Mail Conversion

[jasnw]

I have recently retired and have an iMac running SL from my office with a large Mail database. I'm currently using Mavericks on my home iMac and am looking for a way to convert/archive the mailboxes from my work computer in such a way that I can access them as needed from my Mavericks (and later) Mail app. I use POP on both the SL and Mavericks machines.

I am aware of the standard Mail archive process, but that does not handle attachments well (if at all). I'm also aware of the Email Archiver app, but I don't feel like shelling out $25 for something that (a) may not do what I want and (b) I only need once. I had thought of rolling my own converter/archiver using python, but it looks like this would be a laborious process fraught with all kinds of pitfalls and deaddrops. I'm open to suggestion as to possible solutions.

 

[Weaselboy]

How many messages are we talking about? If it is not too many you could import them to Gmail then access them anywhere.

 

[jasnw]

How many messages are we talking about? If it is not too many you could import them to Gmail then access them anywhere.

Thousands of messages over a couple of decades. Also, one reason I use POP rather than IMAP is a deep-seated dislike of keeping things on other people's servers. I only need to access these from one computer, and I want the emails on that computer. I suppose one approach might be to upload/import them to Gmail and then pull them all off into Mail from my computer, but that would likely take a long time and I suspect it would break often enough that it would take manual oversight.

 

[Weaselboy]

I suppose one approach might be to upload/import them to Gmail and then pull them all off into Mail from my computer,

Yeah... that's what I was thinking of.