Mail apps on iOS have come a long way over the past couple of years. I still don’t have a single mail app on iOS that serves my needs, though. One reason is the lack of support in most apps for saving email messages in eml format. If you save a message in eml format to an app like DEVONthink, the link back to the original message is preserved.

One such app in my arsenal is AltaMail, which I use solely for its ability to save messages in eml format. While falling short in the looks department, AltaMail is very powerful, offering filters, templates, email rules, and other features. I don’t really use any of that, though. I use AltaMail solely for its ability to save mail messages in eml format.

From the AltaMail interface, I save a mail message to a specific Dropbox folder. That folder is monitored by Hazel on my Mac. Hazel grabs anything that appears in that folder, and moves it into my DEVONthink inbox.

The first time I moved a message from AltaMail into DEVOnthink, I was pleasantly surprised to learn that the message worked just like a message saved on the Mac. Specifically, the message link opened the correct mail message on my Mac, even though the message had been saved on iOS. If you’re looking for a way to preserve messages in a self-contained format like eml, check out AltaMail.