Store my main mail on an external drive

Question

Level 1

6 points

Store my main mail on an external drive

Hi Guys

I tend to store a looooooot of files. Too much I must admit.

I travel a lot and I have a small MacBook with a 512 Go disk drive cos I am not rich enough to get a bigger internal one.

Therefore I got a photo folder on an external drive. This works very well.

But my "mail" library file is 200gb ( the mail library in my user preference folder). As an architect I got big mails on a daily basis and I need to store them and access it easily a few years later. I got my 2001 mails stored in my library folder.

I make a backup on external drive every year at list, but the backup is not easy to look and search for. ( you can not easily browse the attachments files, which is crucial for me -> I need to be able to have a look to the "preview" of the attachments.)

I'd like to be able to have my main "mail" library file on an external file and still be able to search for mail directly from mail.

Do you got a working method?

Thanks

PS: the "photo" library choosing is not instinctive but effective. This kind of stuff could help. I did not succeed to do it for mail, including trying to use risky terminal lines.

MacBook Pro 14″, macOS 14.6

Posted on Oct 23, 2024 7:54 PM

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Answer 1

MartinR

Level 7

21,715 points

Oct 24, 2024 10:03 AM in response to mattao

It is not possible any more to relocate the Mail folder to an external drive.

In earlier releases of OS X/macOS it was possible to use a symbolic link to relocate the Mail folder to another drive but with the additional security features that were added to Big Sur & later versions of macOS, that method no longer works. (Trust me, I have tried & tried to work around this and nothing has worked.)

Photos, TV and Music libraries can all be moved and the method is straightforward but there is no similar method for Mail or any other email app. Except for Thunderbird Mail, for which a method to relocate its mail folder exists but it comes with significant warnings not to do it!

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Answer 2

mattao Author

Level 1

6 points

Oct 24, 2024 10:46 AM in response to MartinR

Thanks Martin.

The average size of the email is tending to get bigger these days. There should be a way for the average pro. to handle this.

Plus: I got a concern with the **** wetransfer and other way of exchanging files with tend to CUT the link between files and emails. Accordingly it's getting more difficult a few years after an email chit chat to establish the responsibility of your interlocutor.

I know I should get a better process but I wish I could not have to tangle with these details which are obstacles and distractions in the path of a good job.

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Answer 3

mattao Author

Level 1

6 points

Oct 24, 2024 10:55 AM in response to mattao

Has an example I recently had to find a 14 years old email to a contractor to establish and prove he was warned NOT TO use the materials he had.

I was not able to see the drawings attached to my mail in the mboxes backup files.

I had to manually reimport the mboxes in mail.app

To do so I had to buy a bigger MacBook! Not very convenient for me.

It was okay I succeed to give a proof of my sayings and therefore succeed to stop the legal proceedings the way I was looking. But I had to waste a lot of time and money just to give a proof against a person of bad faith ( not so sure of the English there)

So if there was a solution, even a paying one...

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Answer 4

Tesserax

Level 10

152,458 points

Oct 24, 2024 12:23 PM in response to mattao

One option you may want to consider is to use a dedicated mail archiving app, like MailSteward. It can create a full archive of all of your mail accounts messages, and this archive can be stored on an external drive.

Disclaimer: I don't work for MailSteward, but have been using this product for a number of years and found it to be extremely helpful.

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Answer 5

mattao Author

Level 1

6 points

Oct 25, 2024 7:58 PM in response to Tesserax

First many thanks for your help.

Mail steward seems useful but it seems to lack of the advanced interface of mail. With mail you can fast search and find at a glance. Give a Quick Look to images....

You can search in thousands of mail in seconds with mail.

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Answer 6

Tesserax

Level 10

152,458 points

Oct 25, 2024 8:08 PM in response to mattao

As I mentioned, MailSteward is a mail archiving tool. It is not designed as a email client ... but a means to archive/store your messages off your computer ... which I understand what your goal is.

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