Back up email with Mail for OS X

This article will go over backing up mail locally in the Mail application for Mac OS X.  This is typically used if you need to delete and recreate your account but want to save all of the mail that you downloaded locally to your Mac and which doesn't exist any longer on the server.

1. Open the Mail application. 
2. In the left hand panel, right-click the inbox you wish to backup.   Choose Archive Mailbox.



3. Save the archived mail to the Desktop (or a location of your choosing).



4. The inbox is now saved on the Desktop (or the location chosen) as an .mbox file. You can now proceed with deleting and recreating the account from scratch in Mail
5. Once the account is recreated, you are ready to import the mailbox you saved.  Navigate to the File menu and select Import Mailboxes.



6. Select Files in mbox format from the listing and select the location of the mbox file you saved in step 4.  Click Continue. 





7. The mailbox will import.  Once finished, click Done.  The saved mail will be under the Import  folder under On My Mac and will likely be named mbox.  This is all of the mail you had prior to the mailbox recreation.