Mailsteward alternative archive#
Mailsteward alternative pro#
Mailsteward alternative download#

That way you end up with a folder that contains all the smaller MBOX files: Sudo php mbox_splitter.php yourarchivename.mbox yourdestinationfolder Then open Terminal and run the script by typing the following command, where the destination folder does not need to exist: To run the script, first open it in a text editor and change the filesize limit to what you want (default is 40MB, I changed it to 1GB). Mailsteward maintains tags and conversation threads. I chopped the Gmail MBOX into 21 smaller files of 1GB each. Luckily there is a working script on GitHub that chops MBOX files up in smaller ones, and that allows you to set the filesize you want. I concluded that I need to split my Gmail MBOX file into multiple smaller ones. It turns out 21GB is too large to handle in one go for Mailsteward, as it eats away all memory on your Mac. Then I tried to import my Gmail MBOX file.

Mailsteward alternative archive#

I first tested Mailsteward with my parents e-mail archive that I kept after they passed away last year, to be able to find contact details of their friends. Note that the socket it requests isn’t an actual file on your system, but does need to point to the right folder within the MAMP installation, which is the Application/MAMP/tmp/mysql folder. Within Mailsteward you then add a connection, listing the database you created, and adding the right ports etc. In my case I aptly named it mailarchives. Mailsteward will populate it with the right tables. Then you create a new database via the PHP Mysqladmin that comes with MAMP.

Mailsteward alternative pro#

In MAMP Pro you need to allow external access to MySQL, but only from within your own system (this basically means applications other than MAMP can access the MySQL server. You need to take the following steps to allow Mailsteward access to MySQL. I use MAMP Pro on my laptop as a local web and mysql server, on which I run different things locally, like a blog based journal and a self-assessment survey tool. When installing Mailsteward it assumes you already have a MySQL server running on your system. It costs $99 one time, not cheap, but as I was paying for storage with Google as well, over time it pays for itself. There are three versions of Mailsteward, and I needed the Pro version, as it is the one that works with MySQL and thus can handle the volume of mail in my archive. (Although I may rethink that in the future, if I decide to also move out of Evernote, as after Gmail it is my biggest third party service that contains lots of valuable information.) I looked for something simpler, that just does what I need, putting e-mail into sql, and that is how I found Mailsteward Pro. I came across DevonThink, but that seemed a bit overkill as it does so much more than merely digesting a mail archive, and as such provides way too much overlap with my Evernote. So I searched for a way to more radically open my archive up to search. However, if I would like to do more with my archive, mine it for things, and re-use stuff by piping it into other workflows having it in Thunderbird would not be enough. That provides me with a similar access and search capability as I had for all that mail in Gmail. I could also import it into my mail client as a local archive, by dropping the MBOX file in the Local Folder of Thunderbird with Finder. MBOX is a text format so it allows itself to be searched, but that would only tell you that what you are looking for is somewhere in that 21GB file.

Mailsteward alternative download#

After a day or so you get a download link that contains all your mail in one single file in MBOX format. Google lets you export all your data from its various services, including email. As I am moving out of Gmail, I had to find a way to deal with the 21GB mail archive from the past 12 years.