How can I copy all the email and the sub-folders?

[chmania]

How about creating a web-based email account (like Gmail) and forwarding all your emails there? Then, you'd have a web copy of all your emails and attached files. I've had Gmail since 2007, and everything is still intact. I just checked, and it also reminds me that it's time to clean it up.

 

[Dervla]

I have an IMAP account and by default the emails stay in the cloud but are synched to the connected devices when you do a send / receive (so you can read them offline, and it will sync back next time you are online). I need to manually move my emails into a local file structure (On My Mac) periodically so the emails don’t build up and exceed my allowed cloud storage.

"I need to manually move my emails into a local file structure (On My Mac)"

How exactly do you do that?

 

[Miss Terri]

I'm a more casual user, not as experienced as others on this thread. But since I'm an old fogie with a POP account, maybe I can contribute.

So I do use POP email and Apple Mail. Everything is on my one computer (and its backups).

I can read and retrieve all my previously read/retrieved e-mail even if not online, so that lends credence to the "once it's on your Mac it's on your Mac" theory.

There are times I'm away from Internet for a few weeks, and I can still look through and read all my old e-mails (dating only back to 1999, so I'm a pup compared to @Fishrrman )

This does explain something: I never understood why there even was an "On my Mac" set of boxes in my Apple Mail program. Like why? Because all of my e-mail (even the inbox) is "on my Mac." Now I finally understand that (because that doesn't happen if you use something other than POP mail).

And yes, I can tweak a setting with my ISP that says how long they will save new mail on their servers after I have retrieved it. When I was moving to a new computer or having some sort of difficulty I would set that to a longer time period, and then I could "re-retrieve" those e-mail in case I needed to. Mind you, that doesn't help with anything in your "sent" box (at least I don't think so).

 

[Dervla]

I'm a more casual user, not as experienced as others on this thread. But since I'm an old fogie with a POP account, maybe I can contribute.

So I do use POP email and Apple Mail. Everything is on my one computer (and its backups).

I can read and retrieve all my previously read/retrieved e-mail even if not online, so that lends credence to the "once it's on your Mac it's on your Mac" theory.

There are times I'm away from Internet for a few weeks, and I can still look through and read all my old e-mails (dating only back to 1999, so I'm a pup compared to @Fishrrman )

This does explain something: I never understood why there even was an "On my Mac" set of boxes in my Apple Mail program. Like why? Because all of my e-mail (even the inbox) is "on my Mac." Now I finally understand that (because that doesn't happen if you use something other than POP mail).

And yes, I can tweak a setting with my ISP that says how long they will save new mail on their servers after I have retrieved it. When I was moving to a new computer or having some sort of difficulty I would set that to a longer time period, and then I could "re-retrieve" those e-mail in case I needed to. Mind you, that doesn't help with anything in your "sent" box (at least I don't think so).

Thank you

 

[danmart]

"I need to manually move my emails into a local file structure (On My Mac)"

How exactly do you do that?

It’s similar to the steps that @Fishrrman described in post #3.

In Mail, I have a section which shows my accounts, including my IMAP account, and this has folders like the Inbox. I also have a section called On My Mac which has a separate hierarchy of folders, actually on the device. I just need to drag emails from the folders associated with my IMAP account into the folders On My Mac. That causes them to be removed from the account into the cloud.

 

[Dervla]

It’s similar to the steps that @Fishrrman described in post #3.

In Mail, I have a section which shows my accounts, including my IMAP account, and this has folders like the Inbox. I also have a section called On My Mac which has a separate hierarchy of folders, actually on the device. I just need to drag emails from the folders associated with my IMAP account into the folders On My Mac. That causes them to be removed from the account into the cloud.

Thanks for your response,

1)
I understand and have done up to the last three words of last sentence of your reply,
“… into the cloud”.
Into the cloud? I thought the emails in the On My Mac section were living on the iMac.




2) And,
I use the iMac pretty much every day. Also, I purchased a MacBook a few months ago that I use once in a while. The MacBook does not have an On My Mac section in Mail,

-how would I make one?

-if I want to have the emails in On My Mac on the iMac on a On My Mac section on the MacBook, would I do something called Export Mailboxes on the iMac, to an external hard drive, and then Import Mailboxes on the MacBook from the external hard drive?

-does Export Mailbox[es] make a copy of the source mailboxes on the destination or move the mailboxes from source to destination?

 

[danmart]

Re #1 - that was a typo. It should have said 'removed from the account in the cloud'. Dragging the mail from the IMAP account folder to the On My Mac folder causes the email to be removed from the IMAP instance.

Re #2 - I think you just need to create a New Mailbox from the Mailbox menu in Mail. It was a long time, now, since I needed to do that so recollection is dim. When you do create a new mailbox, an option should be to create it locally on that Mac.

Syncing the offline emails between Macs is not something I have ever needed to do, so can't help you there, sorry. Using Export / Import would allow you to move the emails from one device to the other, but that would be a static copy and would not stay in sync.

Depending on what you are using the MacBook for, just leaving some of your emails in the IMAP mailbox for a time would allow you access to them on all your devices. That's how I handle email between my iPhone, iPad, and Mac. I have a folder in the IMAP creatively called 'To Sort' and once I am finished with an email I move it from my inbox to that folder but it is still in the IMAP structure so accessible from all my devices. When I know that I will no longer want to access that email from my iPhone / iPad I then pull it from the 'To Sort' folder into the folders On My Mac, effectively archiving them to that device. On a practical level I do this every few weeks to keep the volume of email in my account contained. Since my Mac is backed up this also means my emails get backed up at this time.

 

[Dervla]

Re #1 - that was a typo. It should have said 'removed from the account in the cloud'.

Whew.

Re #2 - I think you just need to create a New Mailbox from the Mailbox menu in Mail. It was a long time, now, since I needed to do that so recollection is dim. When you do create a new mailbox, an option should be to create it locally on that Mac.

Yes, I think, after some research on the internet, I tried that and it looks like it worked.

Syncing the offline emails between Macs is not something I have ever needed to do, so can't help you there, sorry.

I think I have decided not to try that.

Using Export / Import would allow you to move the emails from one device to the other, but that would be a static copy and would not stay in sync.

It did seem to me “Export” meant move, not copy. I would not want to move them.

Depending on what you are using the MacBook for, just leaving some of your emails in the IMAP mailbox for a time would allow you access to them on all your devices. That's how I handle email between my iPhone, iPad, and Mac. I have a folder in the IMAP creatively called 'To Sort' and once I am finished with an email I move it from my inbox to that folder but it is still in the IMAP structure so accessible from all my devices. When I know that I will no longer want to access that email from my iPhone / iPad I then pull it from the 'To Sort' folder into the folders On My Mac, effectively archiving them to that device. On a practical level I do this every few weeks to keep the volume of email in my account contained. Since my Mac is backed up this also means my emails get backed up at this time.

Thank you for this paragraph and the reply.