Move email offline with mail.app

[Fontane]

I use mail.app to connect to my gmail (and other) account using IMAP. I would like to move my mail offline (removed from gmail's servers) but still keep it in the Apple mail program and accessible via search. Is there a way to do that?

 

[Weaselboy]

Sure... make some new folders and when creating them put them "On My Mac" when the prompt comes up. Then just drag the messages from the GMail folder(s) to your new On My Mac folders. This will store them locally in Mail and they will be gone from GMail.

 

[Bear]

Sure... make some new folders and when creating them put them "On My Mac" when the prompt comes up. Then just drag the messages from the GMail folder(s) to your new On My Mac folders. This will store them locally in Mail and they will be gone from GMail.

Actually they have to also make sure they are deleted from gmail. Just copying them to another folder won't do that for gmail and their screwy imap implementation.

 

[Fontane]

Thanks for the answers.

So the only downside is if I move them offline then I'm beholden to apple's mail.app, right? What if i want to use outlook or thunderbird in the future?

 

[Weaselboy]

Thanks for the answers.

So the only downside is if I move them offline then I'm beholden to apple's mail.app, right? What if i want to use outlook or thunderbird in the future?

There are apps to move mail from Mail to other clients like Outlook. Or you can do the gmail IMAP move in reverse then open tone. Mail in IMAP on another client.