I have just installed Mailspring (on Windows 11) having been a Microsoft Mail/Outlook user for some decades. I have just one e-mail account (a provider in Guernsey Channel Islands - not Gmail, Outlook or whoever) using IMAP at the server. Overall the experience is great, Mailspring is simple, logical and straightforward.
Is it possible to Archive a whole Folder to an external file?
EXAMPLE
Say I have Folder called “2022 Holiday Asia” containing 50 message. Can I archive them all off to a single file and if so what format would this be?
CONTEXT
In my Outlook previous world I would have archived the whole folder to a single file called “2022 Holiday Asia.Pst”. I would then have moved the file to Cloud Storage (i.e. off the IMAP server) and in the event that I needed to review anything opened it in a viewer (historically Outlook however online PST viewers work OK). I should add that I am not precious about it being PST format, although that would be ideal.
Yes — this shipped after you asked. Since 1.20.0 you can right-click any folder in the left sidebar (or open its “•••” menu) and choose Export folder as .eml files…, which writes one .eml per message into a directory you pick. And since 1.23.0 there’s also Export folder as .mbox file…, which packs the whole folder into a single .mbox — the closest thing to your .pst workflow.
.mbox is the standard mailbox format Thunderbird, Apple Mail and most other clients can open or import, and there are plenty of standalone viewers, so it’s a good format to park in cloud storage. .eml files open in almost anything (including Outlook) if you’d rather have individual messages. You can also select individual conversations in the list, right-click and Save as .eml….
The export pulls the raw messages from the IMAP server, so it’s complete regardless of what Mailspring has cached locally. Make sure you’re on 1.23 or later (Mailspring > Check for Updates) and it’ll be in the folder menu.