How to copy all messages of a conversation in one folder?

Question

For archiving purposes, I would like to copy/move all messages of a conversation in one folder, including sent messages and messages stored in different folders. I tried several things, like "Cmd+A" while one message of a conversation is selected, but nothing seems to work. Is there a way to do that?

The idea is the following: I use an IMAP account an whenever a project is finished, I move the corresponding folder on the server to an archive, e.g., from ./Mail to ./MailArchive. At the moment, all mails are included except the mails I sent. To get a complete archive, the sent mails should be in there as well.

Answer 1

This is doable, but needs to include all the folders where emails are part of the conversation thread.

To start you must be able to see your list of email folders, then select the inbox, then hold the command key, and select the rest of the folders that need to be part of the thread. You now have a mess of emails from a bunch of folders visible.

Select one of the messages in the thread. Mail should now highlight the rest of the messages in the thread. You can add another thread by command clicking another email.

Now do cmd-shift-k to select all the messages in the thread(s). It's under the View menu, Select, All messages in this conversation.

You can now move them all, the easiest is to right-click, or Ctrl-click, and select the option to move them, and the destination folder. You can also use the Move to or Copy to options in the Message menu.

Answer 2

The answer above about selecting all the messages in a conversation is good, but it forgets that you specified that the messages are not all in the same folder. What you need to do is create a smart folder first to get all the messages into a "virtual" folder, then select them. The smart folder could use a condition such as a specific word or string in the subjects of the emails, or you could simply grab all your emails (Sender contains @, for example), then use the Command-Shift-K shortcut to select the conversation, if they all come up as a single conversation.