[MlMt] Abandoning a mail account--how to keep old messages?

[Bill Cole]

On 25 Jan 2019, at 23:38, Dave C wrote:

> I presume that if I delete the account from MailMate that the messages 
> will no longer be accessible.

Yes. However, if you want to keep them accessible to MM, you can just 
set the account 'offline' and maybe even break the server settings for 
it to make sure nothing ever pops up at that address listening for 
connections eager to authenticate. Just make sure to never ask MM to 
rebuild the datyabase b y re-downloading everything.

> I’d like to keep a copy of these. Is there a way?

If the above method makes you nervous (which isn't unreasonable) you can 
use the "Export" bundle (under the Command menu) to save all of the 
messages in the account. If you use the "Copy to Folder" option, it 
stores all of the messages you have selected into a folder inside the 
one you specify (Export->Select Export Folder) as individual .eml files, 
inside folders named for their IMAP mailboxes. The folder naming is a 
bit annoying, since it collapses hierarchical mailbox structures into a 
single set of folders (like IMAP often is, internally) but with this 
approach you get a bunch of files that Spotlight will index for you for 
easy searching and which no longer have to remain in the MM database, 
where they eat RAM and disk space.

Or, as others have suggested: EagleFiler.

-- 
Bill Cole
bill at scconsult.com or billcole at apache.org
(AKA @grumpybozo and many *@billmail.scconsult.com addresses)
Available For Hire: https://linkedin.com/in/billcole