How to archive mail in Entourage 2004

I recently ran into an issue that when I clicked on my Inbox located On My Computer that it took a long time to load 72,000+ emails so I figured its about time I start archiving some of the older mail.

First I researched how to do this and it boils down to two different ways. I will first tell you the way that I would like to do it but had too much mail to do. This is to create an entourage archive which includes older calendar, tasks and mail in one .rge file.

To do this all you need to do is click File - Export

Now the way I archived my mail is to create seperate folders On My Computer (not under Inbox but at the same level as Inbox). So I am going to archive all my mail from 2002 first as an example.

Step One...

Create a folder On My Computer (here I called my Archived Mail 2002)

http://www.mywiseguys.com/images/stories/technical/entourage_export1.jpg

Step Two...

Go to your Inbox and select all the mail you want to "move" into this folder to be archived. I sorted by date and found all the mail from 01/01/02 to 12/31/02 and after selecting all mail I clicked on the menu -- Message -- Move To -- Choose Folder and selected the newly created folder Archived Mail 2002

Step Three...

Once all the mail has been moved into this folder. Click on the folder and drag the folder to your desktop. This automatically creates your_folder_name.mbox (so Archived Mail 2002.mbox)

Step Four...

You don't want to leave your Archived Mail cluttering up your desktop or even risk getting deleted by accident so I suggest moving it to folder under your Documents called mail.

Step Five...

The last step is back in Entourage, delete that folder in your entourage you dragged to the desktop so its no longer in entourage since you have it archived on your mac.

IMPORTING INTO ENTOURAGE

Now that you have archived your mail, let's walk through the steps on IMPORTING that .mbox mail file that you created back into Entourage

Step One...

In Entourage, click on File - Import

Step Two...

Select the option that says messages from a text file (which is referencing the MBOX format)

Step Three...

Select Import messages from an MBOX-format text file

Step Four...

Select the .mbox archived file you would like to import

Step Five...

It may take awhile to import the mail (depending on how many messages you have in your archive. Once finished you will see your archive in the same location you archived it from earlier.

IMPORTING INTO APPLE MAIL

Maybe you don't want to import your mail back into Entourage and since Snow Leopard is suppose to have support for Apple Mail to connect to Microsoft Exchange Servers, you may want your mail in Apple Mail. So let's go through the easy steps on importing your archived mail in .mbox format into Apple Mail.

Step One...

While in Apple Mail, click on File - Import Mailboxes...

Step Two...

Since we created mbox files above, choose mbox files and click Continue

Step Three...

Browse to where the .mbox file is located and select it

You will see a status screen like the one shown below while it imports your mail

Step Four...

Click Done once available to click on

Step Five...

Now you can look at your archived mail in Apple Mail