On 08/01/2010, at 6:10 AM, Ronda Brown wrote: > On 07/01/2010, at 9:48 PM, Chris Burton wrote: > >> >> Good evening all >> >> My email inbox has grown to be very large indeed and I am hoping someone may >> know of a method of archiving the early years of this inbox? I regularly >> just copy my Mail folder to a backup hard drive but I would like to reduce >> the overall number of emails in my inbox. >> >> Thanks for any advice >> >> kind regards >> >> chris > > Hi Chris, > > If you are using Apple Mail in Leopard or Snow Leopard you can "Archive a > Mailbox". > > To archive mail, select one or more mailboxes in the sidebar and choose > Mailbox > Archive Mailbox. > Navigate to the location where you want the .mbox files to be stored and > click Choose. > > If you later want to import one or more archived mailboxes into Mail, choose > File > Import Mailboxes, select Mbox Files, and click Continue. Navigate to > the folder containing the .mbox file(s) you want to import, select it, and > click Choose. > If prompted to do so, select which mailboxes you want to import. > Mail imports the data; after you click Done, you’ll see the imported > mailbox(es) in the sidebar (under Import in the On My Mac section).
Hi again Chris, I just tested some scripts I used prior to upgrading to Snow Leopard, for among other scripts included, Archiving a mailbox, "All Messages Before a certain date" (exporting the mailbox to another location) just to see if they now work in Snow Leopard. I checked first if he had an update and yes he does. YES, the scripts work in Snow Leopard Mail, or at least the "Archive Messages" script does work perfectly, I haven't had time to check the other scripts. Archive Messages (Mail) <http://homepage.mac.com/aamann/Mail_Scripts.html> Move messages from the selected mailbox(es) to an archive mailbox or export them to standard mbox, plain or rich text files for backup purposes or import into other applications. You can select to move all messages or only messages sent within or certain period as well filter messages based on their read and flagged status. <http://homepage.mac.com/aamann/files/MailScripts.dmg> Read the information and instructions. Then Scroll to the bottom of the page to download the latest version of the scripts. After running the installer, the scripts are located inside a folder called "Mail Scripts" located inside your Applications folder (even though you can move the scripts to any other location of your liking, the installer will not remove previous versions located at a different path). You can run the scripts either from double-clicking their icons from within the Finder or using the launch scripts (or assigned keyboard shortcuts) from within the script menu inside Mail and Address Book (the script menu is the menu with the paper scroll icon. In 10.3.x, it is located to the left of the Help menu - in 10.4.x and higher it is located on the far right of the menu bar). General Remark: Mail's AppleScript implementation does not seem to be able to handle too many request if Mail is busy doing something else. Some of the scripts seem to run better if you take all your accounts offline first (Choose "Mailbox→Online Status→Go Offline" from Mail's menu). Archive Messages: After starting the script, you will be presented with a list of your mailboxes - choose the ones you want to archive messages from using the checkboxes (note: mailboxes which don't contain any messages will not be displayed in the list). You now have the option to either perform an "Archive" or an "Export" of messages in the selected mailboxes. "Archive" moves the messages into a newly created Archive mailbox with the current date, "Export" leaves the messages in the mailboxes and generates text files in a location you can select. After selecting either of the buttons, you will be presented with a dialog which will allow you to specify options for your archive/export operation (filter messages based on dates, read and flagged status, output file format and location for export). Your selection (other than the dates which default to today for "before" and one year ago from today for "after") will be remembered when you run the script again. Note on export file formats: if you want to import your mail messages into another mail client, choose "mbox", a standard mailbox format which can be read by most programs. If you only care about the message text and want to minimize the overhead for your archive, select "text" and your files will be much smaller and easier to read. For a nicer looking text version, choose "rich text" files - this also gives you the option to include attachments. When selecting "One File per Message" for exporting messages to text files, the naming of the resulting files can be defined by the user. Certain placeholders can be used to access message-specific information: %f: "From" header (the sender of the message) %t: "To" header (the recipient of the message) %p: Sender or Recipient (sender for received messages, recipient for sent messages) %s: "Subject" header (the subject of the message) %d, %m, %M, %y, %Y: day, month (numerical or as text), and year (2- and 4-digit, respectively) of the message date In order to keep the previous file naming convention, use the default "%f, %M %d, %Y - %s". To have messages sort by date and then by person, use something like "%Y-%m-%d, %p - %s". You will see the file name for the first message in your selected mailboxes resulting from the selected settings just below the file name field. ----- Cheers, Ronni 17" MacBook Pro Intel Core 2 Duo 2.4 GHz / 4GB / 800MHz / 500GB OS X 10.6.2 Snow Leopard Windows 7 Ultimate (under sufferance) -- The WA Macintosh User Group Mailing List -- Archives - <http://www.wamug.org.au/mailinglist/archives.shtml> Guidelines - <http://www.wamug.org.au/mailinglist/guidelines.shtml> Unsubscribe - <mailto:wamug-unsubscr...@wamug.org.au>
