AOL V5.0 under OS 9.22: Mail not in Filing Cabinet

Here's a nice AOL V5.0 challenge for all OS 9.22 lovers/users.

Without going into details, a customer MUST use 9.22 for a certain application. Further, he must use AOL V5.0 in order to get attachment files. If and when he uses OS X to get the files, they simply do not work with his OS 9 application. His application only works in 9.22, not Classic.

Unfortunately, whomever set up his AOL four years ago did NOT set his mail to be saved, so I found out today that his Personal Filing Cabinet (PFC) is empty, and AOL freezes if he clicks on the tab "Old Mail". By discarding and resetting prefs, now new mail is going to his PFC, but that doesn't help the mail sent nor the old mail residing on AOL's server.

How can he empty his old mail and preserve it, or better yet, transfer it to the PFC ? Going to the AOL website doesn't allow mail export. Is this where IMAP and an e-mail client would help ? He has no problem with the new mail section, so occasionally he'll go to an OSX machine and set a few old mails to "new" and then retrieve them on his 9.22 machine.

Reducing his massive Old Mail will help run OS 9.22, because once he clicks on that Old Mail tab there's a looooong load in time, the program freezes, and force quitting AOL must be done or one cannot do a normal restart. After a force quit, the system is completely unstable and a restart is required to use 9.22, and that can only be done by the power button (800 mHz dual PPC G4) or disconnecting the AC.

Any and all suggestions are welcome, but please, don't suggest to abandon OS 9. It is required, and aside from AOL and one other issue, it works great.

Thank you.