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The download is free. The free version backs up your first 500 messages with every feature: backing up, verifying byte for byte, searching, deleting from Mail. The full version removes the limit. It is a one-time purchase in the app, no subscription: US$24.99 in the United States, £24.99 in the United Kingdom, €29.99 in the euro zone, CHF 29.00 in Switzerland. In other countries Apple converts the price into the local currency, and the App Store shows you the exact amount. The full version applies on every Mac that uses the same Apple Account. Always free, even without a purchase: opening, reading, and searching archives, exporting messages and attachments as .eml or .mbox, restoring to Mail, and reading the verification logs and the log inside the archive. No one has to pay to get at their own mail. Updates within version 1 are free.

The run ends normally, not with an error. Everything backed up until then is verified byte for byte, is searchable, and can be deleted from Mail. The remaining messages stay in Mail, unchanged. The guided path then tells you that the free limit is reached and offers “Full Version…”. After the purchase, the next run backs up the rest without storing anything twice. Without a purchase, everything in the archive stays readable, searchable, and exportable. More in the manual under Free version and full version.

No. The free limit counts only messages that are new to the archive, across all your archives together. Whatever is already in the archive does not count again when you back up again. The same goes for byte-identical messages that sit in several mailboxes. A second run over the same mailbox only uses up what has arrived since. If you back up the same messages into another archive, they are new there and count.

The full version applies on every Mac that uses the same Apple Account. Sign in to the App Store on this Mac with the Apple Account you used for the purchase. MailFundus Archive usually recognizes the purchase on its own. If it does not, choose “Restore Purchases…” in the “MailFundus Archive” menu. You are not charged again.

No. If you bought version 1.0, you get the full version automatically, without a second purchase. MailFundus Archive recognizes the earlier purchase through the App Store, as long as you are signed in with the Apple Account you bought 1.0 with. If the app still shows the free version, choose “Restore Purchases…” in the “MailFundus Archive” menu.

A Mac running macOS 15 or later and Apple Mail with messages stored locally. For accounts where Mail leaves messages with the provider, Mail downloads them when you open the mailbox. Only then can MailFundus Archive back them up.

Two. First, the folder in which Mail keeps its messages: on first launch, the page “Before You Begin” shows an Open dialog with Mail's folder already selected, and “Grant Access” is all it takes. MailFundus Archive only reads there and writes only to the archive. This grant stays in place for the next launches and ends when you remove the app. Second, the permission to control Mail, see the next question.

To move verified messages to Mail's Trash, MailFundus Archive talks to Mail through the scripting interface of macOS. The question comes up the first time you reach the step “Delete from Mail”: MailFundus Archive then asks Mail for accounts and mailboxes to build the preview. The dialog reads “MailFundus Archive would like to control Mail”; click Allow. Nothing is moved before you confirm, and only messages verified byte for byte, only to Mail's Trash. The app reads no message contents this way and sends nothing. “Show in Mail” in a mailbox's context menu uses the same permission. You can see and change it at any time under System Settings → Privacy & Security → Automation.

Open System Settings → Privacy & Security → Automation. Find MailFundus Archive in the list and turn on Mail. Then open the step “Delete from Mail” again, from the card in the main window or from Archive → Advanced → Delete Archived Messages from Mail…. If MailFundus Archive is missing from the list entirely, open the step again; macOS then asks once more. If it still does not take effect, quit MailFundus Archive and start it again.

Nothing breaks. Backup, verification, and search work as before; MailFundus Archive just cannot move anything to the Trash. In the step “Delete from Mail” you still have “Delete in Mail Yourself…”: the app shows you, per mailbox, what is backed up and verified, and the steps in Mail. Afterwards click “Deleted in Mail, Check Now”, and MailFundus Archive records what is really gone. You can grant the permission at any time in System Settings.

No. Verified messages move to Mail's Trash only after you confirm. Before that, MailFundus Archive shows which mailboxes are backed up and verified byte for byte, and it verifies each message against the archive once more right before moving it. Nothing is deleted permanently: you empty the Trash yourself in Mail (Mailbox → Erase Deleted Items); only then does disk space become free. Afterwards click “Trash Emptied, Update Now”, and the app records in the archive what is really gone.

Because the archive stores every message exactly once and, on top of that, remembers every location where it was found. A message that sits in Mail three times yields one message and three locations. The first line of the card counts messages, the second counts locations. That is why the total of the second line can be larger than the number in the first. Nothing is missing, and nothing is stored twice in the archive. More in the manual under The numbers on the card.

Mail keeps its own index and often removes files only after a delay. After cleaning out junk, after an import, or after “Mailbox → Rebuild”, a mailbox can be empty in Mail while the files are still in Mail's folder. MailFundus Archive reads the disk, which is why it finds them. The card shows them as “only as files in Mail's folder now”. Such files cannot be deleted through Mail because Mail no longer knows them. Either select the mailbox in Mail and choose “Mailbox → Rebuild”, after which MailFundus Archive can move them. Or leave them where they are. They are safe in the archive. More in the manual under What Mail shows and what is on disk.

Because MailFundus Archive moves only what has been verified byte for byte and what Mail shows. The step “Delete from Mail” names the reason for everything left over. Mail doesn't know the file: choose “Mailbox → Rebuild” in Mail and delete again, or leave it. Not in the archive: first run “Back Up to Archive…” for this mailbox. Changed since archiving: back it up again, then delete. Attachments never downloaded: the message deliberately stays in Mail until you have opened it there once and backed it up again. Already removed: nothing to do. More in the manual under When nothing can be deleted.

Before you empty the Trash, MailFundus Archive looks inside. If it holds messages that did not come from MailFundus and are not in any archive, it warns you: “Note: The Trash also holds N messages that did not come from MailFundus and are not in any archive. Emptying the Trash would delete them for good. To keep them, move them back into a mailbox in Mail first.” Those are messages you or Mail put there. To keep them, move them back into a mailbox in Mail and only then empty the Trash. More in the manual under The Trash.

An import through “File → Import Mailboxes…” creates every message anew, even if it is already there. Mail does not check. If the original was still in Mail, you now have a copy under “Import”. For the archive this is harmless: MailFundus Archive recognizes the content and never stores byte-identical messages twice. It only records the additional location. If you do not need the copy in Mail, delete it there under “Import”. The archive is not affected. In the future, bring back only what is really missing in Mail. More in the manual under Duplicate messages.

Because everything in the selection is already in the archive, verified byte for byte. A second run over the same mailbox stores nothing twice. The verification log then reads “Nothing new — all N messages were already in the archive, verified byte for byte.” If only additional locations of known messages were added, it reads “N locations belonged to messages already in the archive, byte for byte. Only the location was recorded, nothing was stored twice.” Both are the expected result, not an error. More in the manual under Reading the verification logs.

Yes. Mail moves the messages to the Trash one by one, and MailFundus Archive verifies each one against the archive right before. Depending on the size of the mailbox, this takes a few minutes. The counter keeps up as it goes. “Stop Safely” exists only while backing up. Deleting runs through, mailbox by mailbox. Simply let both apps work during that time. More in the manual under How long the move takes.

Open the mailbox in Mail and sort it by date. Select only the messages MailFundus Archive has backed up: with an age limit, only those older than the cutoff date. Do not select all; newer messages are not in the archive. Delete them, then Mailbox → Erase Deleted Items. Finally, click “Deleted in Mail, Check Now” in MailFundus Archive.

“Archive → Restore to Mail…” writes the message out as .mbox or .eml and shows the file in the Finder. Mail reads an .mbox through “File → Import Mailboxes…”; the messages then appear under “Import”. An .eml opens in Mail with a double-click. Single messages are quicker: select the message, ⌘E for the .eml, ⇧⌘A for all attachments. Right-click a mailbox in the sidebar and choose “Show in Mail” to see where it lives in Mail.

The archive is a package with the extension .fundus, wherever you put it during setup; the dialog starts in your Documents folder. Time Machine and other backups pick it up like any other file, and because the archive is made of blocks that are never changed afterwards, Time Machine backs up only what is new on each run. An archive on an external drive works just the same. Do not put it inside Mail's own folder.

MailFundus Archive backs up such messages exactly as Mail stored them and deliberately leaves them out when deleting. They are shown to you as “incomplete”. Open them once in Mail so the attachments get downloaded, then run the backup again.

Yes. Any message can be exported as .eml, and whole mailboxes as .mbox. Every mail program reads both. In addition, every archive keeps a text file “Log.txt” (right-click the archive → “Show Package Contents”): it lists every run with date, mailboxes and numbers, and the “runs” folder holds a list with one line per message for every backup run. The archive itself is a package of data blocks plus a SQLite catalog, not a secret format.

No. Everything that was read is sealed, and Mail is unchanged. The next run picks up where it left off without backing anything up twice.