HELP so I don't mess things up: Backing up emails by copying MBOX files in Library>Mail?

[SW3029]

Hello, I could really use some help so I don't accidentally delete years worth of emails.

I use Mail.app for my email client on macOS 12. I have gigabytes of emails sorted into dozens of folders in the app. Since these are IMAP messages, they are also taking up gigabytes of my online email storage. I'd like to export these folders (which include subfolders) from Mail.app in MBOX format and then store them on an external drive and then delete the emails from Mail.app and the online email server.

1. I see in Library>Mail>V9 all of my folders in Mail.app are already stored there in MBOX format. Can I simply copy and backup this "V9" folder, and will that give me copies of MBOX files that I can then import into Mail.app in the future (if I need to)?
2. Or must I manually export every folder in Mail.app as an MBOX file?

Simply backing up the V9 folder is obviously much quicker since I won't need to manually export every folder as an MBOX file, but I'm not sure if these MBOX files already in the folder are your standard MBOX files with all my emails and attachments?

I would really appreciate any advice with this. Thanks.

 

[pshufd]

My method of backing up email is to use Thunderbird local folders on my Windows desktop and then I make copies on other machines. I find it really easy to drag emails or folders to local folders and I've been using Thunderbird for something like 15 years.

 

[jayling7]

For fear of losing all those years of old emails, I always manually export the folders as an Mbox file. If you have subfolders, you can just expand the main folder to show the subs and hold the Command key to select them all so it downloads them all in one pass.

Then after downloading the folders, you can import them into the Mail app, and they'll show as 'On My Mac', so you still have access to them, though check the folders before deleting the main IMAP ones.

Good luck to you