed files, and not the entire system, in a sense maintaining an ongoing backup instead of creating a new backup each time.

Moloy Author

Level 1

10 points

Jun 15, 2013 11:22 PM in response to Topher Kessler

"Time Machine will also only backup the changed files..." Hmmm that sounds MUCH more attractive now, I think I should give it one more try! Thank you again )

miz_mdk

Level 1

20 points

May 4, 2014 11:07 PM in response to Moloy

Also, you can set Time Machine to "Off" in Time Machine Preferences. This does not disable Time Machine, it just means you have to start the backup manually. Then you can do your backup at whatever interval you choose.

It is very simple to find/restore files/folders from a Time Machine backup. TM is also nice because it backs up your whole system, in a much simpler and quicker process than on Windows. However, it is not an archive; when the drive/partition on which you keep your Time Machine fills up, TM starts dumping off the oldest backups. According to some experts, you really should still copy your important files over to an external backup. If you format that drive to exFAT, you will be able to access them from Windows or Mac.

Moloy Author

Level 1

10 points

May 4, 2014 11:25 PM in response to miz_mdk

Dear miz_mdk, thank you for reply but as you can see this is an old thread. I already got used to TM and I love it 🙂

Sep 26, 2014 7:59 AM in response to Moloy

Hi Moloy,

Sorry to lug this old thread back into action, but I'm not witnessing two of the behaviors you describe here. I found this conversation while researching Apple Mail's non-intuitive attachment editing behavior as it relates to people with a Windows background (namely, my wife, who is constantly frustrated with OS X). I was hoping to find a solution that would disallow Mail from saving any edited files back to the original Downloads Folder location (which is admittedly non-intuive, though I've long since gotten used to it and know where to look when it happens).

Anyway, while the setup you describe above sounds like a perfect solution, it isn't working in my case:

"If you Save the attachment you will have a second copy downloaded to the location specified in..." Not what I'm seeing. I just tried opening a Word doc that was sent to me, made a slight change, and saved to its current Downloads location. I do have a second location specified in Mail for the purpose of saving attachments, which is where such a message would assumedly have been moved. Nonetheless, it didn't move anywhere.
"Any file placed in the folder "Mail Downloads", which you haven't modified will be deleted." Here again, no dice. While that is clearly what is meant by the setting's verbiage, I set it as such and then previewed a simple attached image, then verified that it was stowed in the Downloads folder. I then quit Mail and watched. Nothing happened, the file and its folder were (are) still there. I re-opened/re-quit Mail, no change.

I don't really expect a solution to my issues, it's possible that there's just something wrong with my system (corrupted preferences or something), but I do want to alert others who come across this thread that the solution cited may not work for them. But if anyone has ideas for making my Mail follow Moloy's rules, I'm all ears. 🙂

Sep 26, 2014 8:22 AM in response to Whitfield G

Follow-up: I just tried the same experiments on my wife's computer, which is still on 10.7.5 (mine is up to date, 10.9.2). While her copy of Mail does properly expunge the Downloaded Mail folder upon quit, it still doesn't move edited versions to the assigned downloads folder, it allows edited documents to stay in the same archaic ~/Mail/...Downloaded Mail folder. So the case may be that there's something wrong with my own install, but I'm seeing no evidence of the supposed automatic moving/copying of edited files to the user-selected downloads folder.

Mail Downloads folder