X
Mail Backup X is a backup tool for MailSmith and other sources, developed by InventPure. It was mainly built for live email backups, cross-platform archives, and smart data consolidation. It reads from servers, interprets formats, and supports native backup from both Mac and Windows clients.
For this article, the focus shifts slightly. Today we are talking about backing up MailSmith data. MailSmith was once an influentialMac email client with strong POP support and a plain-text purist approach to email. But it has been discontinued since. Since it does not support IMAP and is no longer actively maintained, live backups are off the table. What remains is its export feature.
What you do next, what you’re able to do with those exported MBOX or EML files, is where Mail Backup X becomes relevant.
Supports importing archived MBOX or EML files from older or discontinued clients, including MailSmith.
Treats imported data with the same care as active profiles, preserving folder structure and searchability.
Offers a unified interface for viewing, browsing, and exporting historical data that once lived across different systems.
You probably exported your MailSmith folders years ago and filed them away. Or you plan to do that now, prompted by hardware limitations, outdated OS versions, or a deliberate move toward more flexible tools. The exports you get from MailSmith are usable. MBOX if you saved full mailboxes, EML if you pulled out individual messages. Once exported, those files sit flat. This is where the backup tools like Mail Backup X find their footing.
Here’s what you do with Mail Backup X in regard to your MailSmith emails: You open the dashboard, click Import Data, and feed in those files. The tool reads them cleanly, no matter how old. You don’t need to restructure anything. Each import creates what’s called a passive profile.
It won’t fetch new mail or connect to a server, but it becomes a recognized part of your archive collection. You can now search it, view messages, open attachments, or export parts of it to other formats. The data remains readable, indexable, and navigable without requiring the original MailSmith environment.
Passive profiles are quiet. They sit alongside your live backup profiles without drawing attention, but they carry weight and hold a significance in the bigger picture of data management. If you’re consolidating years of data from multiple exports or old mail apps, these passive profiles serve as a container for long-term access. Everything is searchable. You can even label them meaningfully to match a time period or project. One passive profile might contain a folder of 2005 messages exported from a work MailSmith setup. Another might hold your personal emails from an old backup disc. The interface doesn’t care where it came from. It brings it into the fold.
This approach turns passive profiles into something more than just old data on standby. They function like active backups, minus the sync engine. You can browse folder trees, read messages, download attachments, and use complex search filters to track things down. It becomes a live interface to something that used to be dormant.
After importing MailSmith exports, you can choose exactly where the resulting archive will live. This tool treats each profile—active or passive—as an independent container.
You can store it locally, on an external drive, or in a linked cloud folder like Dropbox or Google Drive. If you need redundancy, you can set up mirror locations that create backup copies of the archive. That way, your MailSmith data isn’t just saved once. It’s saved to places that align with how you prefer to work. The archive stays compact, thanks to built-in compression, but its availability expands across whichever spaces you specify.
For MailSmith, the schedule settings won’t apply because passive profiles don’t connect to servers or fetch new content. But the broader tool gives you full control for all other live profiles.
If you later decide to back up a new email account or bring in a mail client that still supports sync, you can schedule those as recurring or auto-detecting backups. This means you’re not confined to one type of archive. Your MailSmith history and your current inbox can live in the same interface, each managed on its own terms. You move between them without jumping tools.
Even passive profiles benefit from snapshot transfers. You can register a USB drive to receive a snapshot of your MailSmith profile with one click or automatically when the drive is plugged in. This allows you to move the archive between machines or keep an offline version in a secondary location.
If you want to rotate drives or use portable storage for older messages, this feature supports that behavior. The process is fast and can be triggered manually when needed, or left to run the moment a drive is detected.
Once imported, your MailSmith messages are available in the viewer. You can scroll through them, read full threads, open attachments, and search using detailed filters. Search by subject, sender, date range, attachment type, or keywords. The indexing process handles large archives quickly, so even old messages appear in results within seconds.
If you want to extract data, you can export selected folders or messages into any supported format. Export MBOX to load elsewhere. Export PST to share with someone using Outlook. Export PDF if you’re preparing files for archiving or printing. The export module handles it all from within the same viewer.
If your MailSmith archive contains sensitive or historical messages, you can lock the profile using encryption. The tool lets you apply a unique profile-level key at the time of import. This key is required to open the profile later, and without it, the archive remains inaccessible. No one, including the software’s developer, has access to that data without the key. This puts your old mail on the same security footing as any current profile. You can keep the archive protected in the background and unlock it only when needed.
Q1: Can I back up MailSmith directly with this tool?
No, it cannot connect to MailSmith as an active client. Instead, you export your messages from MailSmith into MBOX or EML format. Then, you import those files into the tool. The import creates a passive profile that lets you view, search, and export the content as needed. This method gives you access to all your MailSmith data even though the original client is no longer in use.
Q2: Will the imported messages from MailSmith retain their structure?
Yes, the folder hierarchy is preserved as long as it exists in the exported MBOX file. The tool reads the structure and creates a mirrored layout inside the passive profile. Messages retain their original dates, subjects, and headers. You can navigate the folders just as you did inside MailSmith. Attachments are kept intact and can be opened from within the viewer.
Q3: What is the difference between a passive profile and an active one?
An active profile connects to a live email source, like an IMAP server or a local email application, and receives updates according to a schedule. A passive profile is created from imported files and does not update or sync.
However, it remains searchable, viewable, and exportable. You can treat it like a snapshot that doesn’t change. Both profile types live side by side within the interface and can be managed from the same dashboard.
Q4: Can I use the same passive profile on another computer?
Yes. You can move your MailSmith email backups/archivesto another machine using an external drive or by uploading it to a cloud folder. On the new machine, use the Open Archive function to access the backup.
If the archive is encrypted, you will need the security key to unlock it. Once opened, the passive profile works just as it did on the original machine.
All you need is “Mail Backup X” installed on that other machine. If it’s not installed, you can export the data from your profiles to appropriate formats, like MBOX, EML, PST, or even regular PDF files.
Q5: Does this tool work even if I no longer have access to the original MailSmith installation?
Yes, as long as you have the exported MBOX or EML files. The tool does not require MailSmith to be present. It reads directly from those files and builds the profile from what you’ve saved. This is particularly useful when dealing with discontinued software or retired hardware. It lets you access legacy data in a modern, searchable, and secure environment.
You can try all of this without any long-term commitment. The trial version works for fifteen days and lets you import as many MBOX or EML files as you like, but only up to five profiles. So, at a time, you can import as many MBOX or EML files you want, which results in a single passive profile. And then you can repeat the process for 4 more profiles (active or passive).
It allows full viewing, search, and even export in limited amounts. This gives you a real-world test, not a mockup. You’ll see how passive profiles behave, like that for MailSmith backups, how quickly the tool reads the archive, and how easy it is to organize and access what was once locked inside an old format. When you set up your MailSmith backups, you are reclaiming fragments of a personal or professional history that once lived in an old, loyal client. There’s value in preserving what once anchored your digital world, even if the software itself no longer speaks the language of now. Some things fade quietly, but they don’t have to disappear.
