Backing up Apple Mail
Backups are important. As Joni Mitchell reminds us, “Don’t it always seem to go / that you don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone”.
Details about what to backup in Mail are provided in a tech note from Apple. A complete backup set of Mail includes the following:
- All the files located in ~/Library/Mail.
- The “Mail Downloads” folder located in ~/Library
- The “com.apple.mail.plist” file located in ~/Library/Preferences.
- The “AddressBook” folder located in ~/Library/Application Support
(”~” is a symbol for your user or home directory. “~/Library” is the Library folder in your home directory.)
There are at least five ways to do the backup:
- You could simply copy those files onto a blank CD-Rom mounted on your Desktop and burn them off once a week.
- You could incorporate those files in a daily or weekly backup using Dantz Retrospect, RsyncX, Synk, Deja Vu or one of the many other backup apps. This is what I do. I use Deja Vu, because it is clean, flexible and easy and the developer is a nice guy. I back up email and documents daily and the Home directory once a week onto an external drive. With Deja Vu’s scheduling, it’s a “set and forget” kind of thing.
- If you have a .Mac account you could use the new Backup 3 software from Apple. It is very pretty, but seems rather slow on my PowerBook, although I’m trying it out for the first time today.
- Mail Archiver X is a dedicated Mail backup app. It offers to backup your mail, and also to clean it for archiving. It can strip out HTML and other useless things, so that you only save the important parts of your correspondence. It also offers a browser to search and manipulate your mail archives.
Currently, the release version of the software doesn’t support the new message format in Mail 2.0. I emailed the developers about this and they replied:
The beta 2 of version 1.3 adds compatibility for Mail in 10.4…. Please be aware that a new and improved interface will be available in the next version of Mail Archiver X. If all goes well, a new beta can be ready within the next two weeks.
It costs USD 34.95. Wait and see would be my advice.
- You could use one of the archiving apps like MailSteward or FastMailBase which offer features above and beyond merely backing up your email. They won’t back up your preferences or your Address Book though.
(I see that the Tao of Mac is also thinking about backing up today, although—as you would expect—in a more sophisticated and high-powered way.)
Tags: Address Book, Apple Mail, backup, Mail Archiver X, mail.app, tipRelated posts
October 4th, 2005 at 11:04 pm
[...] There’s nothing worse than some smarty-pants offering sage advice after the event, but…. Backup, backup, backup. [...]
October 13th, 2005 at 2:54 pm
[...] It claims a much richer feature set than another archiving app, Mail Archiver X: [...]
October 14th, 2005 at 11:28 pm
[...] FastMailBase competes in the “mail archiver” market with MailSteward and Mail Archive X. [...]
October 18th, 2005 at 9:04 am
[...] After deleting much of his email by mistake, Matt Clare has posted two ways of recovering Apple Mail messages in Tiger. Of course, as he suggests, the first step is to have a backup. [...]
November 4th, 2005 at 12:26 am
[...] There are lots of options for backing up Apple Mail. [...]
November 22nd, 2005 at 9:01 am
[...] Just plug in the four files or folders needed for a complete backup of Mail.app, save it somewhere else (like an external drive) and worry no more. [...]
January 11th, 2006 at 12:30 am
[...] The last time I blogged about Mail Archiver X, it was not compatible with Mail 2.0’s new file system. [...]
February 22nd, 2006 at 8:56 am
An easy archive method that was available in Apple Mail (Pre-Panther) was to move the messages to be archived into a folder. I usually set this by Yearly Quarters. I then found the mbox file created for this folder an archived it to a CD.
When I wanted to search an archive I just popped the CD in and double-clicked the mbox file. Apple Mail would open a window for it and I can start my search.
March 17th, 2006 at 12:09 am
Thank you for the insight on how Mail is organised on my Mac.
I just used the tips here to move my mail accounts from my PowerBook (who has to be serviced tomorrow) to my new desktop Mac.
Keep up the good work!
March 17th, 2006 at 12:58 pm
Nobody mentioned Automator…I think I will take a stab at backing my mail up on my iPod with that!
March 17th, 2006 at 1:00 pm
Interesting! If you have any success, I’d love to hear how you did it.
March 18th, 2006 at 3:25 pm
[...] Hawk Wings » Blog Archive » Backing up Apple Mail (tags: mail apple macosx howto refrence resource software) [...]
April 2nd, 2006 at 10:45 pm
[...] Backing up Apple Mail [...]
August 25th, 2006 at 12:06 am
[...] Backing up Apple’s stock email application (Mail.app) is a dicey deal. Follow these instructions at Hawk Wings and you’ll be a LOT better off at the end of the day. Of course, I’m wondering how much of this applies when Time Machine (ala Leopard) comes out… Explore posts in the same categories: Apple, leopard [...]
September 10th, 2006 at 1:23 am
[...] 4. Homegrown DVD. I use my own script to backup what I’ve changed that day to an archive (zipped) file. Then at the end of the week I burn a DVD with all the archives. I keep a weekly archive of my email essentials in a separate archive and that goes in with the the bunch onto the DVD. [...]
November 20th, 2006 at 9:09 am
[...] The full list of files needed for a complete Mail.app backup [...]
November 15th, 2007 at 3:56 am
Hey, i followed your advice and copied com.apple.mail.plist, but you don’t say anywhere how to actually recover it.
November 15th, 2007 at 10:06 pm
Hmmm…. Just close Mail.app and copy the file back where you found it, in
. Or am I missing something?
June 24th, 2008 at 6:09 am
Does this actually backup all the email or just the program and settings?
I have 1500 messages I need to save.
ty
June 24th, 2008 at 7:32 am
All your emails are stored inside the ~/Library/Mail folder, either the messages themselves (POP accounts) or a local cache (IMAP), so yes it will include your emails.
But if you just want to backup the messages, there are more efficient ways, like Email Backup or an app like that.
June 24th, 2008 at 7:46 am
Thanks! :-)