IMAP and archiving mail

[Diatribe]

I am long due to switch from POP3 to IMAP but I am not sure how to go about it. I like to have a permanent copy on my Mac and at the same time get rid of the mail on the server every 6-12 months, depending on the size of my mailbox, while still being able to have/view the mail from before on my Mac.
How would be the best way to go about that? Does anyone have it set up this way and has some tips? Thanks.

 

[Mitthrawnuruodo]

You should be able to drag messages from the server/IMAP folder(s) to mailboxes/folders locally on your Mac... thus keeping them on your Mac...

 

[Diatribe]

You should be able to drag messages from the server/IMAP folder(s) to mailboxes/folders locally on your Mac... thus keeping them on your Mac...

Yeah, thanks and no, I am not THAT stupid.

Currently I am thinking of creating a rule to copy all mail I receive to special folders, moving it would delete it from the server, which I don't want.
The second thing is cleaning out old mail after 6-12 months from the server but not from the Mac, which also would be achieved by copying them. The only problem I see with this approach is that I would be doubling my mailbox size (original mailbox and copy) and I'd have a problem going about this the same way with the sent mail.
So my problem is actually a bit more complicated than that. Thanks though.

 

[Aztechian]

There is an option (I believe) in Mail to keep a cache of all IMAP mail. Do you just want to be able to read a copy of things while you are offline?
I'm not sure how that would work if you tried to send something though. I would think it would hold it and send when you reconnect.

Don't know if that's really what you wanted to know...

 

[Mitthrawnuruodo]

Yeah, thanks and no, I am not THAT stupid.

Well, you can drag manually, or using rules...

Currently I am thinking of creating a rule to copy all mail I receive to special folders, moving it would delete it from the server, which I don't want.
The second thing is cleaning out old mail after 6-12 months from the server but not from the Mac, which also would be achieved by copying them. The only problem I see with this approach is that I would be doubling my mailbox size (original mailbox and copy) and I'd have a problem going about this the same way with the sent mail.
So my problem is actually a bit more complicated than that. Thanks though.

You can make a rule that scans through certain (IMAP) folders/mailboxes (edit: Or at least look for mail to/from that account), and when a message is older than, lets say, 180 days moves them to designated folders on your Mac...

 

[Diatribe]

Well, you can drag manually, or using rules...

You can make a rule that scans through certain (IMAP) folders/mailboxes (edit: Or at least look for mail to/from that account), and when a message is older than, lets say, 180 days moves them to designated folders on your Mac...

That's actually a good way to go about it. The only problem with this is that I cannot apply the same rules to the sent messages and would have to do this manually.
How do other people archive their mail with an IMAP account? Or do you guys don't have as much mail that it'll ever fill up your space and you just leave everything on the server?

 

[Mitthrawnuruodo]

That's actually a good way to go about it. The only problem with this is that I cannot apply the same rules to the sent messages and would have to do this manually.

Just make the rule look for mail sent from that account...

But, yes, I think you need 2 rules, one for received and one for sent mail...

How do other people archive their mail with an IMAP account? Or do you guys don't have as much mail that it'll ever fill up your space and you just leave everything on the server?

My only IMAP account actually has no quota, so I've not needed to clean it, yet... just have lots of folder and very little order...

 

[balamw]

FWIW isync (not to be confused with iSync) is available from darwinports http://isync.darwinports.com/ and provides a good way of "sucking" mail over IMAP into a unix maildir that is useful for archiving mail.

B

 

[pizzafilms]

Hey Diatribe,

I'm looking for the same solution as you. What did you ever come up with?


Thanks!

 

[Diatribe]

Hey Diatribe,

I'm looking for the same solution as you. What did you ever come up with?


Thanks!

Actually I took the easy road. I made two folders, one named archive inbox and one archive sent. Then every 6 months (sufficient for me, you might need to do it more often or less depending on how much mail you get) I drag mail older than 6 months in the sent folder to the sent archive and the inbox to the inbox archive.
This way I always have at least the last 6 months of mail in my IMAP account while archiving stuff I hardly ever need.
If you want less work you could create a rule that puts all the mail older than 6 months into the respective folders once you select apply rules to existing mails. That way you can do the cleanup more regularly and with less hassle, I was actually thinking about doing exactly that.

Hope that explains it. If you have any more questions feel free to ask.

 

[Mavimao]

If it's of any help, when I had an IMAP account in college, I just used the server inboxes, but kept a copy of everything on my harddrive. After college, I was able to just drag everything to my "On my mac" folders.

Everything seemed to work great.

 

[pizzafilms]

Yeah, I thought about & tried the manual way of copying over the emails from the imap server to a local inbox/outbox, but I can't stay on top of it. I need something that works automatically. And, something to keep erasing old emails (based on some time value, weekly in my case) from the server inbox & outbox because they fill up quickly...too quickly.

To make matters worse, I really want to convert my wife over from POP/Entourage to IMAP/Mail, but her email volume is INSANE and horribly important. Therefore, I need a real foolproof solution.

We both need to access mail from our Treo's too.

Everyone says that IMAP is SOO much better, but I've yet to see serious strategies out there. I mean, I get it, but there's alot of maintenance involved that I just don't have the time for. Know what I mean?

As far as the rule goes, I guess I'd have to keep Apply Rules manually every so often, right? Ouch.

Thanks...any other ideas would be welcomed as well.

 

[Diatribe]

Yeah, I thought about & tried the manual way of copying over the emails from the imap server to a local inbox/outbox, but I can't stay on top of it. I need something that works automatically. And, something to keep erasing old emails (based on some time value, weekly in my case) from the server inbox & outbox because they fill up quickly...too quickly.

To make matters worse, I really want to convert my wife over from POP/Entourage to IMAP/Mail, but her email volume is INSANE and horribly important. Therefore, I need a real foolproof solution.

We both need to access mail from our Treo's too.

Everyone says that IMAP is SOO much better, but I've yet to see serious strategies out there. I mean, I get it, but there's alot of maintenance involved that I just don't have the time for. Know what I mean?

As far as the rule goes, I guess I'd have to keep Apply Rules manually every so often, right? Ouch.

Thanks...any other ideas would be welcomed as well.

Yeah, you'd have to apply that rule every so often. But once every 6 months or so should be enough and you could even create an iCal alarm for that