Deleting Mail account without losing old messages

Hi, I'm switching Mac Books and I already set up my mail account in my current Mac. Is there a way to remove my account in the previous Mac Book with out deleting all the messages? Last time I deleted the account, I lost all the messages. No need to transfer all the emails to the current Mac. My husband will be using the previous Mac so I can always check old messages. I just don't want my messages keep coming into his Mac because it will fill up his mailbox.

I didn't have the archive option, so what I did was to just save everything to a new mailbox and then edit the mail properties to my husband's email address. Thanks for the reply!

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How to delete Mail account without losing old mail?

I've recently changed ISPs, so I have three old accounts/addresses in Mail that are no use any more. I want to delete them, but Mail (and Mail Help) tells me if I do I'll lose all the mail that has been sent or received from/by those accounts. I tried unchecking the Enable box in the Advanced tab in Preferences:Accounts, but then all the mail the disabled address had received (hundreds of messages) disappeared. I was able to get them back by re-enabling the address, but now I again have three extra addresses in the selection popup on new messages, so if I don't catch it, a message can be "sent" by a non-existent address. (It bounces, and I have to select the right address and send it again.) I don't want to lose years of emails, I just want to delete some addresses I no longer use. Anyone know how?
PowerBook G4 17" 1.5GHz Mac OS X (10.4.3)

Open "In" in the mailboxes drawer by selecting the black triangle beside it....
Thanks for the further elucidation. Wish I'd known all this (which is not explained anywhere in Mail's online Help, at least not that I could find) before I went through the tedium of manually sorting through all the messages. And I still don't understand why a search of the Inbox by the to-be-deleted email addresses failed to find some 20 messages which appeared in those addresses' individual boxes when I expanded the Inbox to show individual accounts.
Many other email clients utilize a single large database file which is not dependent on individual account and associated mailbox filing. ... Entourage uses a single large database file and I don't prefer using an email client that stores all data in a single file.
I certainly agree, and in fact was horrified to learn that Outlook Express does the same, which has resulted in disasters for many users. "All your eggs in one basket," anyone? Funny how folks are always pointing out to me that Apple software, despite glaring flaws, is better than Micro$oft. Since I got my first Mac in 1988, I've never used any Micro$oftware -- or any other computer. "Better than Microsoft" is not the same as "as good as it could be with a little effort," and nowhere near the "insanely great" of the early Macintosh years.
In the early Internet years I used Netscape, which was excellent in its time; in the last few Classic Mac years, when Netscape 4.x simply couldn't do the job anymore (and Netscape 6 turned out a disaster), I switched to iCab and Eudora. I stayed with Eudora in X 10.2, finally switching to Mail sometime in 10.3, because Eudora was, well, looking increasingly ugly in the X environment, and Mail is part of the OS X package and Unicode-savvy (one of OS X's primary draws for me), and I figured I'd better become familiar with it since I support other Mac users.
In Eudora, which does not store all mail in a single database (each mailbox is a single file, not encrypted, easily readable in a text editor), and which BTW comes with a comprehensive PDF manual, "When you delete a personality, all messages associated with that personality (both incoming and outgoing) are assigned to your Dominant personality." Which doesn't require the user to do a lot of research and work to avoid losing years of mail, and makes a lot more sense to me. And is why it had never occurred to me before that such a simple thing could turn into such a hassle; I've changed addresses before and never noticed a hole in the road. So it can be done. Eudora also keeps its mail in the Documents folder, a lot easier to back up than Mail's, which the user must hunt for.
And yes, I've been tempted to return to Eudora -- I never see any online posts about "Eudora just lost all my mail!!!" while I see many such about Mail -- but it would be a big hassle (Mail's proprietary mbox files are not easily readable by anyone else), and like I said, I have to be familiar with Apple's software, since it's what my clients will be using. I certainly do prefer Mail's look & feel, if not some of its quirks.
I did some research to find out more about the filing structure for each email client....
Nice if you have the time/energy and knowledge/expertise to do that kind of research, but most users don't, and prefer the software to "just work" in a way a non-techie user (who paid as much -- or more -- for the computer as the software engineering major) would intuitively expect. As in not tossing all your mail just because you've changed your address.
There is one more thing you can do which is mark your question as answered.
Thanks again for taking the time to explain all this, and I'll mark the question "answered" now. And get back to work.
PowerBook G4 17" 1.5GHz Mac OS X (10.4.3)

I changed my Apple ID that using an invalid email address to a new one and I am trying to update iCloud account on iPhone5 with iOS 7.1.2, and I am not able to delete iCloud account without the old password.

I changed my Apple ID that using an invalid email address and I am trying to update iCloud account with my new Apple ID on iPhone 5 with iOS 7.1.2. I am not able to delete iCloud account without the old password. Is there a way to update the Apple ID of my iCloud account?

Many people are having probalems with this right now. The only solution I've seen that seems to consistently work is the one posted by Brackers28 here: https://discussions.apple.com/message/23020591#23020591. This only works if you still have access to your old email account. If you don't, you'll have to have Apple help you reset the password for your old account so you can turn off Find My iPhone and sign into your account with your correct ID.

Delete iCloud account without losing contacts on phone?

I have been using a long defunct email address as my apple id and would like to update to a new email address. No data was ever synced to icloud - the only button on in the iphone account settings has been the "Find my iphone" button. Can I safely delete this icloud account without losing the contacts, messages, etc on my phone? When I click delete, the message "deleting this account will remove its data from your iphone" appears.

Yes. After you pushed the button "Delete Account" you will be also asked, if you want to keep the data on your phone.

How do I disable a mail account without losing the mails?

I would like to disable one of my @me.com mail addresses, so that it is no longer possible to send mails to that account, but I want to avoid losing the mails that have been sent to that account.
Is that possible, and how do I do that?
Kind regards
Willi Prochnow Sletten

Welcome to the Apple community.
Simply move the mail to a folder that isn't associated with that account, before deleting the account from your device.

How to delete an account without losing emails?

I've recently changed service provider but if I make the account inactive I lose all the emails sent to that account. I am sure therefore that if I was to delete it then I'd also delete all the emails too, which I don't want to do.
Is there a way around this? I currently have an old account trying to collect emails from an ISP I am no longer with.

Yes, just as I was describing. Your "parent" mailbox is "1997 Mail." Under it are sub-boxes or "child" maILboxes - "01 1997", "02 1997", etc. If you archive the parent, "1997 Mail", this will archive all the child mailboxes included in it.
Do you understand now?

Delete account without losing mail etc

I have a problem - recently hit an existing account - where I can no longer get pop mail. I have checked with ISP and there appears to be no problems their end and activity monitor shows (sometimes) mail being downloaded but it doesn't appear in theinbox.
The general suggestions is to create a new account and try that - but you cannot have two account with same name. How do I delete an account without losing my mail boxes eg inbox, sent etc. I obviously want the contents to stay linked to the account?
Any ideas? Thanks

You've been lucky, I'd say - although mail gives a warning when you try to delete an account, changing the details to allow creating an identical account can result in lost emails ( It happened to me).
Anyhow - you've already moved/copied emails from the renamed account to the new one?. Can you actually open & read the emails correctly?
If so.... imp you're quite safe to delete the old account.
But you want a backup - & quite right too.
Quit mail
Make a copy of the Mail folder found in home/library
Make a copy of the file 'com.apple.mail.plist' found in home/library/preferences.
You're now able to restore mail the to the exact state it was when you made the copies. To restore it, you need to quit mail & drag/move the copies back to their original locations in library & lib/preferences - choosing replace when you get a duplicate warning message,
Start mail again & all will be restored.....but you'll lose any mail/changes from after you made the backup.
Check my recent post on getting just some mail back from the backup folder
http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=1738393#1738393

I have apps that needs to be updated that shows my old account. How do I delete this info without losing my purchases? The old account was hacked and I do not want to update anything using that account! Help. Wonderer

I have apps that needs to be updated that shows my old account. How do I delete this info without losing my purchases?

iTunes purchases cannot be transferred between accounts. If you no longer wish to use the old account at all, you should delete those apps and repurchase them with the new account.
On the other hand, you could also (and should have before creating a new account - contact iTunes support to deal with account security: https://getsupport.apple.com/Issues.action

Delete mail account on iPhone without deleting contacts

I can find no way to delete all mail at one time on my iPhone 5s with iOS 8.1.2 except to delete the account. Then I get the message that deleting the account will also delete the Contacts, Calendars, and Notes—which I do NOT want to do. So, two questions:
1. Is there a way to delete all the mail at one time? Or at least one mailbox at a time?
2. Is there a way to delete the account without deleting the Contacts, Calendars, and Notes?
Thanks for any help you can give.

I called Apple support and they managed to solve my problem
They gave me the following instructions:
1. Go to appleid.apple.com, press "Manage your Apple-ID" and write in your current apple-id and password.
2. Change your primary mailadress to your OLD mailadress (your old apple-id).
3. Log on to your old email and confirm.
4. Now you can write your ordinary password on iCloud in your iPhone, using your old apple-ID.
(Settings > iCloud)
5. If you would like to keep that apple-ID, you don't have to do anything else. If you rather want the previous apple-ID, you first delete the account on your iPhone.
6. Change back your primary email address as it was before (on appleid.apple.com), and log on to your email to confirm.
7. Now you can type in your current apple-ID account on iCloud. (Settings > iCloud)
This solved it for me anyways!
Sorry for the bad english

Changing my iCloud email without losing old account info

I made a .Mac account back in 2008 and the email name had carried over since. I want to change my email name for iCloud, but I don't want to lose my old stuff. Can I change the email on my account without losing my old emails? "TsubasaQ" is difficult to have to give out as an email, since I have to spell it out for everyone. Or will I have to create a new iCloud account and switch everything over for my Apple ID?

So is your current Apple/iCloud ID [email protected]?
If it is, then you cannot change it unfortunately. You would have to create a new ID. It doesn't mean you would lose your stuff.
You have a couple of options. You can retain your @mac.com Apple ID as your iTunes ID and continue to purchase, download, update items using that ID.
Then for your new ID you could use it strictly for email, iCloud, etc.
See the section in this support article for using one Apple ID for iCloud and a different one for Store purchases:
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht4895
The other option is that you can "retire" your @mac.com ID, and start using your new ID exclusively for all things Apple - iCloud, iTunes, Apple ID. If you keep the password on the retired ID the same as the password on the new ID, then updating apps is easy because both IDs use the same password, so it doesn't matter which you purchased them under. I have a really old Apple ID that I still have purchased apps under. I don't use it for anything, but when an app I purchased with that ID needs to be updated, I just put in the same password that I use for my current ID updates. Pretty seamless....
Post back with questions,
GB

ICloud on my phone, and I want to delete his iCloud account, without losing all my data, including, my apps, contacts, calendar events, music. If I delete his account, will I still have everything saved from before?

My nephew set up his own iCloud account on my phone, and I want to delete his iCloud account, without losing all my data, including, my apps, contacts, calendar events, music. If I delete his account, will I still have everything saved from before deleting his account?? I don't want to lose a single thing...I'm afraid to delete his iCloud account, and risk losing EVERYTHING I have on my phone. Is there another way to save everything without the risk of losing everything from deleting his iCloud account?

Deleting the iCloud account from your phone only deletes the account and any data you are syncing with the account (that is, any data that is set to On in Settings>iCloud). However, when you delete the account you are prompted about what to do with the iCloud data. If you want to keep it on your phone, be sure to choose Keep on My iPhone when prompted. Also, be sure to save any photo stream photos that are not in your camera roll or backed up somewhere else before deleting the account. To do this, open the photo stream album, tap Edit, tap all the photos you want to save, tap Share, then tap Save to Camera Roll.
Deleting the account will not touch any other data on your phone (music, apps, etc.).

A friend let me use her old ipad that was still synced to her account. I want to sync it to my account without losing the app progress, notes, and pictures. How do I do this and keep everything on the ipad?

I want to sync an ipad to my iTunes account that used to be synced to another account without losing the data (i.e.- pictures, notes, app progress). Is this possible or will I lose everything once I sync it to my account?

You can't. iDevices are one user devices.

Can I delete an account without loosing all the emails?

I now haw 2 accounts in MacMail, each with their own handfull of mail. One account is for a now obsolete email address.
I'd like to delete it, leaving me with only the current and active email account / address. However, I can't loose all of the emails that at associated with the obsolete account.
Any way to delete the account without deleteing all of the messages associated with it?
Thanks,
Chris

First of all, quit Mail and make a backup copy of the ~/Library/Mail folder, just in case something goes wrong while trying to solve the problem. You can do this in the Finder by dragging the folder to the Desktop while holding the Option (Alt) key down, for example. This is where all your mail is stored.
If you create custom “On My Mac” mailboxes in Mail and move there the messages currently stored in the account’s mailboxes, you won’t lose them as a result of deleting the account. How to do that is explained in the following Mail Help articles:
Creating a mailbox
Organizing your email
Note: For those not familiarized with the ~/ notation, it refers to the user’s home folder, i.e. ~/Library is the Library folder within the user’s home folder.

I changed companies and had icloud with my old company - now i want to just use my personal id and can't change any icloud info to match my personal ipad id - i can't delete the icloud without the old company id and password which is not available to me

i changed companies and had icloud with my old company - now i want to just use my personal id and can't change any icloud info to match my personal ipad id - i can't delete the icloud without the old company id and password which is not available to me - it probably doesn't even exist anymore!
Because I can't delete the icloud account, I keep getting view terms to accept and it wants to go to the old company account. I can't do anything to get rid of this - when I try to delete the icloud it wants me to delete find my ipad and asks for the old co. id and password - it's a vicious circle and i just want to get rid of it and start fresh with my regular personal email id and password!!! Help!

You will need that old Apple ID and password, which does indeed still exist. Apple doesn't delete Apple IDs, though if this ID was in the control of your company they may have changed the password. If so, you will need your former company to log into the iCloud account using that ID and password and erase the iPad or remove it from iCloud:
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS4515?viewlocale=en_US
Until that's done you cannot change those settings, and if you try to restore the iPad will have it locked with Activation Lock and thereafter be unusable.
Regars.

TS4268 i've backup in itunes with another phone number activation , now i want active with new phone number without losing old backups , what can i do for this problem ?? :(

i've backup in itunes with another phone number activation , now i want active with new phone number without losing old backups , what can i do for this problem ??

If I get this right, you've ported your phone number to AT&T with the purchase of the iPhone. That is considered opening your own account under your name. Your brother's account is not ported to AT&T unless you used his SS# instead of yours. Your brother still has his account under Verizon Wireless, all you did was use your cell phone number to when you opened your own AT&T account.
If you don't want to use your Verizon Wireless phone #, my suggestion is to call AT&T customer service and explain that you want a new phone number instead of the ported Verizon number.

Deleting Mail account without losing old messages

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