Hi,
I’m looking for the ability to store my email offline and for it to be searchable. I know how to save them as mbox files, but am not sure if these are searchable? I’m not looking for any subscription based software solutions.
I use EagleFiler. My messages remain in, or are converted to, MBOX. Emails can be searched and viewed, etc. But also opened in my default email client, just by double clicking.
EF, when used to store email is, IMO, an offline email client.
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Another vote for Mail Archiver X, should be what you’re looking for 
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Devonthink does this (including importing mbox files, I think), and its search features are superb. It does a whole lot more, of course, but if you want best of class storage and searching of a wide range of formats as well as email, then it’s hard to beat.
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Will that import from mbox?
I’ve been using them, but as of v4 they are now subscription based. It’s a great app, but for my usage not a good ROI.
Well, you pay for a year’s updates, but if you don’t pay for the next year, the program won’t stop working.
It’s the Tinderbox model, which they’ve used since at least 2010, and many users only update every 3 or 4 years. When you do update, you get all the updates you’ve missed, so it’s not quite the standard gouging subscription where you update or die.
Obviously, it’s a personal choice, but seeing as I’ve had DT2 and then DT3 since 2012-ish and only paid £200 for it, I’m happy to pay for the update and decide year by year whether to update, just as I do with Tinderbox. (DT’s value has been astonishing – the only program I know that’s better value is Scrivener.)
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Another vote to keep DT in place, but you should try EagleFiler.
I search about 100GB of mbox imports in DT across a few databases.
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DT really isn’t an option as in my view the annual cost to keep it updated is not worth it just to back up my emails.
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Right now my working email client is Apple mail but it’s finicky and has issues when there are hundreds of thousands of messages. I’ve created a separate Thunderbird instance and archive emails by saving them out as an mbox and then importing them.
I am considering moving to Thunderbird for all of my email in part because of it;s ability to handle huge volumes. My husband, for example, has been using Thunderbird for decades and has a huge system (he never deletes anything, not even spam!) and Thunderbird chugs right along with no issues.
PS Nearly all of my email accounts are POP emails so always “offline” For the institution email addresses that are IMAP the mbox export works to get the CYA messages I need to save into my Thunderbird archive.
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Is there a setup guide for this?
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If you use TB as your email client, your normal backup system can be your “archive” because Thunderbird folders are MBOX files.
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Not that I am aware of.
As I said, if I convert to using Thunderbird for all email them I don’t have to worry about it. Except for the pesky IMAP accounts. Did I mention I loathe IMap?
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Why?
Do you think your reasons are broadly applicable, or unique to your circumstances?
I don’t like leaving email on a server I don’t control. I don’t like to be tied thinking I should respond to email on every device I own. I am not efficient processing email on anything but my main computer so why even have that option elsewhere? I hate having to pay for and track usage on a server. I keep and refer to emails that are decades old. That becomes very difficult with any IMAP account. It also immediately eliminates me from being roped into clicking on or being fooled by all sorts of spam about my mail server being full and more. So a single mail machine and simple interface is far better for me.
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And another reason, IMAP never works well for me. I am forced to use IMAP accounts for 2 entities where I am an officer. I download the messages. I have mail rules set up so that messages to those addresses get saved in a specific folder for each entity so I can handle them all at once. I can then decide whether it is spam, or trash and delete it. If it’s something that I need to act on it gets saved.
No matter how I try to erase deleted or trashed messages they come back like zombies. There are several thousands of junk messages that I can delete on my Mac and then next time I get mail they are all back again! I’ve tried turning off the mail rules (so they all end up in my inbox) then sorting there and still the deleted messages come back even after I have closed and shut down email. The mail account says the server settings are to delete when I close email. And no matter what I do I cannot eliminate the Archive, Important, and Spam Folders that show up in Apple Mail. I don’t want any sorting or help from any server.Only what I decide to sort or save. IMAP seems to make that impossible.
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I can understand your frustration. IMAP is just a sync process so if your deleted messages keep returning, then they aren’t being deleted on the server.
I only use Apple Mail on my Mac to move emails sent to my @Mac.com account to my Google account. I run email in a browser on my Mac and the Gmail app on my iPhone and iPad.
Recently I’ve noticed Apple Mail on Mac will display messages in my Inbox that aren’t actually in the Inbox on the server. I rebuilt the mailboxes in Apple Mail but it didn’t help. I installed Thunderbird and it correctly displays my messages as they are stored on the server.
I suspect your problem may be your email client.
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I use Thunderbird for connecting with Simon Fraser University’s Outlook mail server, but it doesn’t sync all the emails locally in my experience.
Well, usually you don’t need to get every update right after publication. You could also decide to leave it as it is if you don’t need new features as Devonthink is not a subscription. I also read that they will implement IMAP functionality to DT in V4 which might aide in archiving mails.
EDIT: but you are probably right: simply for archiving emails DT might be overkill. I use DT for note taking, research, archiving, taxes, household stuff etc.
I’m not sure where you read this, but it’s not a concrete plan. It’s something on a very long list of possible features.