How do I archive my older emails in Mac Mail?

After several years of use, I now have about 20,000 emails in my Mac Mail program, which has caused my mail program to slow to a crawl (it actually crashed the other day and had to be rebuilt and has slowed down even more since then). I would like to clear most of these emails out so that my Mac can go back to operating properly again, but I would also like to permanently archive them (including all my sent emails) to an external hard drive, just in case I need to go back and find something.
Anyone know the best and easiest way to do this?
Thanks.

With Mac OS X Mail, all you have to do is backup your Users -> yourname -> Library -> Mail and Mail Downlaods folder. If you ever decide you want to reimport the data, Mail offers its own Import Mailboxes function in its menu, and you will just bring up those folders. Then you can just delete mailboxes you don't wish to keep.
With other Mail software the solution varies.

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