Unable to view emails in disabled accounts

Question

hi all
this is my first ever post to Mac discussion forum, after having been a Mac user for 20 years! Wish me luck!
I have a number of accounts set up in Mail. Two of these accounts are no longer active, in that the mailservers no longer exist and I can no longer receive mail into them. This is fine.
The trouble is that if I do the logical thing and disable those accounts in Mail account preferences, all the emails sent and received on those accounts effectively disappear. I know that they are still there, because if I search for them they come up in the list view, but I cannot view the contents, and if I enable the accounts again, there they are.
Mail Help suggests this is intentional:
"Disabled Mail accounts are marked Inactive in the list of accounts in Mail preferences. The disabled account’s mailboxes and messages are removed from the Mail viewer window until you enable the account again, at which point they reappear."
However, I do not wish to leave the accounts enabled as I am prompted for my POP password everytime I collect my other mail, which is a nuisance.
Is there any way around this? There must be a neater way to do it!
thanks
Tony

Answer 1

You might actually try just making a new folder, and dragging the emails into it (in Mail's sidebar).
There is another way around this. In Mail's "File" window, select "import Mailboxes". Navigate to ~/Library/Mail folder, and select the accounts you want to import. Do this for each one (the folder to select will start with IMAP or POP). Then, Mail puts these in an "Import" folder on the sidebar in Mail. Now, disable the accounts.