Need to clean out Mail - how to backup?

[mainstreetmark]

So, I've just got tons of email, and every time I switch folders, I have to sit around for a few seconds and watch Mail try and load and sort them all into the list -- something I wish it'd do behind the scenes.

Anyways, so my backup plan is just to pretty much to quit Mail, make a backup of ~/Library/Mail, open Mail again, and delete ALL the email from within Mail.

Sound like the right way to go?

(also, a recent lockup has marked 2500 of them as unread, which kind of ticked me off)

[Chaszmyr]

If you're a .Mac member, the Backup program should do the trick I believe

[Horrortaxi]

Sound like the right way to go?
Yep, that'll do it.

[jsw]

Alternately, you could just create separate Mailboxes under "On My Mac", then move your mail to them (or, better, use rules).

Those folders won't index unless you open them. Plus, you can go into ~/Library/Mail/Mailboxes and delete/archive/backup whichever ones you want.

No need to delete it all and start over.

[mainstreetmark]

well, I went through all my folders in Mail, and deleted them all. Then, I poked into the Trash to see if they were there, and the poor thing thought it needed to index 25,500 emails.

I've got the "Erase" task pending, so I guess I'll just let it go, and remind myself not to look in the trash next year when I do this all again.