Synopsis:
Mac OS X: How to manually download and copy your e-mail to your computer when you leave Princeton

Solution:
When you graduate and leave campus, you should make sure to download to your personal computer files which you have stored on OIT servers. This includes the documents that you have stored on your H: drive as well as your e-mail. OIT provides an online suite of tools called the Digital Student Suitcase that can pack up your personal intellectual property automatically for you to take with you. If you would like to manually download your documents and e-mail, use the links below.

If you use Mac OS X Mail, use the instructions below to copy your standard (IMAP) e-mail folders to your own computer prior to your account being closed. To find out when your OIT accounts will be terminated after leaving the University, see Solution 5855.

Use the following instructions to copy your standard (IMAP) e-mail folders to your own computer prior to your account being closed.

1. Open your Mac Mail application

2. In the Mailbox pull-down menu, select New...
   

3. Create a new folder using the New Mailbox dialog box. Ensure that the location pulldown selection is On My Mac, not your Princeton.edu location. Name the new mailbox something appropriate such as Princeton saved messages, or My Princeton Mail. Click OK to confirm the creation of the folder.
   

4. Click on your imap.princeton.edu Inbox. Select all the e-mail messages using the Edit pulldown menu and selecting the option Select All.
   

5. Under the Message pulldown menu, select Copy To and then pull over to your newly created folder below On My Mac. In the example below, the folder was named Princeton saved messages.
   

The selected e-mail messages will copy to the local folder you created. This may take some time depending on the speed of your Internet connection and the number of messages in the folder. Continue to copy each and every folder on your imap.princeton.edu account down to the On My Mac location.

Make sure to click on each of the folders within your On My Mac location to ensure that all your messages have been copied.

Depending on the slowness of your Internet connection or the number of e-mail messages you are copying, this may take a long time. Be patient if you have hundreds or thousands of messages in any of your folders.