how to save mail before deleting an account

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how to save mail before deleting an account

I wish to delete one of my email accounts and from what I can tell, doing so will also eliminate all emails sent to it. Surely there's a way to "hide" this email from the deletion process it sounds like Mail does. What I want to keep are old emails that are filed in boxes in a folder On My Mac.

Ideas?

Thanks.

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.4.7)

Posted on Dec 11, 2006 1:54 PM

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Answer 1

Dec 11, 2006 2:13 PM in response to kays

Not sure what your question is. It looks like you already know what to do about it, i.e. move all your mail stored in the account’s mailboxes to custom “On My Mac” mailboxes. Messages stored there won’t be lost as a result of deleting the account. What gets deleted are the account’s mailboxes and, consequently, the messages stored in those mailboxes, but not the messages stored elsewhere.

Whatever you do, however, quit Mail and make a backup copy of the ~/Library/Mail folder first, just in case. You can do this in the Finder by dragging the folder to the Desktop while holding the Option (Alt) key down, for example. This is where all your mail is stored.

Note: For those not familiarized with the ~/ notation, it refers to the user’s home folder, i.e. ~/Library is the Library folder within the user’s home folder.

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Answer 2

Dec 11, 2006 2:07 PM in response to kays

When creating an email account in Mail, an account named folder is created within the Mail folder at Home > Library > Mail named by the user name and incoming mail server for the account.

For a POP type account, the following mbox folders are created within the account named folder when the function is used by the account; INBOX.mbox, Drafts.mbox, Sent Messages.mbox, Deleted Messages.mbox and Junk.mbox (when Junk Mail is set to Automatic).

The mbox folders within the account named folder represent the account named mailboxes under Inbox, Drafts, Sent, Trash and Junk in the mailboxes drawer.

When deleting an account in Mail, the account named folder and account mailboxes within are also deleted.

User created "On My Mac" location mailboxes are not associated within any account and are located within the Mailboxes folder at Home > Library > Mail > Mailboxes.

Before deleting an account, move messages from the account's Inbox mailbox and Sent mailbox that you need/want to save to user created "On My Mac" location mailboxes. "On My Mac" location mailboxes and the messages located within are not affected or touched when deleting an account.

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Answer 3

kays Author

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Dec 11, 2006 3:10 PM in response to Allan Sampson

David and Allan:

Thank you both for clear answers. I couldn't imagine that Mail would delete all my POP account emails when they're stuck in 20+ user-created mailboxes... but I wasn't going to bet on it without getting an answer I could understand.

kays

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Answer 4

tobytune

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Dec 12, 2006 2:38 PM in response to kays

Well, I eliminated an account and it took all of 2006's mail with it. Yea, I know... I should have read the info better. I have a back up clone on another drive and have tried to import my "inbox" mail but it says that it is invalid. I see the message list but they are all greyed out. How can I get this mail back?

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Answer 5

Dec 12, 2006 2:46 PM in response to tobytune

have tried to import my "inbox" mail but it says that it is invalid.

That’s not what it says.

Pay attention to the instructions that Mail displays when selecting Mail for Mac OS X as the data format. Mail wants you to select the folder that contains the mailboxes to be imported, not the *.mbox folders themselves.

If you select the *.mbox folder itself, Mail says “No valid Mail for Mac OS X files were found” because it cannot find any *.mbox folders within the folder you're selecting.

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