Archiving eMail

One of the (few) things I liked about Outlook when I ran a PC was its auto-archive facility, it would be handy with Mac Mail.

I've been looking at MailSteward, but I'd need the $50 version and I'm not sure I want it that much

Anyone know of a cheaper (preferably free!) app that will do the same thing?

In Mail, highlight a mailbox, go to the Mail menu and click Archive. Choose where you want to put the archive. You can now delete all the messages that have been archived from the Mail mailbox. I don't think you can add to an existing archive though.

Yeah, I know about that one, but it's not what I want to do.

I want to automatically archive anything over (say) a month old, preferably definable on a "per mailbox" basis, add it to the existing archive, delete it from the mailbox, and have it scheduled...

Sounds like a job for a Smart Mailbox to select all that's old enough, and an AppleScript or Automator script, scheduled by iCal, that does the archiving and deletion periodically using the contents of that mailbox. I haven't tried doing it, though.

Everybody keeps suggesting AppleScript

I'd hoped my programming days were long gone, but it looks like I'll have to start learning again... or spend some money

Thanks, I'll have a look.

Post deleted by defcom

I'm happy with Email Backup Pro, its $9.95.

http://www.mazadigital.com/products/emailbackuppro/

It already gets backed up with Time Machine¹, I wanted archiving to keep some of the boxes down to a sensible size...


¹ Good thing too, I had to recover a mailbox this afternoon. That'll teach me to read the dialog box before clicking 'OK'

There's a full copy of MailSteward on the cover disk of the current MacFormat that just dropped through my letter box.

Haven't seen that around here (haven't really looked), but I'll definitely have a look tomorrow, thanks

I had a quick look at Automator. It doesn't seem to know about Smart Mailboxes, and the Mail selection options don't look very flexible in an Automator Workflow, so I suspect AppleScript would be necessary

Only if I can't find a copy of MacFormat

I'm sure you will. That's why I used the conditional 'would'

Couldn't find a MacFormat with Mail Steward on it... is it the March edition? Things go slower out here in the boondocks, WHS only had the Feb one

You can't get much further into the boondocks that I am ... But I have a sweet old-fashioned subscription, so it arrives with the postie. Yes, it's the March 2009 edition, Issue 205. Front cover majors on iLife '09. The DVD contains full versions of MailSteward Lite 8.0.8 and ProteMac Meter 2.0, a bandwidth monitoring tool.

You have mail.

Subscriptions usually arrive earlier, I've found . I bought the current one anyway, it looked interesting, the March edition is due out on Wednesday 4th.

Mail received, thank you kindly