Saving/printing a Mail thread

[macstatic]

Is there an easy way to print (save as PDF) or save as any other file an email thread in the Apple Mail application?
I assumed it was a matter of marking the email messages you want to include (holding down SHIFT while clicking), then printing, but that only prints the first of those messages.

 

[miles01110]

No. You'd have to print each message in the thread and then combine them with PDF stitching software. Or print one of the messages with all the previous messages quoted.

 

[macstatic]

No. You'd have to print each message in the thread and then combine them with PDF stitching software. Or print one of the messages with all the previous messages quoted.

Oh, that sure is cumbersome and time consuming (I came across an article on how to do it in Preview though I haven't tried it myself).

But I figured out that there is actually a simple way to save several messages as one file from Mail. Not in PDF though, but as RTF, plain text or raw message source. Still, there's an easy solution for the latter. Read on...

• In Mail, select (highlight) the messages you want (hold down SHIFT while clicking on them so as not to deselect the previous message(s) )
• Go to File-Save as..., which brings up the file selector for saving
• In the file-selector you can choose the file format and if you want attachements included

This will save all the messages you've selected, one by one in a text file. As for PDF I've solved this easily by opening up the newly saved text file in TextEdit, then select File-Save as PDF.

Problem solved!

 

[miles01110]

Interesting. In what order to the messages appear in the text file?

 

[macstatic]

Same order as shown in Mail as far as my tests go.
Here's the article I found on how to combine PDF files using Preview.