Moving MAIL database to another hard drive?

[Jay Schindler]

Hi fellow AMUG members (better than A MUGgers!)

My G4 machine has only a 34MB hard drive, and over the past 5 years it's gotten pretty full. 
I need to free up space. I've already gotten rid of "non-essential" applications and files...and already store most of my data on an external hard drive.

I've got 2 approaches that make sense to me:
1.Install another internal hard drive and move my database of emails to the other hard drive.
2.Move my email to an existing external hard drive (a cheaper alternative).

Either way, I'd like to move my mail off the drive with the system software--before the next OS upgrade. I tried to find this process in Mail's Help and at Apple's website, but with no luck--discussions seemed to be limited to backups, not accessing .mbox folders in other locations.
Has anybody done this? Any guidelines or step-by-steps for getting it done without losing my email?

Thanks;

Jay S.

[Michael Martin]

Jay,

I dont have an immediate answer / solution to your question -- but I think that it's a good one and needs to be documented.

It also begs the question about "good email hygiene" -- as in how do you / should you organize your email and archive it off so that it's not in the immedate way, but is backed up for use if you need it later.

I think the same "Hygiene" question applies to any of the iLife tools (iTunes, iPhoto, etc) where the tendency is to collect / stuff / hide content to the Hard disk and then once your container gets too full, how do you move it / manage it / back it up safely.

Sounds like there's an opportunity for mulitple streams of thought here..

Mike

[Chris Waldrip]

My G4 machine has only a 34MB hard drive, and over the past 5 years it's gotten pretty full. 
I need to free up space. I've already gotten rid of "non-essential" applications and files...and already store most of my data on an external hard drive.

I've got 2 approaches that make sense to me:
1.Install another internal hard drive and move my database of emails to the other hard drive.
2.Move my email to an existing external hard drive (a cheaper alternative).

Either way, I'd like to move my mail off the drive with the system software--before the next OS upgrade. I tried to find this process in Mail's Help and at Apple's website, but with no luck--discussions seemed to be limited to backups, not accessing .mbox folders in other locations.
Has anybody done this? Any guidelines or step-by-steps for getting it done without losing my email?

Here's my first suggestion - Run Monolingual 1.3.4. This utility will remove unneeded languages from your applications (I've recovered up to 3GB, but I'm more of an extreme example). Be careful though. Some applications don't like having some of their language files removed. You can also remove unneeded code (64bit x86 code does nothing on a G4 ).

Next - see if your email service offers IMAP support, or if your email program has an option to keep mail on a POP mail server. IMAP keeps mail on the server and only deletes it from the server if you delete the locally cached message. There's usually an option to keep not download attachments until you want to. This will keep most of your email on the server and off your laptop.

Last - if you have to move your mail to another drive it will depend on your email program. With Apple's Mail you'll want to copy the folder ~/Library/Mail/ (where ~ is your home directory) to the other drive, and then make an alias of your new Mail folder in your Library folder. Then when Mail launches it'll see the alias, and follow it to the other drive.

[Michael Martin]

Here's my first suggestion - Run Monolingual 1.3.4. This utility will remove unneeded languages from your applications (I've recovered up to 3GB, but I'm more of an extreme example). Be careful though. Some applications don't like having some of their language files removed. You can also remove unneeded code (64bit x86 code does nothing on a G4 ).

Next - see if your email service offers IMAP support, or if your email program has an option to keep mail on a POP mail server. IMAP keeps mail on the server and only deletes it from the server if you delete the locally cached message. There's usually an option to keep not download attachments until you want to. This will keep most of your email on the server and off your laptop.

Last - if you have to move your mail to another drive it will depend on your email program. With Apple's Mail you'll want to copy the folder ~/Library/Mail/ (where ~ is your home directory) to the other drive, and then make an alias of your new Mail folder in your Library folder. Then when Mail launches it'll see the alias, and follow it to the other drive.

Chris -- Good start .. You addressed moving the mailbox file and pointer to a separate drive .. is there a "better" / "Different" way to help "age-out" mail and manage the sizes of the mailboxes?  I dont really need to have access to mail that was sent a year ago immediately, but I do want to be able to get to it if I need to.

I still want to know more about good "email" lifecyle / hygene management ..

Mike

[Jay Schindler]

Chris -- Good start .. You addressed moving the mailbox file and pointer to a separate drive .. is there a "better" / "Different" way to help "age-out" mail and manage the sizes of the mailboxes?  I dont really need to have access to mail that was sent a year ago immediately, but I do want to be able to get to it if I need to. I still want to know more about good "email" lifecyle / hygene management ..

Mike

Hi Michael (and thanks, Chris);

Chris has helped me figure out how to move my .mbox file and create a pointer (alias) to it, so I'm going to try that out (after backing up my mail first)... which brings me to your question. While browsing Apple's tech database I did find a document that I saved because it did talk about backing up important OS 10.4 files. The heading began:

How to back up and restore your important Mac OS X 10.4 files
You can easily back up and restore Safari bookmarks, Address Book contacts, iCal calendars, and Keychains, as well as Mail accounts, rules, and Smart Mailboxes with Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger.

And here's the URL to it: http://docs....rtnum=301239

You know, this might be a very valuable "10 minute presentation" at an upcoming monthly general meeting...

Jay S.

[Christina Wellman]

Thanks Jay,

I'm glad to know that this can be done.

Christina