Moving emails to Mail
 

I don't use (and probably never will use) MobileMe (I think Apple has substantially underestimated the CPU intensity and complexity of syncing), so I can't synchronize Mail on two machines. My solution so far has been to run only one copy of Mail (at home) and look at it using VNC from away. POP is my only practical option, and I can't keep much on the server in my current account where a couple of large attachments will blow me away.

Alternatively, however, I could read and download my mail on my laptop into a single mailbox if there was some way to move it to my other machine when I got home. Is there a way to transfer Mail from one machine to another? (Mail 3.4 in both cases, running under Leopard 10.5.4)

It's easy to replicate one Mail setup on another Mac by copying over the Mail folder and the Mail preferences file, so thid should be easy too. I'd guess that you could set up a mailbox for the transfer and bring that mailbox file with you, then maybe use the File/Import Mailboxes command on the other Mac.

Why is POP your only practical solution? IMAP would give you the same mailboxes across all machines, provided you didn't you use local mailboxes.

Because that's what my ISP provided when I first signed up with them about 15 years ago, and I've never pursued anything else because POP worked just fine. I suspect IMAP would be more expensive because of the on site storage -- storage on a POP account is limited which is why I have to empty the boxes periodically.

For 110 bucks a month I have 15Mb/s cable internet with 2 POP accounts, some but not all of HDTV, and cable telephone.

That sounds doable. There's no export feature in Mail. Can import deal with an Archive? (this was all infinitely easier in Eudora -- each mailbox was a separate text file, move it, open it, filter it, done).

I think you're being harsh on Mail. Each mailbox is a folder. Each folder contains text files. I just found out that I can browse messages in a Mail folder right there in the Finder using QuickLook, just select a message and press spacebar, read the message, press down arrow key to read more messages.

Yes, in an old version, Mail mailboxes used to be packages and you used to have to Show Package Contents to look inside, but the latest Mail file structure is not any more proprietary than Eudora, and could not get any more open at this point.

Didn't know any of that, styrafome -- the last time I had looked was ages ago when Mail had messages in packages of rich text docs with resources. Are you saying, though, that if I moved the Mail folders and preferences to another machine and started the Mail.app, all would work?

Yes, I have done that as a mail backup. I move the entire Mail folder from one Mac to another (in the user Library folder, of course), and I also move com.apple.mail.plist from one Mac's user Preferences folder to another. It allows me to have full local access to all my mail, including all my local mail folders no longer stored on the server, with identical preference settings, on my second Mac, in the event that my primary Mac goes down.

Of course, any preferences or rules that depend on folder paths may need to be updated, but the rest of it seems to work just fine.

An interesting option would be to set up a mail server on your home machine that automatically gets your POP mail. Then have Mail.app on both machines check your mail server via IMAP.

Recommend a mail server that could do that?

Sounds pretty good but imap is no big deal. I use gmail and its imap. As well as pop on verizon. As far as syncing mail, I just choose the option "leave mail on server" so I an access mail from any program, delete or save on each one. Thats how I do it anyway. I have an iphone, macbook pro, and my lan.

Potential problems with IMAP (for me) are that your mail is not available if you're not connected, and I'd be depending on a small (relatively) regional ISP to store it reliably.

In Apple Mail I have always used the option "Keep copies of messages for offline viewing." It keeps local copies of everything on the server, and I have that on multiple Macs. To archive I drag them to a local Mail folder on my Mac. This is the same local folder that is replicated on the backup Mac.

So my Mail folder consists of the folders that locally cache my online IMAP accounts, and other folders that archive old mails (stored by Mail under "On My Mac")

Under this scheme I can use IMAP auto-syncing while still seeing all of my mail even if the Internet is not available.

I don't think I could put up with POP any more. It was one of the final deal-breakers causing me to leave Eudora after over 10 years of use, even with (or because of?) Eudora's 10 billion preference buttons I could never get Eudora to work right with secure IMAP. In Apple Mail, secure IMAP with local caching Just Works.

I used Eudora for nearly 20 years -- bought it as shareware from Steve Dorner himself who was then at the U of Illinois (I think) before Qualcomm bought it. Like you, I could never get IMAP to work properly when Eudora first offered it as an option (long after it's birth), and have never tried IMAP since (and actually don't know much about it). Some homework is in order, I guess. Thanks.

hingerty mentioned gmail and that got me thinking....

NovaScotian, why not forward mail from your ISP to a gmail account? Most ISPs offer setup options that allow you to forward to other accounts. The gmail account would have plenty of storage (I currently have 7GB of storage on my gmail account), and gmail supports IMAP, so you could easily synchronize your mail between both of your computers. Plus, if you are ever away from both computers, you can still access all of your mail from the web. Would this work for you?

Good idea, but then what's the point of Mail? I have a gMail account that I use primarily for a number of lists and for very large attachments (photos) from my kids. I have sent off an email to my ISP about IMAP.

I prefer using a desktop viewer over using a web interface. Since gmail can be configured to be used with a mail client, I have set up Mail to access my gmail account. I find Mail's interface (and the interface of desktop mail client's in general) more appealing than gmail's web interface.

Kerio definitely will work, but it's expensive. It has a "check POP mail" feature.
http://www.kerio.com/kms_home.html

This might work, if you can have your ISP do a little forwarding.
http://cutedgesystems.com/software/MailServeForLeopard/

And strangely enough, GMail might be a good answer.
1. Have Gmail check your POP account. Specify "remove from server" in the Gmail settings for checking POP accounts.
2. Set up your Gmail as an IMAP account in Mail.app on both machines.
Gmail is free and low maintenance as a server. Your ISP doesn't have to do anything different or even know about this. The disadvantage is that Gmail can be a bit slow in checking POP accounts, like once every 5 minutes or so. If you are in a hurry for an email from someone you are basically out of luck, you just have to wait for the next time Gmail checks the POP mail.

You may want to consider Portable Mac Apps. I have Mail and Safari loaded on a USB stick, or you could load it on your iPod. So whenever I sit at another Mac I have my Mail account and Safari bookmarks history etc.

I currently use (for different purposes) 4 accounts - one gMail, two POPs with my ISP, and an ssh POP with MacScripter.net. I suspect it would take a while to get all that up and running in any of these options, so leaving my home machine on when I'm away so I can VNC over a tunnel to it is looking better and better. Thanks all.

Now that sounds like a reasonable, doable idea! My Mail folder is ~250 MB (I toss a lot -- that represents what I've kept since Dorner wrote Eudora and I ran it on an SE/30). Where is the stuff you keep for Safari?