Mac Mail - Backup & Restore

Welcome to the Freeola Internet customer support pages. This guide is designed to help with ensuring that you fully back up your mail client, Mac Mail, should you need to upgrade your email hosting service or switch machines.

These instructions were created using macOS Mojave 10.14, although this process changes very little between versions.

1. Open up Mac Mail.

2. Select the Mailbox you wish to backup from the top or left menu.

3. From the top menu choose Mailbox then Export Mailbox.
   

4. You will now be prompted to specify where you would like to backup your mailbox to, we would suggest that you select a safe directory such as your Documents folder. Once you have chosen press the Choose button.

Your messages will now be backed up, you can repeat this for each mailbox as you require.

1. Open up the Address Book application.

2. Click File from the top toolbar and select Export then Contacts Archive.
   

3. Now choose a location to save your Contacts, we suggest that you select a safe location such as your Documents folder, then click Save.

Once complete your Contacts will have been saved as an archive file (.abbu).

1. Open up Mac Mail.

2. From the top menu, under the File option select Import Mailboxes.
   

3. From the list of options from where to import data from, select mbox files or Apple Mail.

4. You will now be prompted to specify where your backed up mbox files are located. If you have backed up your mail using the guide above, then your mbox files will be in the same location that you saved them.

5. The messages should now be in a new mailbox called Import in the sidebar. You can drag folders and messages from the Import mailbox to new or existing mailboxes, then delete the Import mailbox.

1. Open up the Contacts application.

2. Click File from the top toolbar, then Import.

3. Next select the archive file (.abbu) then click Open.