Can default location of mail be changed

We can enter into user library : macOS Sierra: Library folder

Find a folder Mail , select it right click on it , click on copy mail , the method was stated in the above post , after copy paste you can also drag and drop V4 folder on the desktop , insert the usb stick in system , open it then again drag and drop V4 folder in the usb stick , all mails in your IMAP account are moved in USB stick .

That is more simple method , any ways regarding the question how to copy mails in my Mac section , take cursor on top menu bar , click on mailbox > new mailbox .A small window appears .

Name it any thing say abv and click on ok .

Drag and drop the desired important mails from inbox , sent ... in this folder .

Replied to an old thread : Mail search not finding messages in Inbox

You can copy paste mails in V4 folder insert an USB stick in the system , just drag and drop mails in it .

Or are you looking another method : Mail for Mac: Import or export mailboxes

I have not tried this, but it should work. Make sure you have an up to date backup before you start making those changes (even though they seem pretty safe, I am not offering any guarantees).

1) Quit Mail

2) In the Finder, copy the whole ~/Library/Mail folder to the desired location.

For the purpose of this explanation I will assume it is /Volumes/External/Mail

(change the name accordingly in what follows)

3) Delete the original ~/Library/Mail folder - or, better still, rename it, or place it somewhere else in your system drive.

4) Create a symlink from ~/Library/Mail to the actual folder in the External drive.

In Terminal, type the following commands:

cd ~/Library

ln -s /Volumes/External/Mail Mail

My instructions were to symlink only ~/Library/Mail, not the whole ~/Library folder.

[Caution: Be careful when typing things in the Terminal. You have to type things exactly (*)]

In the lines

cd ~/Library

ln -s /Volumes/External/Mail Mail

-the first one changes the current directory to ~/Library, so after executing it you are "sitting" in the Library folder inside your home folder;

-the second one creates a symbolic link (symlink) to the directory /Volumes/External/Mail and names it as "Mail", in the current directory - i.e. it makes it so that "~/Library/Mail" becomes a symlink to /Volumes/External/Mail, which what we are after.

(*) with the required adaptations, unless your external drive is called "External" and you put the "Mail" folder right inside the volume, and not inside some other folder, of course.

If you want to to get the exact path to your external Mail folder, you can obtain it by dragging the folder over to a Terminal window; then copy and paste that)

In addition to my last post:

After copying I would rename the Mail folder to something like Mail(old), create the symlink, restart and test.

If something goes awry you can simply delete the symlink, rename Mail(old) back to Mail, restart and be back to where you were before. It is good to be cautious, and this way you don't take risks.

But I expect the whole procedure to work nicely.

Ah! And don't forget to backup.

vikaspell wrote:

Dear luis,

Thank of the explanation..

I haven't used symlink earlier so i am a little confused

Just taking clowning my whole drive as a backup, just in case situations.

Yes, that is a very good idea.

Btw what if i change the whole users folder location, Mac allows us to change the location if the users folder.

I used to have my users on the addition HDD way back in leopard but never really changed the location of user after that. since the update to the newer OS messed things up really bad.

VIk

In principle, the same idea should work.

Again, one should be careful.

I would start by creating a new admin user.

The following would be done while logged in as this new admin, so you wouldn't be messing with your own home folder while logged in as yourself (this would be dangerous).

Also in case something goes wrong later, one can intervene by logging in as this admin user.

I would then try moving the home folder of your own normal user account(s) to the other drive (Note: NOT the whole /Users, but the home folders inside that, except the one for this new admin), and replace those with symlinks.

vikaspell wrote:

Just found a link that explains things. No awaiting to try and confirm

https://gigaom.com/2011/04/27/how-to-create-and-use-symlinks-on-a-mac/

btw while reading on symlinks i saw that "System integrity protection" could protect me from creating symlinks on the ~/library folder .

Now sure if you already know is SIP could be a spoiler here

VIK

I just tried to create in ~/Library a symlink to one of my folders and it worked without issue. (I did NOT try moving the Mail folder, just to test if there was a problem with creating symlinks).

SIP prevents one from changing the contents of system related folders (hence its name): we can change, for example, /System/Library. It does not prevent you from messing with your own folders.

Mils are stored in the user library > Mail folder the correct path is ~/Library/Mail

You can read the steps in the article : Mail for Mac: Create or delete mailboxes