IMAP achilles heel (backup question)

grumpycrab

Works fine until the email hosts change systems and lose email (the idiots in question shall remain nameless). SO what's a standard backup? My immediate thought is to create a rule to copy received Inbox mail to local storage. Anything more obvious?

matttye

Forward to another e-mail address?

E.g. grumpycrab_backup@provider.com

paddyrg

Use POP3 instead of IMAP and you'll have a local, disconnected copy of all email?

thescouselander

paddyrg wrote: »

Use POP3 instead of IMAP and you'll have a local, disconnected copy of all email?

You can do that with IMAP too.

grumpycrab

paddyrg wrote: »

Use POP3 instead of IMAP and you'll have a local, disconnected copy of all email?

thescouselander wrote: »

You can do that with IMAP too.

I was hoping somebody wouldn't mention POP3. Surely IMAP is the future (well that's what I've been telling everybody). Save mail locally with IMAP! That's it. How?

WTFH

The point of IMAP is that you don't save locally, so you can access it from any device. That is it's biggest strength and weakness.

If you are only using one device, then POP3 is a better option - provided you backup the device. Saving IMAP locally is basically the same as using pop3.

grumpycrab

WTFH wrote: »

The point of IMAP is that you don't save locally, so you can access it from any device.

Which is fine until the email host crashes and burns. Ok, so we may have been using a crappy email host. Still looking for the IMAP option to "save a copy locally".

WTFH

Are you running multiple devices where you need access to your older emails?
If so, IMAP is your only option, then use http://www.broobles.com/imapsize/index.php
To do the local backup.

tronator

grumpycrab wrote: »

Works fine until the email hosts change systems and lose email (the idiots in question shall remain nameless). SO what's a standard backup? My immediate thought is to create a rule to copy received Inbox mail to local storage. Anything more obvious?

Personally I use imapsync to sync all my email accounts to a maildir folder on my server at home. On top of that I use rsync (without --delete) to copy the whole folder over an archive maildir folder. On the server runs dovecot which allows me to access both maildir folders with thunderbird or any other email client.

If that's too complicated for you, you could use something like Mailstore Home...

grumpycrab

WTFH wrote: »

Are you running multiple devices where you need access to your older emails?
If so, IMAP is your only option, then use http://www.broobles.com/imapsize/index.php
To do the local backup.

Its changing the subject a bit but IMAP isn't the only option. You can use "recent:" and "save message on server" options with POP3 to preserve mail on servers. But yes, IMAP is the proper way to do it.

tronator wrote: »

Personally I use imapsync to sync all my email accounts to a maildir folder on my server at home. On top of that I use rsync (without --delete) to copy the whole folder over an archive maildir folder. On the server runs dovecot which allows me to access both maildir folders with thunderbird or any other email client.

If that's too complicated for you, you could use something like Mailstore Home...

Thanks both - some great suggestions there. That's what I was after.

thescouselander

grumpycrab wrote: »

I was hoping somebody wouldn't mention POP3. Surely IMAP is the future (well that's what I've been telling everybody). Save mail locally with IMAP! That's it. How?

Basically I just setup Outlook on my main computer at home to save a copy of all messages locally on the machine (this is how it works by default anyway).

The messages still stay on the server to be accessed by other devices.