[brainchild2b]

Is there any size limitations to the inbox or storage of emails through mail.app? I'm concerned because Microsoft Outlook has a 2GB limit for inboxes and it corrupted recently. I am almost near 2GB on OS x mailboxes and I do NOT want the same thing to happen. Can somebody provide me with more detailed information?

[Brass]

Not that I'm aware of, but if you want ot be sure...

Backup your mail, send yourself a 3GB file and see what happens.

You can always revert to your backup if necessary.

I think the only things you need to backup, are the entire contents of ~/Library/Mail but you might want to backup the preferences file as well, just to be on the safe side (in ~/Library/Preferences).

[NeXTLoop]

You shouldn't have any problems. Mail uses the UNIX mbox format, which is known for its reliability.

[[APi]TheMan]

Originally posted by NeXTLoop:
You shouldn't have any problems. Mail uses the UNIX mbox format, which is known for its reliability.

Does Mail.app still use UNIX mbox format? I know that in 10.2 the ability to check unix typed mail spools was removed in Mail.app, but I don't know if Mail still uses mbox format to store mail.

[NeXTLoop]

Yep, Mail still uses the mbox format. Just look at your mailboxes and you'll see that they end in ".mbox".

[Mithras]

The files that end in 'mbox' are actually directories. Within those directories are some support files (content indexes), and then a file called "mbox" that's the standard Unix mbox.

This method is far superior to Entourages single-database-file method because:
1. Corruption in one file won't make all of your mail unrecoverable.
2. Backups are faster because you only backup the mailboxes that have changed, rather than the entire file.
3. Mail is ultimately in plaintext 'mbox' files, so 8 years from now, it will still be easy to recover your old mail from a backup.